Recordings

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 ...

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’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 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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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, ...

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 ...

Electric Moroccoland / So Below For only their second studio release after 13 years of regular gigging, Boston ensemble Club d’Elf unloaded a whopper, an honest-to-goodness double album, or rather, two full-length CDs packaged together, ...