MICHAEL KIWANUKA SMALL CHANGES POLYDOR/UNIVERSAL MUSIC Michael Kiwanuka is an essential voice, a testament to the potential and referential depth of neo-soul. It is. Rooted in the past with a finger on the pulse of our contemporary conflicts and [...]
CHELSEA WOLFE UNBOUND LOMA VISTA RECORDINGS Having released the full-length LP She Reaches Out To She Reaches To She earlier this year, there’s an unsatisfying, critical urge to place these stripped down recordings on Unbound in juxtaposition [...]
PHANTOGRAM MEMORY OF A DAY BARSUK RECORDS At one point in our recent past, Phantogram felt like the heir apparent to Portishead, a contemporary artist that bridged the critical divide between electro-pop and moody, brooding trip hop. They [...]
CARIBOU HONEY MERGE RECORDS There’s no need to make an album review a statement about the threat of AI, but at risk of being hypocritical there’s no way to discuss Caribou’s latest release unless a statement is made. Here’s the thing—what’s the [...]
JON HOPKINS RITUAL DOMINO RECORDS The meaning extracted from an ambient record reflects the listener’s willingness and ability to project, to amplify, and in turn to receive meaning where nothing evolves explicitly. It’s an echo chamber, a [...]
ON ORBITAL’S LEGACY, ‘THE GREEN ALBUM’ REISSUE, AND A 1990s ELECTRONIC MUSIC PRIMER The Beatles had The Beatles (The White Album). Metallica had Metallica (Black Album). Amongst albums nicknamed according to the chroma of their album [...]
CRISPIAN MILLS AND KULA SHAKER’S DESCENT INTO THE UNDERWORLD (AND BACK AGAIN) A CONVERSATION WITH KULA SHAKER At a certain point, the world turned against Crispian Mills and Kula Shaker. Or was it that Crispian Mills turned against the world? In [...]
Lower Dens The Competition Ribbon Music Baltimore’s Lower Dens exists on the cusp. In 2010 frontman and folk eccentric Jana Huntertired of touring as a solo artist and hired a backup band for the last tour before his planned hiatus. The [...]
Weyes Blood Titanic Rising Sub Pop Natalie Mering, aka Weyes Blood, makes time stand still. She doesn’t wave a magic wand or play distortion tricks with strobe lights. She emotes, and time stops for her. Titanic Rising, her fourth full-length [...]
PURE SOUND DOESN’T FADE: URGE OVERKILL’S SATURATION AT 25 A CONVERSATION WITH URGE OVERKILL Eddie “King” Roeser and Nathan Kaatrud, aka Nash Kato, haven’t been proceeding at a regular pace, Roeser admits, but he’s not confessing a lack of [...]
Alt-J Relaxer Atlantic Records/Infectious Music Leeds’ Alt-J reclaims their status as nerdy, literary indie-pop savants on their third full length LP, Relaxer. But before we talk about Relaxer, let’s talk context. Context is everything. As [...]
U2 The Joshua Tree (30th Anniversary Edition) Universal Music Music feeds nostalgia, it places moments in time, and for a certain generation, few records documented a time and place more precisely than U2’s fifth record, The Joshua Tree, in [...]
British Sea Power Let The Dancers Inherit The Party Caroline International Since the release of their 2003 debut The Decline of British Sea Power, the band has been one hit single away from “the bigtime.” What “the bigtime” means for an English [...]
Blonde Redhead Masculin Féminin 4AD You may not realize it, but Blonde Redhead’s been making music since 1993. Check that. Let’s do that first sentence over again. You may not know it or you may have forgotten but Blonde Redhead’s still a band. [...]
Broncho Double Vanity Dine Alone Records Broncho reached the pinnacle of their pop sensibilities with 2014’s “Class Historian.” The track commandeered Alt-airwaves with a catchy, nonsensical hook. Whereas most ear-worms recall Khan’s brain bugs [...]
Everything Everything @ Mr. Smalls Theatre & Funhouse, Millvale April 10, 2016 After a minor setback over confirmed press status, my photographer and I entered Mr. Smalls, a converted church in the Pittsburgh hamlet of Millvale, just after [...]
M83 Junk Mute Records In every major artist’s career there is generally a record ascribed “the breakout album” and then, naturally, something called “the follow-up” follows… eventually. The breakout album speaks for itself. It’s the moment [...]
Woods City Sun Eater In The River of Light Woodsist Another day, another expansion of the discography from psych-folkers Woods. City Sun Eater in the River of Light represents the band’s 9th album in 10 years. The album title sounds like the [...]
The Zolas Swooner Light Organ Records Popular music in the 1990s was, for all intents and purposes, absolute mind-warping rubbish. There’s no other explanation for the success of 311. These broad swaths of negativity are irrefutable. I was [...]
Neon Indian VEGA INTL. Night School Mom + Pop Music Neon Indian (Alan Palomo) is a man out of time, out of place. In 2015, Palomo remains an anomaly forced to the fringe of success despite pumping out resplendent records like VEGA INTL. Night [...]
Autre Ne Veut Age of Transparency Downtown Records Autre Ne Veut, a.k.a. Brooklyn singer-soulwriter Arthur Ashin, opens his third full-length record with the challenging, atonal “On and On (Reprise).” The jarring introduction to Age of [...]
Electric Six Bitch, Don’t Let Me Die! Metropolis Records Electric Six summons clichés like Taylor Swift summons gal pals to participate in her latest video shoot. Frontman Dick Valentine might have been a carny in a past life; his [...]
Warm Soda Symbolic Dream Castle Face Records Warm Soda frontman Matthew Melton crafts tidy songs about summer. Actual lyrics be damned – the words themselves deemed irrelevant by the vibes, man. Warm Soda spins quick and catchy ditties meant to [...]
Kathryn Calder Kathryn Calder File Under: Music Kathryn Calder is the space between sentences, the calm before the storm, the tether that grounds the otherworldly personalities of her band The New Pornographers. Originally brought on to perform [...]
