This week at Auxtra Weekly, we’ll dive into what I like to call commute albums, a record you can listen to front to back in under thirty minutes.

There’s an album under 30 minutes to fit any morning or evening commute, regardless of how the day went or is shaping to go. Got a promotion? Maybe you want to listen to some upbeat and eclectic new-wave. Got fired? Take your frustrations out with a punky stimulus package. Wherever you land, you’re sure to find an enjoyable, bite-sized listen for any occasion.
— Will Thomas

Victoria Rose and Stone Filipczak of the artfolk duo “@” create heavenly melodies brimming with life and candor thanks to their ethereal, stripped back production style. Harmonies are layered and the instrumentation is sparse, but the lushness of what’s present amplifies the gaps of sound.

Rose and Filipczak make music where the empty spaces are felt, which makes sense as the pair made a large portion of the album separate from each other while living in different cities. @’s music is all about doing more with less, and they do just that on “Mind Palace Music,” clocking in at just over 29 minutes. The intermittent strum of an acoustic guitar often acts as the driving melodic force for their songs, which provides the perfect backdrop for flutes, pianos, and synths to nestle in the burrows between.

“Mind Palace Music” is a warm and ethereal dive into the motherboard of the afterlife, a truly hypnotic journey through a vast landscape of pixelated, rolling hills.

For fans of: Acetone; Fievel is Glauque; Broadcast

I saw Trance Farmers live for the first and only time when they opened for La Femme (another fantastic band worth checking out) in Chicago’s Thalia Hall in 2022. I was so eager to see the main act that perhaps my excitement for the opener was a bit stifled, but as soon as Dayve Samek, the main creative force behind the band, took the stage and began playing his psychedelic, sun-soaked folk ballads, I was hypnotized and all but forgot who was playing after.

From what I remember, it was only Samek and one other person performing, but it felt like an entire orchestra of psychobilly drifters were sitting in the orchestra pit. Sultry guitar tones, Samek’s spacy vocals, and ubiquitous synths guided the audience into a group hypnosis.

I look back at his discography very fondly, especially his debut album, “Dixie Crystals,” which came out in 2014 and has a tight runtime of 28 minutes. It’s a for-vagabonds, by vagabonds record, evoking images of a highway piercing the orange horizon, gasoline dripping from a rusted nozzle, and the sensation of car exhaust and cheap cigarette smoke coating your lungs.

For fans of: Wilco; MJ Lenderman; Ty Segall

TARGET SCAMMERS sounds exactly how the name feels, or so I can imagine. The rush of a successful heist while sticking it to the man from the getaway car. The paranoia of the subsequent spell, constantly looking around corners and over your shoulder. The climax, facing the consequences of your foolhardy actions in a blaze of glory.

Their 2023 self-titled album has a mere 11-minute runtime across 10 songs, but its short duration makes sense after listening–no human in good conscience or health could possibly keep up this type of energy any longer.

Hardcore punk is pretty hit or miss for me, as many acts feel inauthentic in their approach and often tokenize the genre, but TARGET SCAMMERS isn’t one of them. You feel their raw ferocity and passion from the jump, and it never relents.

Breakneck drumming, throat-shredding vocals, vicious guitar playing, the components are all there for TARGET SCAMMERS to spray paint their name on the wall of great modern hardcore bands. If this is today’s punk scene, then the future of the genre is in great hands.

For fans of: Germs; Black Flag; Dead Kennedys

Hailing from Long Island, California, the four piece new wave band Suburban Lawns’ body of work album-wise begins and ends with their eponymous 1981 record. Its 28-minute runtime is jam packed with eccentric, spacy and atmospheric tracks that combine a retrofuturistic sound with Sue McLane and Billy Ranson’s dynamic vocals.

The pair, especially McLane, love jumping between deadpan, almost spoken voices to higher, much more nasally deliveries, which gives their songs the kooky charm I can’t resist. Their lyrics show the conversation between technological and cultural innovations, both its improvements and clashes. It often borders on post-irony, with many of their remarks poking fun at the status quo and contrasting with the early ideals of the Yuppie movement from the same time.

Uncompromising and sharp, Suburban Lawns’ blend of new wave and idiosyncratic post-punk is the soundtrack to dance moves yet to be conceived.

For fans of: Talking Heads; XTC; Pylon