🎵 September 2025
Welcome autumn.
☀️ Resisting the waning sunlight, but loving the color. 🍁
Ashland, Oregon October 2019
📸 gary lundgren
I woke unexpectedly this morning at 5:00 a.m. Nothing urgent happening today, but my mind still managed to dig up random things to worry about. Uncool, I know — but the amygdala tripped my nervous system on its own volition. 😅
I’ve been finishing our new movie PELICAN, which is a story that ruminates on mental health — the life and death kind. I’m fully aware this might come off a little grim, especially in my playlist section, but every eleven minutes someone takes their own life. I lost a great friend to suicide in 2021, and this film is a result of me wrestling with this loss.
Talking about this stuff out in the open is important. And it’s my sincere hope that PELICAN will help continue that conversation and become a sort of catalyst for preventing suicide.
In September, the inimitable filmmaker and screenwriter Charlie Kaufman was interviewed in The Guardian, and this quote landed with me, because I do believe art can save lives.
Clipped from The Guardian (SEPT. 12, 2025)
Looking back on my own mental health, it’s easy to see when the arts have buoyed me. Like a life raft — certain revelatory books and movies have come along at key moments to help keep me moving downstream. I continually give thanks for this, and especially for music, because it always helps me navigate complicated emotions and eventually get to peace of mind and a state of gratitude.
September’s playlist has buoyed and invigorated me, and the tracks gradually fell into place like an epic game of Tetris. It begins with Charlotte Gainsbourg’s haunting, nostalgic Blurry Moon — just the kind of Lynchian lullaby to kick-off autumn. This one’s special as it’s the first new music from Charlotte since 2017. And the video is dreamy and cinematic — directed by Anthony Vaccarello. 👀
Other highlights are from new records by Big Thief, Jeff Tweedy and Greg Freeman. I’ve been playing Freeman’s BURNOVER which came out in late August, and found its way to me in September. His vocals are special — a beautiful hybrid of Doug Martsch and Jason Molina. The album’s a grower, with tricky arrangements and some great songs.
Many featured artists here are new to me, including Total Wife, ear, Geese, LAPêCHE, Devin Shaffer and Greg Jamie. Jamie’s haunting Beautiful Place is track 19 and tees up the finale by Jonny Greenwood called One Battle After Another. The opening cue to this terrific film is quite stirring. Like many great cues in a movie, its riches reveal themselves slowly. I barely noticed on the first viewing, but by the third I found myself completely enveloped in its dramatic beauty as we meet Perfidia and Bob.
As always, thanks to everyone on the list who purchased Above the Trees and have written to us. Joma.Film is the only place you’ll be able to see it, so thanks for sharing the link. If you’re an artist monetizing your work, you know the grind all too well. The great Jim Jarmusch has a real nice interview in Vulture about his new film Father Mother Sister Brother — and he spoke candidly about being an independent filmmaker in these trying times.
Clipped from Vulture (SEPT. 29,2025)
Again, thank you for supporting the artists you love. I hope many of these songs find their way to your own playlists. You can stream the September playlist on both Apple Music and Spotify.
As always, I’m posting this on behalf of these recording artists — hoping that, in some small way, it helps create new fans.
Gary
