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Nikola Tamindzic @nikolatamindzic.com · 8d

More dream songs

a young girl curiously eyeing smoke from a fallen, heeled figure

women in flowing white tending a shrouded body amid vapor

Nikola Tamindzic @nikolatamindzic.com · 9d

Dream song 5, third stanza

Nikola Tamindzic @nikolatamindzic.com · Sep 8

One book finished, another begun, and in between, International, a goodbye
to friends of 35 years.

English suburbia at its best.

Nick Drake: The Life
by Richard Morton Jack

Kate Bush: Under the Ivy
by Graeme Thomson

Saint Etienne: International
The Italia ‘90 edition

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Nikola Tamindzic @nikolatamindzic.com · Sep 4

Melvyn Bragg, respect ✊🏻

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Nikola Tamindzic @nikolatamindzic.com · Aug 21

@rockingbob.bsky.social @bobpetesarah.bsky.social @stetiennedisco.bsky.social

Nikola Tamindzic @nikolatamindzic.com · Aug 9

1 SAINT ETIENNE, The Night

This is pop disintegrating into ambient, William Basinski in English suburbia, part Spirit of Eden, part Chill Out. Penultimate chapter of a 35-year love letter to pop, the people we used to be, the ones we might still become: nikolatamindzic.substack.com/p/twenty-alb...

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Nikola Tamindzic @nikolatamindzic.com · Aug 7

All roads lead here. Every detour, every surprise, every “wait, how is this not higher?” moment has been building to the #1 record. And here it is: the top of my 20 Albums I Loved This Year (So Far). The crown jewel. The slow burn. The annoying choice: nikolatamindzic.substack.com/p/twenty-alb...

Nikola Tamindzic @nikolatamindzic.com · Aug 7

2 ELI KESZLER, Eli Keszler

Everyone keeps calling it “Lynchian.” I will too, if it gets you to listen. I still don’t understand what Keszler does to his drums, or how, or why. I just know that neither you nor I have ever heard anything like it: nikolatamindzic.substack.com/p/twenty-alb...

Nikola Tamindzic @nikolatamindzic.com · Aug 7

3 ROCÍO MÁRQUEZ, Himno vertical

She pushes the limits of voice to do what flamenco demands: dislocate comfort, seduce w/o smoothing. The Bride in Kill Bill: years of training, deadly elegance, every cut intentional. You’re laid bare & still thank her: nikolatamindzic.substack.com/p/twenty-alb...

Nikola Tamindzic @nikolatamindzic.com · Aug 7

4 STEREOLAB, Instant Holograms on Metal Film

If you think this is nostalgia, then step aside. This thing will run you over and leave nothing but a snide smirk smeared across the asphalt. Instant Holograms is huge. Cinematic. Furious. Fleshy. Alive: nikolatamindzic.substack.com/p/twenty-alb...

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Nikola Tamindzic @nikolatamindzic.com · Aug 7

5 DJRUM, Under Tangled Science

...Djrum is rethinking what electronic music can be. He could’ve made club tools, or pretty piano studies. Instead, this: a record too restless for genre, too emotional for minimalism, too precise for chaos: nikolatamindzic.substack.com/p/twenty-alb...

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Nikola Tamindzic @nikolatamindzic.com · Aug 1

6 NICK LEÓN, A Tropical Entropy
León’s masterpiece: dembow drums like rattling rebar, synths like dying air conditioners, the sound of a city sweating through its denial. Miami may sink, memory may blur, but el qlo keeps on keeping time. Eppur si muove: nikolatamindzic.substack.com/p/twenty-alb...

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Nikola Tamindzic @nikolatamindzic.com · Aug 1

7 THESE NEW PURITANS, Crooked Wing

Organ-and-drum art rock for the post-faith generation.
Caroline Polachek haunts Industrial Love Song, a duet between two cranes who’ll never touch. Grand, strange, not built for easy playbacks. But the ambition sticks: nikolatamindzic.substack.com/p/twenty-alb...

Nikola Tamindzic @nikolatamindzic.com · Aug 1

"In fact, I haven’t felt this hopeful about pop since 2008, back when the economy collapsed and Katy Perry set her t**s on fire. We survived that. We’ll survive this. With better songs, too."

nikolatamindzic.substack.com/p/twenty-alb...

Twenty Albums I Loved In 2025 (So Far), vol. 3: #6-10

Into the deep end we go: pop confessions, dirty money, drums, faith, and sinking cities.

nikolatamindzic.substack.com

Nikola Tamindzic @nikolatamindzic.com · Aug 1

8 AMORE, Top Hits, Ballads, etc...
The chaos isn’t just a vibe: it’s the form, the method, the only honest response to a life this strange. Music held together by the unteachable glue of voice & vision. Pop unshackled, freakish, hilarious, sad, alive: nikolatamindzic.substack.com/p/twenty-alb...

Nikola Tamindzic @nikolatamindzic.com · Aug 1

9 MARK ERNESTUS’ NDAGGA RHYTHM FORCE, Khadim

The rhythm is the engine, the language, the ground. Sabar drums land like verdicts. Four tracks, four prayers, four vessels of resistance. Basic Channel’s Ernestus adds subtraction, the band delivers gravity: nikolatamindzic.substack.com/p/twenty-alb...

Nikola Tamindzic @nikolatamindzic.com · Jul 31

11 THE MARS VOLTA, Lucro sucio

They used to come at you like a firehose of acid and prog. Now they sneak in sideways. Not maximalist, just maximal, Latin, abstract & unbothered by you.“Filthiest profit lies in the unknown,” Cedric sings. Step right in: nikolatamindzic.substack.com/p/twenty-alb...