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PLUS100 Records: Not Your Typical Athens, Georgia Record Label
Jeff Cardinal is busy. He’s recently completed fall semester classes at the University of Georgia, which means it’s time to focus on his label, PLUS100. For a little over a year, PLUS100 has been...
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On “La Saboteuse,” Yazz Ahmed Combines U.K. Jazz With the Music of Bahrain
The first indication of what Yazz Ahmed’s new album, La Saboteuse, might sound like actually appeared on her 2011 debut, Finding My Way Home. On that album, the trumpeter made skillful use of Arabic...
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Descartes a Kant Turn Toxic Love Into a Punk Cabaret
Beneath the hedonistic reverie of Descartes a Kant’s Victims of Love Propaganda is the story of a fictional couple, told over the course of 10 deliciously volatile tracks. The songs follow a...
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Album of the Day: Institute, “Subordination”
Across a couple of records and EPs released since 2014, Austin, Texas punk outfit Institute have excelled in articulating anguish, particularly when it comes to Moses Brown’s retching vocal delivery....
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The Outsider Insights of the Queer Country Quarterly
Karen and the Sorrows by Carol Litwin. “This is the song about pickup trucks and liking girls that country music has been waiting for,” Karen Pittelman announced on stage this past January. Pittelman...
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Mutoid Man on Their “Most Perverted” Record to Date
Since their somewhat casual inception in 2012, Mutoid Man has transformed from an outlet for Stephen Brodsky (Cave In) and Ben Koller (Converge, All Pigs Must Die) to explore the lighter side of metal...
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Dawkins on “Splatter-Pop,” The D.C. Music Scene, and Their Debut EP
Photo by Cina M Nguyen. On Dawkins’ simply-titled debut EP, Ep1, the Washington, D.C. area group offers a handful of widescreen, pop-flecked productions that don’t slot easily into any single category....
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Suicide’s Martin Rev on Making Music Out of History
Photo by Divine Enfant. It’s not easy to summarize the vast musical history of 69-year-old groundbreaker Martin Rev, but his new album Demolition 9 does a pretty good job. Across 34 tracks—most of them...
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Album of the Day: Beach Fossils, “Somersault”
Launched in 2009 as the solo project of singer-songwriter Dustin Payseur, Beach Fossils has since expanded to become a full-on rock quartet. On previous albums Clash The Truth, released in 2013, and...
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This Week’s Essential Releases: Coldwave, Avant-Folk and Indie Rock
Welcome to Seven Essential Releases, our weekly roundup of the best music on Bandcamp. Each week, we’ll recommend six new albums, plus pick an older LP from the stacks that you may have missed....
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The Local Action Label Blurs the Borders Between Dance Genres
Label head Tom Lea, photo by Vicky Grout. Viewed from one perspective, the history of British dance music is a tale of genres. Jungle, grime, U.K. garage, dubstep—each one born and bred in the nation’s...
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Record Stores Labels Love
From emporiums with vast caverns of dusty, disorganized stacks, to the slick, wooden-box shops, where carefully-curated bins of vinyl are perfectly positioned next to screen prints, the world has no...
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Perera Elsewhere Does What She Wants, And You Can’t Stop Her
Photo by Hugo Holger Schneider. Sasha Perera, aka Perera Elsewhere, always has one ear tilted toward the future. As the vocalist in the Berlin trio Jahcoozi, Perera and her bandmates made...
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Chastity Belt on Bro-Trolling and Growing Up (Sort Of)
All photos by Chona Kasinger Every band begins with a mission. Some yearn for fame, others for fortune; many are just looking for a way to pay the bills, and a few want to make art for art’s sake. The...
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Album of the Day: The Heliocentrics, “A World of Masks”
Instead of orbiting a single musical style, the Heliocentrics’ expansive jams spiral out into countless galaxies of sound. The U.K. ensemble has spent years squeezing fragments of hip-hop, jazz,...
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TALsounds Creates Fully-Improvised, Ethereal, Emotional Pop Songs
Vocalist and composer Natalie Chami, who has recorded as TALsounds since 2009, is well-versed in the upside of leaving things to chance. She has spent years quietly issuing a string of cassette...
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Sarah Louise’s Cosmic Guitar
Finding inspiration in the woods and hills around her home in Asheville, North Carolina, 12-string guitarist Sarah Louise imbues her music with a free-flowing, organic quality. Her melodies snake...
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“I’m Not the Same”: Lessons from Aaradhna’s “Treble & Reverb” Five Years Later
Even though I was a pre-teen with little experience in heartache, Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black dominated my middle school years. As a young, brown Asian girl, I was told vulnerability was a weakness,...
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Ken Vandermark’s Indefatigable Drive and Avant-Garde Vision
Photo by Andy Moor. For more than two decades, the Chicago reedist, bandleader, and composer Ken Vandermark has served as something of a DIY icon, a fiercely independent musician pursuing improvisation...
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Album of the Day: Nina Miranda, “Freedom of Movement”
In 1997, Nina Miranda’s voice became familiar to U.K. trip-hop fans thanks to the overnight success of her band Smoke City’s single, “Underwater Love.” (Michel Gondry even used it in a Levi’s ad he...
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