What do you do when it’s December and you’ve made one of the best albums of the year? If you’re Wild Pink‘s John Ross, you don’t rest on your laurels; you keep the bangers coming. To close out 2021, the ascendent poet laureate of heartland indietronica has unveiled a nine-minute ode to his home state; much like this year’s excellent A Billion Little Lights LP, “Florida” sighs and shivers in unexpected ways, folding eerie vocalizations into simply breathtaking soundscapes. “Florida is a rewarding place if you spend the time finding its charm,” Ross said in a statement. I agree. I’ll be spending the holidays there for the second year in a row with my new family, and while the rampant horrors of the Sunshine State are easy to knock, there will inevitably come a time during my stay when I stare out at the immense emerald splendor of the Choctawhatchee Bay and find that most of those worries disappear, even for a moment, in the quiet stillness. I’ll think of the gentleness of this song, how it stretches out like that endless water without losing any forward momentum and yet presents completely unhurried and almost meditative, and marvel at how we’ve come so far and how there’s still so much ground left to cover. Even while Wild Pink remain bigger than Christmas, “Florida” still revels in the tiny moments. —Patrick Hosken
