This category is probably the most questionable one, but also very fun. Especially this year. The records that go far enough off the beaten path of surf that they don't seem eligible to be discussed in the other categories, but shouldn't go unmentioned. While they're not judged on how weird they are, hearing something new is always fun.

This can also be a hard one to judge since there's basically zero apples to apples comparison. So I try to remind myself of my guiding principle for each category: what do I think I'll listen to and enjoy the most?

This is a category for records that are either intentionally twisting surf conventions, pushing for novelty, or have moved past surf and into territory unknown. Or to put it another way, things that didn't fit neatly enough in the other categories. This is also a weird one to judge, since almost by definition these albums are pretty different from each other. Whatever. Here we go.

It's the first Friday of the month, which means if you have the bandcamp app you might be getting 24 hours of notifications. For the uninitiated, it means that bandcamp doesn't take a cut of albums sold today, so it's a nice day to support the artists. It's also my own self-reminder to scoop up some of the best surf releases in the past month.