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Best of Bandcamp Jazz: October 2016
If there’s one quality that unites this month’s recommendations from the Jazz aisle, it’s their philosophical (and stylistic) balancing between looking forward to the next step in the music’s...
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Album of the Day: Soft Hair, “Soft Hair”
Arguably, Soft Hair was formed in 2007 when Connan Mockasin and Sam Dust (LA Priest) performed at the same party. Both men were accused of stealing a decorative fiberglass pig belonging to the host,...
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After 40 Years, Neftali Santiago Releases His Solo Funk Masterwork
Neftali Santiago, 1976. If you’re ever driving through New Jersey’s Burlington County, you might want to leave enough time to cruise past 22 Somerset Drive. Neftali Santiago makes it a point to look at...
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The White Paddy Mountain Label Offers Soothing Sounds Full of Grace and Beauty
From the left: Kenikeda, Federico Durand, Satomi Magae. Japanese ambient/minimalist composer Chihei Hatakeyama first netted American attention with his 2006 album Minima Moralia, an album full of...
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D∆WN on Musical Typecasting, Virtual Reality, and Building Her Own Stage Sets
Dawn Richard, the avant-pop singer who records as D∆WN, has no interest in compromising her vision. She’s been down that road already: Richard launched her career as part of Puff Daddy’s Bad Boy...
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The New Faces of Japanese Chiptune
Pixel art from Breezesquad’s artworks. It’s not exactly shocking that Japan, the country where the modern video game industry truly took form, is home to a vibrant music community devoted to the...
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Balam Ajpu Bring Indigenous Mayan Spiritual Knowledge to Hip-Hop
Listening to Balam Ajpu’s Tributo a los 20 Nawales is like opening a centuries-old vault containing ancient, sacred artifacts. On their riveting debut LP, the trailblazing Mayan hip-hop trio carry the...
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Album of the Day: Soaker, “s/t EP”
In New York City, a place that often threatens to collapse under the weight of its own myth-making, it’s easy to turn people into stories. Whether they’re moneyed Manhattan millennials, stalwart...
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The Glimmering Ghanaian Gospel of Alogte Oho Jonas
Three years ago, on a dry January day, Max Weissenfeldt was waiting for a bus in Bolgatanga, a huge transport hub in northern Ghana. The former Poets of Rhythm drummer was in the country to record...
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Eight Bands Re-Inventing the ’90s Hardcore Breakdown
Moshpit at Sick Of It All, Berlin S036 (1996). Photo by bhrgero. The 1990s began as a prosperous time in hardcore, as countless formalized styles splintered off of punk’s most popular subgenre. The...
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Principe Records and the New Sound of Lisbon
Graphics from Principe Records’ album covers and posters. “It started off as a diverse genre—if I can even call it a genre.” Jose Moura, one-quarter of the brains behind Lisbon’s Principe Records, is...
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Best of Bandcamp Contemporary Classical: November 2016
Metronome photo by nigel_appleton. The taxonomy of contemporary classical music—new music, contemporary music, whatever you want to call it—is a thorny issue. But every two months we’ll take a look at...
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Album of the Day: Marching Church, “Telling it Like it Is”
One theme of Elias Bender Rønnenfelt’s lyricism and attendant imagery, throughout his varying projects (which also include Iceage, Pagan Youth and Vår), is a sense of bacchanalian splendor, a fixation...
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Seven Old-School Thrash Bands Who Are Still Lighting Up the Underground
If you’ve been paying attention to rock music in 2016, you’re probably aware of the fact that Metallica is releasing a new album, and that it’s very good. That in and of itself would be cause for...
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Video Games Are Cool, But Floex Wants to Play Floorball
Tomáš Dvořák is Floex. Photo by Tomas Jakubec. Tomáš Dvořák—better known as Floex—is a Czech clarinetist, composer and producer, known for making music for a variety of media. While he’s released a...
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Foodman, Vocaloids, and the Japanese Focus of Orange Milk Records
It has been an eventful year for Takahide Higuchi, the artist who records sparse experimental music under the name Foodman (or, in his native Japanese, Shokuhin Matsuri). He’s just returned home after...
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Seven Haunted Ladies of Folk Noir
Mirel Wagner. Photo by Alberto Garcia. Folk noir is a relatively recent term, but the style itself stretches far back to the earliest history of the blues. While there’s nothing codified about what...
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Album of the Day: Hidden Orchestra, “Wingbeats”
Think of Wingbeats by Hidden Orchestra as a bedroom symphony. Unlike a traditional symphony, Wingbeats doesn’t require a concert hall or a stage filled with dozens of musicians. Instead, the...
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How Sun Ra’s Definitive Singles Catalog Finally Saw The Light of Day
Sun Ra. Photo by Alton Abraham. Sun Ra departed Earth on May 30, 1993, just days after the 79th anniversary of his arrival. (One doesn’t talk about Ra in terms of “birth” and “death,” but more on that...
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Mint Green On the Internet, Inclusive College Spaces & Paramore
The best band names act as a reflection of the member’s personalities. It’s also a collective message, giving clues as to what genres and themes they operate in. It’s no new thing: goth and metal acts...
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