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At 21, Choker Is Already A Jack Of All Trades
Photo by Tyler Smith. There’s a kind of internal tug-of-war that takes place any time a listener discovers a new musician. They want the artists to succeed financially, sure, but only if they can...
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Album of the Day: James Elkington, “Wintres Woma”
Before Wintres Woma, James Elkington’s debut solo album, the English expat singer-songwriter had done a respectable 17-year tour of duty. After moving to Chicago in 2000, Elkington took up with...
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One Release a Week is Business as Usual for Vaporwave Label Business Casual
Every Friday at noon (U.S. Eastern Standard Time), like clockwork, a new release from Pittsburgh-based vaporwave label Business Casual enters the world. According to label founder John Zobele, the...
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Nine Metal Bands Leading the Blackened Thrash Attack
Vornth When Aura Noir released their debut album Black Thrash Attack in 1996, few saw it as a harbinger of things to come. Establishing a thread back to the wild side of early thrash metal—what would...
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Terminal Consumption: The Best Punk on Bandcamp, June 2017
In this installment of Terminal Consumption, our monthly reviews column focused on the margins of punk and hardcore, Sam Lefebvre reviews Xylitol’s militant meanness, Liquids’ fluid catalogue, Glue’s...
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SassyBlack Pays Homage To The ’90s On “New Black Swing”
If SassyBlack’s previous album, No More Weak Dates, was about tapping into the here and now, then her sophomore record, New Black Swing, goes back to the there and then. “This is a record I’ve been...
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Album of the Day: Mere Women, “Big Skies”
The baleful, atmospheric post-punk of Sydney quartet Mere Women is more desolate and cavernous than ever on their third album, Big Skies. Recorded with Tim Carr, who has produced all three Mere Women...
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Arto Lindsay Fuses American No Wave With Samba and Soul
Photo by Anitta Boavida. Many of the iconoclastic noisemakers who helped etch no wave—the noise-splattered music and arts scene that arose from the decay of late-‘70s NYC—into the music history books...
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The New Wave of Indie Surf
La Luz by Andrew Imanaka. No musical genre embodies the spirit of summer more than surf. It’s the music of Beach Party and the Beach Boys, of vacations and youthful exploits, of innocence and...
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Floating Points Recorded An Album In The Desert With Coyotes Nearby
Sam Shepherd didn’t mind sleeping outside in the Mojave Desert while he was recording the new album with his band Floating Points, but there was one thing the British musician and DJ was concerned...
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Völur Complicate Metal Masculinity
Photo by Victoria J Polsoni. The Prophecy Fest in Balve, Germany is the world’s only metal festival held in a cave. With the exception of Bohren & der Club of Gore, all the bands on the July 2016...
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Album of the Day: Larkin Grimm, “Chasing an Illusion”
Larkin Grimm has cited jazz saxophonist Ornette Coleman as an inspiration for her latest, Chasing an Illusion. The album doesn’t really sound like free jazz, but then, it doesn’t fit neatly into any...
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The Best Jazz on Bandcamp: June 2017
“Jazz doesn’t sound like jazz anymore.” That’s the criticism most often leveled at the modern jazz scene. It’s also the reason why the scene is as exciting as it’s ever been. Every day, a new album...
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Dub Phizix: A Rebel With A Cause
Manchester drum & bass artist Dub Phizix is feeling refreshed and energetic. In the last six months, he’s released two remarkable EPs on Metalheadz and Exit Records, which show more breadth and...
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Mulatu Astatke’s “Ethiopia” Is A Love Letter To His Homeland
When Mulatu Astatke created his now-famed take on Ethio-jazz, his intentions were simple: to shine a light on himself and other musicians from Ethiopia, a country whose sound had been neglected far...
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Piratón Records Fights Stereotypes Through Compilations
Rrayen In 2015, Carlos Huerta, formerly known as electronic/rap artist Josué Josué, and currently a music journalist, founded Piratón Records in Mexico City. Huerta had no intention of focusing on any...
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Album of the Day: billy woods, “Known Unknowns”
To live in billy woods’s world is to battle the daily problems Phife expressed on “8 Million Stories,” or the “six million ways to die” as discussed by Cutty Ranks (which is also the name of Ranks’s...
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Kafirun’s Trancelike Black Metal Travels the “Luciferian Path”
The dank caverns of black metal are populated with plenty of bands obsessed with both the darkness of life and the evil side of religion. But only a few of those bands back up their music with...
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Snapped Ankles Bring Wildness to Rock
Photo by Katie Bagley. The mild-mannered voice on the other end of the phone was not what you would expect—but then, expectations should always be checked at the door when dealing with Snapped Ankles....
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New Zealand’s Ladi6 Is Equally Rooted In Neo Soul and Hip-Hop
The United States might be thousands of miles from New Zealand, but that’s never stopped beatmaker/producer Parks and vocalist Ladi, the founding members of the electronic soul band Ladi6, from...
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