Aimee Mann has had a long and impressive career as a singer-songwriter, but her new, stripped-down record, "Mental Illness," which includes collaboration from Jonathan Coulton, Ted Leo, and John Roderick, may be one of her best records yet.

Sweet Spirit are probably the best band in Austin, Texas -- live music capital of the world -- and they're definitely the best band we saw at the South by Southwest music conference this year. We discuss their new LP in depth in episode #60.

In Episode #59 of For the Record, we discuss the debut LP from Diet Cig, "Swear I'm Good at This." The energetic duo makes charming indie pop that documents a sometimes-tough transition between the teen years and adulthood.

As we do once a year, we break format to talk about our favorites from SXSW this year: Lizzo, Sweet Spirit, L.A. Salami, Weaves, Lisa Prank, Lee Bains III and the Glory Fires, and CHAI.

Landlady's engaging live performance is what first attracted us to the band, and their third LP, "The World is a Loud Place," really delivers that energy to the listener. We discuss it in-depth in episode #57 of "For the Record."

Ty Segall's prolific psych-glam-garage rock output makes it seem a bit intimidating to find an entry point into his catalog, but his second self-titled LP provides a great opportunity.

Greg Laswell's "Everyone Thinks I Dodged a Bullet" is a great breakup album for a stormy winter day. We discuss it in depth on episode #55 of "For the Record."

Hannah Georgas is a Canadian singer-songwriter who has made a beautiful, introspective pop album that rewards repeated listens.

We review our favorite records of 2016, in no particular order: Car Seat Headrest, Lucy Dacus, Okkervil River, Mitski, Thao & The Get Down Stay Down, A Giant Dog, and Eleanor Friedberger.

Three different songwriters/vocalists each bring their own style to New York band LVL UP's Sub Pop debut, "Return to Love." We discuss it in-depth in episode #52 of "For the Record."