In 2003, the year he turned 60, Randy Newman released his Songbook Vol. 1. While eight years seems like a long time to return to the studio to reconsider songs from his own catalog, alone ...
We Are Jeneric
Our Day in the Sun
Our Day in the Sun, an epic concept album about two adventurers’ journey from land to sea and back to find their rightful place in the world, marks a ...
At this point it seems fair to say Stephen Malkmus is the most distinctive stylist to emerge from ’90s alt-whatever rock. His oeuvre isn’t colored by an electronic phase (see: the Smashing Pumpkins) or suddenly-serious ...
Shrouded in the shiny blueness of his nom de plume “Palaceer Lazaro” for the release of his first two EPs with Shabazz Palaces, rapper Ishmael “Butterfly” Butler (formerly of Digable Planets) has finally stepped out ...
A CEO and a sex addict walk into a recording studio—stop me if you’ve heard this one before. You probably have, actually, in a number of ways. Jay-Z (the CEO) teamed up with sex addict ...
With their third album, Ritual Union, Little Dragon
tighten up their minimal electro-R&B sound. Singer Yukimi Nagano has pipes but you will not hear any caterwaulin’. Keyboard commander Håkan Wirenstrand has chops but you won’t hear ...
It takes a lot of vision, plenty of gall, a touch of arrogance and more than a little bit of chops to start an instrumental rock band. All of which would be limiting factors save ...
It’s always nice to be surprised—well, that is, unless you are a die-hard, slack-jawed metal/hardcore kid who digs Jamie Jasta, Godsmack, Slipknot and Emmure. In that case you want the same thing over and over ...
Over the years, Devin Townsend, Canada’s mad scientist of metal and mastermind of the once-great Strapping Young Lad, has combined his absurd sense of humor with his complex metal compositions. You might not have caught ...
Over the past 35 years, Jad Fair has managed to never lose his utter believability. That’s no small feat. Some call him a primitive, an intuitive, or an outsider, but none of those terms really ...
Time catches up with all of us, even mutli-platinum rock stars like Incubus. Brandon Boyd and the boys are well aware that they have hit their mid-30s. Whether they meant to or not, their new ...
It isn’t particularly important for a pop star to make sense—just to be catchy—but, unfortunately, on Born this Way from Interscope, Lady Gaga buries what makes her good at her job: catchy, dirty, grinding synth ...
In “Montezuma,” the opening song of Fleet Foxes’ sophomore LP, Helplessness Blues, lead singer Robin Pecknold sings, “I’m older than my mother and father/When they had their daughter/Now what does that ...
Merril Garbus has the kind of voice that deserves a full-tilt Afrobeat band watching its back, which makes the humble scale and peculiar instrumentation of her tUnE-yArDs project all ...
There’s been so much Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All-related ink spilled over the past few months—coming most notably after the group’s meteoric rise following Tyler, the Creator ...
Sean O’Hagan’s High Llamas are back after a four-year absence (during which time O’Hagan kept busy with numerous other projects). This is a world built upon the traditions of Van ...
The word earlier this year was that the new TV on the Radio would be sans snarling guitar, static, and searing feedback. I thought I had a basic understanding of what ...
Such is the shadow cast by Gary Burton’s quartets of the ’60s and early ’70s that any foursome of vibes, electric guitar, bass and drums can be seen as riding across ...
In hindsight, it seems as if Duke Ellington was always iconic, always at the heart of American music. But by 1932, his was still a local (albeit New York-based) band, one ...
Rising out of the Internet’s constant musical maelstrom about three years ago (though he’s been writing songs and playing in bands for many years before), Kurt Vile’s early lo-fi missives drew ...
Let’s be clear from the (bungee) jump: Colin Stetson’s got chops. On “Judges,” the second song from New History Warfare, Vol. 2, baritone-sax arpeggios whip around the headphones as muted clicks ...
There’s a lot of that classic Pacific Northwestern lonesomeness in the Cave Singers’ music. It’s in both the gray and depressive outlook of most of singer Peter Quirk’s lyrics, ...
I’m sorry folks, but I can’t do it this month. Mundane alterna-gutter-scraping releases by the Foo Fighters and the Strokes have left me a bit despondent.Why do they bother? If you’ve read my previous reviews ...
With Underneath the Pine, Toro y Moi’s follow-up to 2010’s chillwave classic Causers of This, it’s clear we’re not in for a sequel. “Intro Chi Chi” begins with distorted, wall-of-sound synths and chromatic washes of Rhodes ...
Neu! ’92
On Neu! ’92, James Brooks and Josh Clancy, the Minneapolis duo operating under the name Elite Gymnastics, offer electronic music with elements of pop, chillwave, gaze, house, and hip-hop, but not enough of ...
