Over the course of nine LP's Langhorne Slim (real name Sean Scolnick) has been crafting folk-pop gems that have taken him from small, backroom shows to the stages of the legendary Newport Folk Festival.

On his latest effort, Lost At Last, Vol. 1, having grown weary of the usual recording cycle and the daily pressures of always being connected, the singer/songwriter and his band "...holed up in a friend's house in San Francisco to rehearse about twenty-five songs for five days and headed up to Stinson Beach to play 'em live in a room all together and press record." 

The result? Nothing less than one of the best albums of 2017. An album that feels spontaneous yet lived in, with songs that are just the right salve at just the right time to help heal the spiritual wounds that this year has set upon us all. 

Mavis Staples, one of the greatest voices of this generation, or any, is back with a powerful new LP If All I Was Was Black. Continuing in her collaboration with Wilco's Jeff Tweedy in the production chair, the civil-rights icon is going back to her Chicago blues roots and delivering a powerful statement on racism in America in 2017.

PLUS! Robert Ellis and Courtney Hartman have teamed up for an album celebrating the music of John Hartford, and the iconic first single is just as exquisite as you would expect.

After the surprise success of their thoroughly weird and seismic shift in their sound on their 1992 Grammy-winning LP Out Of Time, Athens, Georgia's R.E.M., promised a loud, raucous follow up. What they delivered instead was a monument to the joys of melancholy, loss, and the never-ending quest for beauty in the world. 1994's Automatic For The People, seen by many as the high point of the band's career, cemented their status as rock-and-roll legend's, and it's humanity still resonates today, twenty-five years later. 

Join us as we look back on this modern masterpiece and explore how it's meaning has changed for our panel of superfans so many years later, why some of its messages are MORE important today, and much more. 

With six albums under her belt, Taylor Swift has built a career that has made her one of the biggest pop-stars in the world. So how is it that her latest album, Reputation is such a complete, million unit selling failure?

Kevin and Marcus K. Dowling - both avowed Swift fans - are taking one for the team and attempting to navigate the depths the most narcissistic, cultural appropriating, and, to be clear, worst album of 2017. 

Yea...we're where fun goes to die. 

Atlanta's Curtis Harding has been steeped in soul music his entire life. From singing in church with his family in Michigan as a child to being one of Cee Lo Green's star backup singers, Harding is a true veteran of the scene. On his second full length Face Your Fear, he's playing with is self-proclaimed "garage soul" formula again, this time enlisting the help of uber-producer Danger Mouse to drag a dying art form screaming into the future.

PLUS! Country is king even in Canada, and Blake Berglund is living proof! We've got a taste of his new album Realms for you to sidle your ears up to.

To say Julien Baker wears her heart on her sleeve would be an understatement. On Turn Out The Lights, the Memphis, Tennessee native (now based in Nashville) turns up the feels on an emotional roller coaster of an album that drags the listener down to the bottom and doesn't offer a clear way back from the depths.

Kevin, Eduardo, and Marcus are spending some time with this elegiac powerhouse of an album and considering the truth in "downerism" and if it's OK to feel oh-so-not-OK.

PLUS! Soul Man Gregory Porter is back and hitching a ride with Nat King Cole to make you "Smile" on his latest LP, Nat King Cole & Me.

With Control, Janet Jackson became a household name, but it wasn't until her 1989 album Rhythm Nation 1814 that she ascended to the status of music legend. 

Buttressed by pop hits and jam-packed with hooks set loose from some future utopia, Nation was a not-so-subtle exploration of racism, sexism, love, and social responsibility that sought to elevate our humanity by any means necessary. More importantly, it's an album who's messages sadly may be MORE relevant almost thirty years later.

Join Kevin, Marcus K. Dowling, and Timothy Anne Burnside (National Museum of African American History and Culture) as they consider this landmark achievement in music.

Washington, DC native, and second-generation Ethiopian American Kelela Mizanekristos spent years honing her musical chops in the underground scene of the nation's capital before moving to Las Angeles, dropping her last name and beginning her ascension to one of the most essential voices in R&B today.

On her acclaimed 2013 mixtape Cut 4 Me and 2015's Hallucinogen, the singer/producer made it clear that she was a force to be reckoned with. Now, on Take Me Apart, her first full length, she's building on some of the themes from her prior work to craft a vital statement about personhood, womanhood, and the perils and pitfalls of love.

Kevin and Marcus (Dowling) are sitting down to discuss one of 2017's most notable albums to find out if Kelela has got the goods, or just if the ideas she's exploring are ultimately more important than the execution.

Dudes (and by "dudes" we mean each and every man on the planet)...we need to talk.

We know it's hard (it isn't) but you ALL have got to stop harassing, assaulting, or otherwise disparaging women. FULL. STOP.

This episode is a conversation about that. Joining Kevin, Eduardo, and Marcus are Erin Frisby (Fuzzqueen) and Andrew Koh, the DC representative for UK based organization Girls Against.

There will be a quiz after to ensure that you have learned, so please try and pay attention.

In 2016 Nashville's Margo Price garnered nationwide attention with her debut album Midwest Farmers Daughter. Released on Jack White's Third Man Records, Daughter harkened back to a "purer" form of country music (Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton) that immediately struck a chord with the Saving Country Music crowd and music criterati alike. 

All American Made, Price's sophomore release, finds the Nashville staple not just sticking to her country bona fides but speaking out about some of the pressing social issues that we all face in 2017. We're digging deep into this civic-minded salvo to find out if Price hits her mark, or if she has fallen victim to the dreaded sophomore slump.

Aaron "Ab' Abernathy is a music man. He 's a soul man. He is a man of faith. The legacy of the Civil Rights Movement runs through his blood. And he poured all of this and more into the and album that is as much a soundtrack to 2017 as it is a timeless statement on flawed nature of the human condition, Dialogue. [Part 2/2]

Aaron "Ab' Abernathy is a music man. He 's a soul man. He is a man of faith. The legacy of the Civil Rights Movement runs through his blood. And he poured all of this and more into the and album that is as much a soundtrack to 2017 as it is a timeless statement on flawed nature of the human condition, Dialogue.

If Country Music is king in 2017, then the gentlemen of Midland have got their eyes on the throne. Kevin and Marcus K. Dowling (Vice, Decades) are diving deep into the debut album from one of Nashville's latest, and greatest exports. They've got the song of the year ("Drinking Problem") but are Midland one-hit-wonders, or is there more to this band than the machine that they are a product of typically turns out.

PLUS: Positive No is BACK, and sounding better than ever. Hang out as we spin "Y.A.A.Y.Y.," their most excellent new single from their most excellent new album, Partners In The Wild!

On 2016's Monologue, soul man Aaron Abernathy explored his journey from a boy to the man he is today. Abernathy had every intention of continuing that story in his next song cycle, but a funny thing happened on the way to that follow up: The world went crazy... and Abernathy began asking questions. LOTS of questions.

A spiritual heir to Marvin Gaye's What's Going On, Dialogue finds Abernathy looking at the world around him, and searching deep inside AND out for answers to the daily horrors that seem to have taken over the zeitgeist. What does it mean to be decent in a world that seemingly only rewards depravity? How can an African American survive in a society that continues to not just perpetrate, but ostensibly celebrates systemic white supremacy? Do even the smallest of human actions matter?

These questions and more provide the framework for that rarest of things, a true soul record that trades as much in heart as it does universal truth and meaning. Join Kevin, Marcus K. Dowling, and Eduardo in the basement as they have their own dialogue about the world today and one of the most relevant and powerful albums to date of this new American landscape.

Bolstered by the success of Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp A Butterfly and his own, uh, epic 2015 release, The Epic, saxophonist Kamasi Washington, along with the rest of The West Coast Get Down have spent the past few years popularizing jazz to a whole new generation of fans. On Harmony Of Difference, Washington is digging deep and exploring smaller themes like the meaning of life and our place in the universe. Kevin and Marcus K. Dowling (Decades, Capitol Wrestling) sit down to discuss Kamasi's latest masterpiece and consider a few universal truths of their own.

PLUS! Aaron "Ab" Abernathy's new album Dialogue, is a potent statement about the state of America today as seen through Abernathy's unique perspective, and is one of the best, and most important albums of 2017. We've got a listen to one of its highlights, "Generation," which is sure to be a rallying cry for the struggles in this "new" America for years to come.

On August 15, 2017, Marcus K. Dowling convened the second in a series of panels entitled "Go-Go as DC History," a DC Public Library Go-Go Archive series intended to study the history of the Nation's Capitol through go-go, it's underground-to-mainstream beloved percussive and soulful sonic export. Dowling is joined on the panel by a mix of journalists and musicians with significant awareness of the history not just of the city, but of how the five iconic songs chosen for conversation in context with DC's history, are relevant.

The songs chosen to be discussed in the conversation are listed below, and cover a socio-culturally transformational era in Washington. They are as follows:

Chuck Brown - Run Joe
Junkyard Band - Sardines
Northeast Groovers - The Water
DJ Kool - Let Me Clear My Throat
Backyard Band - Hello

For more information on the DC Public Library's Go-Go Archive visit https://www.dclibrary.org/chuckbrown.

For the first edition of the "Go-Go As DC History Panel, visit http://www.chunkyglasses.com/content/episode-261-go-go-as-dc-history-wmarcus-k-dowling-part-

David Bowie was from Mars. Prince was from another universe. But Tom Petty? Tom Petty was one of us. And now he's gone.

It's a bittersweet episode of ChunkyGlasses: The Podcast as we eulogize one of the greatest storytellers of the modern era by celebrating Wildflowers, Tom Petty's career-defining "solo" album that isn't just one of the best of his career, but one of the best LP's of all-time.

Between the domestic terrorist attack in Las Vegas that claimed the lives of over fifty people and injured some 500 more and the passing of music legend Tom Petty, it's been a pretty rough week. Kevin has some thoughts about both. 

Michael McDonald is a legend and a virtual Zelig of the music industry. He has sung and played on your favorite hits, your favorite band's favorite hits, and delivered a few of em all on his own. Now he's back with Wide Open, his first collection of songs in nine years, and Kevin along with friends Marcus K. Dowling (Decades, DC Radio) and Casey Rae (author, 'The Priest They Called Him: William S. Burroughs and the Cult of Rock 'n' Roll') are heading down to the basement to give it a listen.

PLUS! Washington, DC's The North Country is back with a new album, In Defense Of Cosmic Altruism, and we've got our favorite track for you to shove in your earholes!

David Rawlings has made a career out of being the literal best. His work with Gillian Welch and under the moniker of The Dave Rawlings Machine isn't just a shining example of how "pure" music can succeed; it is peerless. With Poor David's Almanack,  Rawlings and crew are growing up (the Machine is no more) and digging deep into the traditions that continue to shape their musical direction and legacy.

PLUS! The duo of Penny & Sparrow is taking Nashville, and the world by storm with their pop/folk sensibilities and stunning harmonies. Get acquainted with the track "Double Heart" off their latest LP, Wendigo, out now!

Moses Sumney has a voice from out-of-this world, and soul as deep as an ocean. On his debut LP, Aromanticism, the Los Angeles singer/songwriter swimming in a genre agnostic sea and coming back to land with one of the most unique, and best, albums of 2017. Marcus J. Moore (Senior Editor, Bandcamp) and Marcus K. Dowling (Decades, Capitol Wrestling) join Kevin in the basement to discuss this modern masterpiece.

PLUS! Aaron Abernathy's latest Dialogue (out 10/16) takes a hard look at the world we live in today and offers up some soulful answers in response. Get a listen to "Children Of The City," the first single from this modern masterpiece and #BeAPartOfTheDialogue.