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Rapper Finsta Helped Establish The Sound of New York Hip-Hop
As a founding member of the group Black Moon and the voice behind cult independent rap classics like “Feel the High” and “Sunnyside,” the Brooklyn-raised rapper Finsta played a crucial—if...
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Hi Bias: Notable Cassette Releases on Bandcamp, August 2017
Nicole Ginelli Welcome to Hi Bias, a monthly column highlighting recent cassette releases on Bandcamp, and exploring the ideas behind them with the artists who made them. Rather than making sweeping...
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Album of the Day: Mogwai, “Every Country’s Sun”
Dirge and drone can only take you so far, as many of the bands who emerged from the post-rock/metal landscape of the late ‘90s/early ‘00s have come to realize. The ones who survive are the ones who...
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Big Ups: Bicep Pick Their Electronic Favorites on Bandcamp
Photo by Ben Price. Good taste can take you a long way. Take Bicep, for instance: Back in 2008, Matt McBriar and Andy Ferguson, two childhood friends from Belfast, Northern Ireland, started their blog,...
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A Guide to The Many Faces of Multi-Instrumentalist Charif Megarbane
If releasing just one album a year takes patience and focus, then multi-instrumentalist Charif Megarbane is one of the most patient and focused people around. As of this writing, his Bandcamp page...
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The Best Metal on Bandcamp: August 2017
This month’s best metal includes music by bands both staunchly orthodox and so experimental they render genre irrelevant. The groups that fall into the latter category are tasked with finding new ways...
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Eremite Records Celebrates Free Jazz’s Past and Present
Marshall Allen, Alan Silva, Kidd Jordan, Hamid Drake, and William Parker. Free jazz went through something of a renaissance starting around 1995. In 1997, Charles Gayle and the David S. Ware Quartet...
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Album of the Day: Hype Williams, “Rainbow Edition”
Being a fan of the art-pop group Hype Williams has always meant just rolling with whatever absurdity—musical or otherwise—they saw fit to deliver. The elusive duo has always been allegedly made up of...
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The Best Jazz on Bandcamp: August 2017
Illustration by Clay Hickson The full spectrum of modern jazz is on display in this month’s collection of recommendations, from songs that move efficiently from point A to point B, to those that...
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Japanese Electronic Producers Look to the ’80s for Inspiration
Illustration by Takashi Nakamura Nostalgia—for a place or time now lost, or memories of something purely imagined—has long been a central theme in art and entertainment. The ability to access media...
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Botanist’s Black Metal Floral Apocalypse
Metal imagery is rife with full of rotting corpses, toothy devils, blasphemy, and meat. Cannibal Corpse, Mastodon, Emperor, Black Sabbath and Deicide—those are the kinds of aggressive band names that...
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Album of the Day: Joseph Shabason, “Aytche”
As a member of Dan Bejar’s indie rock institution Destroyer and core partner to Canadian chillwave outfit DIANA, Toronto-based saxophonist Joseph Shabason is securely fastened to a very specific...
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This Week’s Essential Releases: Saharan Guitar, Somber Electronics, and Nerd Rap
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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Optimo’s DJ Twitch Makes Peace with His Eclecticism
Optimo. L to R: JG Wilkes & JD Twitch If you ever hear a DJ say that they, “play a little bit of everything,” there’s a good chance they were influenced by the Glaswegian DJ duo (and their...
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Why London’s Soul In Motion is the Sound of Drum & Bass Past, Present, and...
“It’s an experience. You’re there, you’re in the dark, you’re soaking it all up, and you just know that any minute, soon there will be another tune that will make you run to the turntables and go,...
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A Walk Through The Avant-Garde World of ‘Art Rap’ Music
Illustrations by Daiana Ruiz Coined by Chicago native Open Mike Eagle in the early aughts, “art rap” was originally a reactionary phrase, one that responded directly to the subgenre of “art rock” and...
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Faith Healer’s Introspective Indie Pop
Photo by Levi Manchak. Edmonton may be the capital of Canada’s Alberta province and home to nearly a million people, but it’s not somewhere musicians seek out as a home base. “Edmonton is just not...
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Album of the Day: Flesh World, “Into the Shroud”
From reverbed vocals to chorus pedals, the sonic trappings of goth and deathrock feel ubiquitous in underground rock lately. For some outfits, these aesthetic choices feel like tiring put-ons; for...
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Corin Tucker and Peter Buck Talk About Their New Project, Filthy Friends
Photo by Ingrid Renan. It’s no surprise that Filthy Friends’ debut record, Invitation, is so self-assured. The band is helmed by two songwriters with impeccable pedigrees: Sleater-Kinney...
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Big Ups: Helado Negro Picks His Favorite Albums on Bandcamp
Photo by Chona Kasinger. A few years ago, Roberto Carlos Lange, who writes and performs as Helado Negro, lost faith in music. Not performing it—the Brooklyn-based artist describes playing his bubbly...
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