Tom Waits

The title of Waits’ new record seems to reference his favorite themes: lost love, lost lives, and a lost mind. Think of it as an elegant soundtrack by which to warm your hands over a trash-can fire. As with any new Waits recording, expect a loose mix of broken-down hipster calliope music, dark tales, and bluesy hollerin’ that have made the man the freakishly cool icon that he is. Conspicuously absent, however, is his signature piano, replaced with turntables (courtesy of Waits’ son Casey) that provide a jerky percussion element. African and Latin rhythms mixed in with Waits’ own take on the human beat box create what we can only describe as a “hobo groove.” In his own fingerless-glove kind of way, Waits describes making records as “Capturing birds or photographing ghosts, an uncertain enterprise.” Please adopt us. Available October 5