May found me wandering through a vast state park, strolling along dirt lanes flanked by expansive, billowing meadows, trekking insect-filled trails in the woods, and tracing the entire shoreline of a two-mile beach that rewarded the weary, sunburnt traveler with a glittering payoff. When I press play on Tasha’s new record You Are Spring! and hear its gentle, sun-dappled melodies, I’m transported back to that scene, pulled into a moment of astonishing, yet modest, beauty—blue skies overhead, a soft breeze brushing the skin, and revelations arriving in hushed, luminous bursts.
The opening track unfolds like a hymn. Fellow gifted singer-songwriters Jamila Woods and L’Rain join Tasha for a captivating a cappella overture: “Don’t fall away now; there’s life to be found here; green grass sprouts anew; spring trees put on a grand spectacle.” This song serves as a warm invitation into the album. What comes next remains soft but inexorable, with Tasha’s fingertips gliding over her acoustic guitar strings in a natural, unforced way—like prairie grasses brushing against a wandering traveler. The lyrics, carried by buoyant, weightless vocals, are steeped in cosmic mood and imagery: in the closing moments of “Perfect,” she contemplates feeling small yet flawless and beautiful when dusk isolates her with her thoughts.
Its predecessor, “Promise,” wraps the listener in a richly atmospheric, emotionally lush vibe that recalls the strongest corners of Phoebe Bridgers’ Punisher, filled with lines that seize a moment as something significant—like the thrill of youth kissed at a subway entrance, or the city in summer: hungry, hot, and alive. A notable image appears: “I’m at my best when the air clings to my skin.” The track grows even more exquisite when a clarinet enters, carrying a wistful, serene sigh.
Tasha’s lyrics often resemble a collage. On the sunlit “Summer,” champagne sits on a porch, the ocean glitters, and an old guitar is tuned to her liking. The intimate “Lucky” features warm smiles toward strangers, a phone call from her mother, a ferry, and a good person arriving at the wrong time. Yet she truly shines when she steps into storytelling, as she does on the enchantingly enigmatic “Actor,” where she sings with unresolved tension: a performer hired to bring happiness, yet she muses that she might stay if the other person truly desires it.
While the album mostly feels like a dreamscape blissfully detached from reality, Tasha allows the harsher edges of daily life to slip in on the piano ballad “Ending.” In an era where apocalyptic vibes dominate many releases, her wry, poetic processing—though personal—feels genuine and singular. The calm atmosphere holds, reminding us that the world may not be finished yet.
Concerning the dynamic finale “Quick!,” Tasha explained that summertime keeps reminding her of every summer she’s ever known. It’s a meditation on time, on clinging to precious moments while choosing to release scarcity. Each moment is priceless, yet preciousness is abundant and enduring. Summer, in particular, has a way of condensing time and space so that all summers blend into one sprawling, simultaneous experience of forever and not-yet. You Are Spring! captures precisely that feeling, the hallmark of a truly resonant album.
You Are Spring drops on 6/26 through Bayonet.
Other notable albums released this week include:
Chanel Beads’ Your Day Will Come
Dari Bay’s Surprise Wish
Downtown Boys’ Public Luxury
Harmony’s Lifetime
Maxo Kream’s O.Y.N
Butthole Surfers’ shelved ’90s album After The Astronaut
proun’s Maybe Luck
knitting’s Souvenir
Spacemoth’s Inward Eye
Keenan O’Meara’s Bathe In The Everlasting Light
Brutalismus 3000’s Harmony
Alien Nose Job’s How A Mosquito Operates
Truck Violence’s The weathervane is my body
Some Velvet Sidewalk’s Critters Encore
Sari Lightman’s The Way I Saw You
Snarls’ In Heaven There’s Rainbows
Amy Rose Mills’ I Think We’ve Met Before
Emperor X’s Unified Field
Temples’ Bliss
Devonté Hynes’ The Invite soundtrack
Dan Deacon’s Little Brother soundtrack
Gold Panda’s TON UP
BCMC’s Stash
Jacob Ungerleider’s Congratulations
Ibeyi’s Offering
Muse’s The WOW! Signal
Sincere Engineer’s Probable Claws
The Pretty Reckless’ Dear God
Myra Lee’s Capture The Flag
Christopher Ardra’s Saw It In A Dream
ALEWYA’s Zero
ALIA’s Where The Echoes Bloom
Taiga Ultan’s Shade Zero
Devon Gilfillian’s Time Will Tell
Lowrey’s It’s Hard To Lie To Strangers
Miracle’s The Living Likeness Of My Electric Daemon
Ryan Beatty’s Sweet Fortune
Naomi Sharon’s No Sleep In Paradise
Repeat Offender’s Weapon Fetish
Akiid’s Skeffu
MICO’s When the lights turn on
Bebe Stockwell’s Volume 1
Jadasea’s Holly Grove
Hearts2Hearts’ Lemon Tang
Borderline’s Borderline
Félicia Atkinson’s SANS VISAGE
Ethan Regan’s Young Regan
Lunatic Soul’s Transition II
Lexie’s Halcyon Days
Brothel In Belize’s Machine Machine
Cannelle’s CINNA Mixtape
lykimchi’s I LOVE YOU KIMCHI nascar aloe’s AUDIO SHRAPNEL
ill peach’s EAVESDROPPING
The Hobknobs’ Helmets Off
Aliya Ultan’s Looks Far Woman
Fai Laci’s Elephant In The Room
Melanie Radford’s For The Sake Of Stillness
Willow Avalon’s Pink Pocket Pistol
Julez And The Rollerz’s Dirty Little Rock ‘N’ Roller
Young Lovers’ The Circle’s End
The Wiggles’ Sparkle!: A Circus Of Lights
Bike Routes’ Prarie
Black Swan Network’s The Early Music Vol 1.
Amberian Dawn’s Temptation’s Gates
THÆTAS’ The Irredeemable Age
Curls Ultra’s American Blood
Madeon’s Victory
Atta Boy’s Silt
Jordan Burchel’s With Everything Going On
Sea Moss & Miscomings’ Big Tube Scene
Rodney Crowell’s Then Again
Born At Midnight’s Eternal BAM Nation
Minyo Crusaders’ From Japan with Love Andrew Sa’s American Rough
The Bouncing Souls’ Born To Be
Aaron MF Olson’s Songs Album II
Alden Hellmuth’s Tether
Tift Merritt’s Sugar
Cécile McLorin Salvant’s With Every Breath | Take
Dominique And The Diamonds’ Honky Tonk Queen
F/i’s Invisible Men
River Shook’s River Shook
Stephan Moccio’s Scenes From A Velvet Room
Dylan Mattingly’s The Wild Heart
Unlettered’s Devil’s Bowl
Nduduzo Makhathini’s The Myth We Choose
Eera’s Just Keep Holding On
Lau Ro’s Lau Ro
There Were Wires’ Vessel
Izzy Oram Brown’s What I Want
Abul Mogard & Rafael Anton Irisarri’s Where Light Pauses In The Silence Of The Sun
CS Cleaners’ What’s This?
POMELO’s LORELESS
Various Artists’ Plants Can Dance
Rat Boy’s Crash!
DJ Plead’s Please
Pixies’ B-Sides 1988-1996 (Expanded)
Tina Turner’s Wildest Dreams (30th Anniversary Edition)
Metallica’s ReLoad (Remastered Limited Edition Deluxe Box Set)
Roberta Flack’s The Montreux Years live album
SML’s Spontaneous Music Live live album
Chris Corsano & Tashi Dorji’s Live At Ritual Botanica
Matthew Herbert & Momoko Gill’s Clay (Bonus Edition)
Boone Creek’s Boone Creek (Deluxe Reissue)
Fiddlehead’s Baby I’ll Change EP
Debbii Dawson’s Where Have All The Good Men Gone? EP
Chemical’s My Little Dogma EP
Milk & Bone’s A Little Lucky (Remixes) EP
Chapan’s Autogratis EP
Makeshift Art Bar’s Marionette EP
Charlie Cello’s I WALKED ALL THE WAY HOME EP
Cholita’s Broken Promises EP
alan vuong’s HEAVEN SENT ME EP
Mesh Kimono’s Line Cliché EP
Girlfriend, Wife’s God Made Me A Star EP
Tyce Delk’s Everything But Gone EP
