Numero Group

Did anyone else notice a shift this week? The first few days of fall deserve some reflection, a moment to slow down, and a switch to songs that are a little softer, make you feel a bit warmer, and add a layer of nostalgia to your morning coffee. Consider this our soundtrack for the changing leaves, longer nights, and your favorite autumnmaxxing activities. Here are a few of our favorite some from our “Numero Group Guide to Fall” playlist, what else should we add?

“In Tow” - C-Clamp
A quintessential ’90s Midwest slowcore gem. Gentle, spacious guitar lines slowly build into something bigger and more restless. Perfect for the early days of fall when the sun starts setting a little earlier and you’re not ready to let go of the summer sun.

“Alabama Railroad Town” - Doug Firebaugh
Doug Firebaugh’s short, sweet, and quietly devastating folk track. The pedal steel gives this one a warm, lonesome Americana glow that feels like watching the landscape pass through a train window.

“Bedside Table” - Bedhead
Bedhead’s interlocking guitars and steady ride cymbal create a slow-building sense of tension that makes every little shift in volume feel huge. The restrained, patient, and beautifully understated nature of this song gives space for lots of introspection and reflection.

“C” - Rex
This nine-minute moody, countrified slowcore tune is an expansive blend of Americana, strings, heavy crescendos, and late-night melancholy. It feels like a cinematic masterpiece unfolding. Should be saved for a long walk on a misty evening or a car ride through rolling fields.

“Autumn” - Roger Lewis
A fragile, intimate little folk gem about the bittersweet feeling of getting older. Recorded in the late ’70s and originally shared only with friends and family, it’s the perfect late night discovery that makes you appreciate the seasons changing.

The Full Moon in Aries is here, so naturally, we’re talking about songs about the moon…and a bit of Duster. I’m trying to get more involved in astrology, so maybe this is the perfect time. The Full Moon in Aries lands at the beginning of Libra season, turning the focus back toward the self, framed around dreams, reality, desire, and action. Anyway, I still don’t know much, but I do know it’s a good excuse for some moon song recommendations. Here are some songs about the moon that feel restless, romantic, dreamy, and just right for whatever mood this change finds you in. You can find these and more on our Eccentric Moon playlist. Hope the new moon treats you well!

“Dark Moon” — Bonnie Guitar

A gorgeous slice of lonely country-pop with a slow, wistful feel. Bonnie Guitar’s voice is perfectly melancholic and tenderly dramatic. Originally recorded in the 1950s, it’s the perfect song for yearning while you sit underneath the moon thinking about someone.

“Walk About The Craters of the Moon” — Nun-Plus

Oddball sunshine folk-pop recorded by five Catholic sisters in the early ’70s. It’s sweet, dreamy, slightly surreal, and full of unexpected touches like Spanish and electric guitars, harmonies, and little psychedelic flourishes. There’s something wonderfully earnest and strange about it, making you feel like you’re walking through a dream world.

“Don’t Let the Moon Break Your Heart” — Country Girl Kay

Sweet and uncomplicated country romance from Country Girl Kay. The song has a warm and affectionate feeling of being young and completely wrapped up in someone. Dancing together, looking at the stars, and believing the moment will last forever.

“Moon Ride” — Margo Guryan

Bright, whimsical, baroque-pop storytelling from Margo Guryan. The song turns a trip to the moon into a miniature adventure, complete with danger, escape, and a triumphant return home. It’s playful, theatrical, and delightfully weird.

“Till the Moon Don’t Shine” — Female Species

A dreamy girl-group-style love song about falling hard and wondering whether the feeling is mutual. Romantic, slightly breathless, and full of that wonderful tension between excitement and uncertainty.

There’s a reason Hüsker Dü fan’s have always referred to 1985 as “The Miracle Year”. The Minneapolis trio made up of Bob Mould, Grant Hart, and Greg Norton, released New Day Rising in January, recorded and released Flip Your Wig later that summer, began work on Candy Apple Grey, played more than 100 shows across the U.S. and Europe, moved from the indie SST to major Warner Brothers, and somehow kept writing, recording, road-testing, and reinventing songs at a pace that, in retrospect, feels impossible.

On January 30, Hüsker Dü played two shows at First Avenue in Minneapolis to celebrate New Day Rising. It was -11 degrees outside. Inside, roughly 1,500 people watched the hometown trio tear through a 23-song late set spanning Everything Falls Apart, Metal Circus, Zen Arcade, and New Day Rising, alongside five songs that would appear on Flip Your Wig, and some covers like The Byrds’ “Eight Miles High,” “Ticket To Ride” with Soul Asylum’s Dave Pirner joining them, and “Love Is All Around.”

The late show was recorded on a 24-track mobile unit, with a three-camera crew documenting the performance for a planned live record and video. Neither was released at the time, and given the 2011 fire that destroyed a significant portion of the Hüsker Dü archive, this survival feels especially significant. These tracks can’t be boiled down to alternate or live versions. They’re the clearest documents of what Hüsker Dü sounded like at the height of its SST-era power.

Last year we did our best to commemorate the miracle on its 40th Anniversary by issuing our 4xLP Boxset for 1985: The Miracle Year and jam packed it with ephemera, history, live recordings, and more from that time. We figured we’d get the die-hard Dü fans out of hibernation and maybe appeal to some of the deeper archival and punk fans but the support that this project got on announcement blew us out the water.
It took a minute but it’s now back in print.

Dive into the transcendent punk trio tearing into the most incendiary year of its existence with the restoration of the January set, extra live tracks, and a 36-page book detailing 12 months of Hüsker Dü History.

What is the sound of a legend being written?

Back with another one of our monthly NTS mixes, now available for playback. Our latest installment “Smile Now, Cry Later” features a moody selection of overcast outsider, indie melancholia, lowrider souldies, and experimental electronics to guide you through the changing of the seasons.

Clare – “Itchy and Fidgety”
Japanese dream-pop beamed in from a special corner of the early internet. Clare’s minimal instrumentation, and eerie-but-comforting vocals fit the mix’s softer melancholia vibe, tapping into the hazy dreamlike quality of fall.

Should – “Resonate”
Should’s pure guitar haze, dreamy textures, and a sweetly despondent weight seem to swallow bitterness whole. “Resonate” adds a thick cloud of shoegaze melancholy to the mix.

Soul Superbs – “Just Ask Me”
A lost-in-time soul cut steeped in romantic resignation, with a warm groove and lyrics about giving someone another chance when you know better. Its tender, bruised feeling covers the lowrider-souldies side of the mix.

Tirez Tirez – “Another World (Demo)”
Tirez Tirez’s wiry, off-kilter avant-pop is the perfect soundtrack to a late night walk through the city. Their restless collision of hypnotic rhythms, sax lines, and lower east side weirdness sets the tone for the darker more unsettled parts of the mix, especially this more lofi demo.

Minor Threat, Rites of Spring, Beefeater, Hüsker Dü, and countless others opened Geoff Farina up to a world of music far beyond the conservative suburbs he lived in. As a teenager in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Geoff Farina discovered punk through mail orders and circulating fanzines, which equipped him with the DIY ethos to create whatever he had around him.

After spending time in Washington, D.C., making zines and hitching rides with touring bands, Farina moved to Boston and in 1992, he moved into an apartment on Aldie Street in Allston, where Karate began taking shape in the basement. The band’s early recordings drew from the post-punk and underground rock records that shaped Farina, but Karate quickly developed their own combination of dynamics, intricate arrangements, and guitar interplay.

Alongside Karate, Farina began developing a solo practice. His first record, Usonian Dream Sequence was recorded alone in his Franklin Street bedroom on a small-reel Teac 4-track. Released in 1998, the same year The Bed Is in the Ocean came out, it captured a stripped-down side of his songwriting, working alone with guitar and voice, drawing on indie-folk and lo-fi instincts.

Two years later, Reverse Eclipse pushed further outward, bringing lounge jazz, beat poetry, Tin Pan Alley harmony, and guitar improvisation into the mix. As Farina writes in his 2026 reflections, going solo “certainly wasn’t any dissatisfaction with my band.” Karate was touring heavily and recording some of its defining records, and solo work gave Farina another place to follow ideas that didn’t belong inside the band.

Underneath his better-known work with Karate and The Secret Stars, is a more intimate view of Farina’s songwriting and the wide-ranging curiosity of his creative endeavors. FFF collects all three long-out-of-print solo releases on vinyl for the first time, packaged and punctuated with Farina’s written reflections on their making.

Garden Variety occupied an awkward but necessary place in the early ’90s. They were too jagged for the pop-punk mainstream and too melodic to be reduced to hardcore. They only lasted a few years as a band before members went on to play in other scene projects including Radio 4, Bluetip and Retisonic.

When they released their self-titled debut in 1993, post-hardcore and emo were already beginning to split into new directions. Emerging from Valley Stream, Long Island, the trio of Anthony Roman, Anthony Rizzo, and Joe Gorelick made music that refused to settle into either one.

Their sound was muscular and melodic, built from Rizzo’s clangorous guitar, Gorelick’s relentless drumming, and Roman’s shredded, adenoidal wail. Drawing from bands like Jawbox, Drive Like Jehu, Superchunk, and the wider hardcore underground, Garden Variety turned dissonance and desperation into songs that were as tuneful and poppy as they were loud and emotionally frayed.

The band had arrived fully dialed in by the time they released their 1991 Hedge 7”, a three-song introduction to a trio that proved they were capable of making themselves sound twice their size. Their self-titled LP followed on Gern Blandsten in 1993, with Knocking the Skill Level arriving on Headhunter Records two years later. Along the way, they shared bills with Quicksand and Texas Is the Reason, appeared on compilations, put out splits with future label mates Jejune and Dahlia Seed and somehow found themselves interviewed by Janeane Garofalo and featured in Vogue.

Thirty years on and they left their muscular octave guitar chug with a side of late night zine work at the local diner as their mark on Long Island’s underground. They will be playing Numero’s 23rd Anniversary Celebration in NYC on November 13th at The Meadows in Brooklyn with Rye Coalition and Eldritch Anisette. Tickets for that show have sold out, but there are a few bundle tickets left for the whole weekend.

Oh, the places you’ll go while listening to Commutero. This one takes the long way, pulling together our favorite odes to trains, planes, automobiles, and the trips in between. From experimental post-hardcore to blue-eyed soul to rockabilly, cosmic country, and hazy 90s indie rock, our new Commutero playlist soundtracks the morning rush, last trains home, a spontaneous one-way ticket, or aimless car rides. What are your favorite songs for the long commute? We might add it to the list

Unwound - “The Light at the End of the Tunnel Is a Train”

Clocking in at about ten minutes, Unwound’s “The Light at the End of the Tunnel Is a Train” is a journey with several unexpected transfers. Post-rock, noise, samples, spoken word, and dissonant percussion all pile into the same train car, making this the ideal soundtrack for a commute that makes you feel more like you’re in a James Bond movie than on your way to work.

Attila & the Huns - “Here’s Where I Get Off”

“Here’s Where I Get Off” is a mellow, funky-soul farewell to a place you’ve decided to leave behind after much deliberation. With its train bound for Memphis, packed bags, and “no turnin’ back to your arms anymore,” it captures the scary and exciting feeling of staring out a train window knowing that the next stop will be a fresh start.

Hayden Thompson - “16.88”

Hayden Thompson turns the price of a train ticket into a story of homesickness. Stranded in Chicago and washing dishes to scrape together $16.88 for a ride back to Tennessee, the song depicts the ache of being far from home, especially around the holidays. When he sings, “I can see the tear in mom’s eye / I can hear dad say, ‘Son, welcome home,’” it portrays the feeling of reconnecting with the place you’ve left.

Mark Jones - “One Way Train”

“One Way Train” is a pedal-steel country song made for watching the landscape disappear and change through a window. Jones’ weary traveler has seen enough towns and highways to know that the destination matters less than finally finding somewhere or someone worth staying for.

Indian Summer - “I Think Your Train Is Leaving”

Indian Summer’s “I Think Your Train Is Leaving” starts ominously, before its guitars begi

“Dazzle You” became the Patterson sisters’ calling card, taking them around the country and onto stages with artists like Omar and Gwen Guthrie. Their second album was recorded and promoted but never officially released, with only a small number of white-label copies going to DJs.

At the center of one of the early ’80s UK lovers rock groups, Prediction, were twin sisters Paulette and Claudette Patterson, who were honing their craft before becoming one of Street Soul’s defining sounds.

Their music was tender, romantic and rooted in the sounds of Black Britain, but the Pattersons’ story began long before they became Dazzle.

The twins began learning to sing at just two years old, and by the time they were 14, they were already performing together. This eventually led them to join Prediction, where they began experimenting with their sound and learning the craft of recording and performing.

In 1985, they stepped out on their own as Dazzle and signed to Andy Sojka’s Jam Today Records. Their debut album, Soul Sisters, recorded at The Madhouse in Luton and produced by Sojka, captured a moment when lovers rock and reggae were colliding with rare groove, Britfunk, house and R&B. This sound became known as Street Soul, emerging from pirate radio, clubs, home studios and independent record shops.

While “Dazzle You” may have introduced the sisters to the scene, “Let’s Fall in Love” remains the pinnacle of their career, highlighting the tenderness and intimacy at the heart of their sound. A late-night Street Soul gem made for those quiet moments when you’re walking home after the club.

Should we make some physicals?

Fifty years ago, at just 17 years old, Shira Small recorded an album as her high school senior project. She pressed 500 copies with the help of her classmates, then left music behind for a career in healthcare. Today, those songs have been featured in films, television, and samples, including “I Want to Lay With You,” which soundtracks a pivotal opening scene in A24’s The Drama.

Raised in Harlem as the youngest of five, Small grew up studying Ray Charles, the Temptations, Ella Fitzgerald, and Joni Mitchell, while writing songs of her own. At George School, a Quaker boarding school in Pennsylvania, she found an environment where she could experiment freely, and began working with her music teacher, classical pianist Lars Clutterham. Together, they shaped the songs that would become The Line of Time and the Plane of Now.

Recorded in a single day, Small’s 1974 album is a collision of folk, soul, jazz, soft psychedelia, and sunshine pop. Each of the ten songs on the record were captured in one take, and the intimacy of the sparse and minimal arrangements makes this a unique document of a young artist making her way through the world.

Small’s music has since been sampled by artists including TV Girl and Kenny Beats and featured across film and television. The album has also become a singular entry in our Eccentric Folk Soul compilation, it explores the strange, intimate space where folk, soul, psychedelia, jazz, and outsider songwriting meet, and Small’s music sits within that space, full of questions about love, mortality, war, and what it means to be alive.

After five decades away, Small has begun writing and recording music again, and this November, she’ll return to the stage for the first time in 50 years at our 23rd Anniversary Festival at National Sawdust in New York City.