It’s been a crazy good year for music, but it’s grinded to a halt recently. Unless you are into One Direction or Barbara Streisand, there’s not a lot to capture your ears this week.

So on weeks like this, I start to look around at things I may of missed along the way. As I often do, I found something so fantastic that makes me wonder how I missed this in the first place.

It’s impossible to hear everything, but it’s a struggle worth fighting. I sometimes kick myself when there’s a band or artist that passed me by, but the simple truth is we will never be able to experience it all.

Linda Holmes of NPR lends me some comfort though and this is what I try to remember in times like these:

It’s sad, but it’s also … great, really. Imagine if you’d seen everything good, or if you knew about everything good. Imagine if you really got to all the recordings and books and movies you’re “supposed to see.” Imagine you got through everybody’s list, until everything you hadn’t read didn’t really need reading. That would imply that all the cultural value the world has managed to produce since a glob of primordial ooze first picked up a violin is so tiny and insignificant that a single human being can gobble all of it in one lifetime. That would make us failures, I think.

If “well-read” means “not missing anything,” then nobody has a chance. If “well-read” means “making a genuine effort to explore thoughtfully,” then yes, we can all be well-read. But what we’ve seen is always going to be a very small cup dipped out of a very big ocean, and turning your back on the ocean to stare into the cup can’t change that.

Well said.

With so much music in the world it’s easy for things to fall through the cracks, and for me Mikhael Paskalev is the change between the cushions.

From Mom+Pop Records, the 26 year old out of Norway became a sensation in 2012 in corners of the world I don’t frequent, but he Paul Simonesque crooning mixed with a little Brett Dennon, rockabilly sensibility, and disco-cowboy swagger is infectious and I have fallen in love with his “Jive Babe EP“.

The EP dropped in June. If it’s new to you give it a spin, and if you are looking up from a Natty Bo’ and thinking “Paskalev is OVER!” then I suggest you try it on one more time.