No one really wants to be any music scene’s “best kept secret,” but when that city is Nashville, there’s a good chance the secret gets out. Josh Gilligan has been a WNXP favorite since we started the station almost six years ago (he played at our first anniversary party) and he’s been a favorite of fellow Nashville artists even longer. His solo career has been on a steady climb and he’s recorded with Paramore’s Zac Farro and is currently touring as a part of Medium Build. Farro also signed Gilligan to Congrats Records and produced the new album, Sideways. It’s a deft and masteful continuation of the yacht-rock adjacent indie-pop Gilligan has been perfecting as a “best kept secret” but this record stands to break him out of that role.

For his Nashville Artist of the Month playlist, Gilligan says simply picked a “mix of stuff that informed the record and some stuff I just really like.” He adds that it’s in “no particular order” and is “great for shuffling.”