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Ezra Furman’s “Twelve Nudes” is a “Firehose of Frustration”
Photos by Jessica Lehman Ezra Furman is done running away—for now, anyway. Escape has long been a core theme of the 33-year-old singer’s work. Last year’s Transangelic Exodus made that theme explicit—a...
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Joell Ortiz Embraces Growth on “Monday”
Photos by Jeremy Deputat As the start of a typical work week, Mondays have a notoriously bad reputation. But what if we thought about it differently? What if we looked at Monday as an opportunity to...
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Tropical F*ck Storm Stir Up A Psychedelic, Dadaist Spectacle
Photo by Chris Matthews “It’s a love song, but it’s about killing an immortal Nazi witch… so, I don’t know.” Gareth “Gaz” Liddiard is sketching out a broad roadmap to “Maria 63,” the closing song on...
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Kindness Preaches Self-Acceptance on “Something Like A War”
Photo by Michele YongKindness, aka Adam Bainbridge, journeyed to Johannesburg, South Africa in November 2016 for the annual Black Portraitures conference, returning to the country where their...
View ArticleAlbum of the Day: Pharmakon, “Devour”
Listening to Pharmakon has never exactly been a passive act. Rather than recede into the background, Margaret Chardiet’s savage noise compositions seize you by the shoulders with a violent shake. That...
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This Week’s Essential Releases: Black Metal, Art-Pop, Soul and More
Welcome to Essential Releases, our weekly roundup of the best music on Bandcamp. Each week, we’ll recommend crucial new albums that were released between last Friday and this Friday, plus pick an...
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Whitney Examine Friendship and Loss On “Forever Turned Around”
Photo by Olivia BeeWhitney’s Max Kakacek and Julien Ehrlich have known each other for more than a third of their lives. They’ve been making music together for nearly 10 years, first as members of...
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The Best Soul on Bandcamp: August 2019
These new releases—from Nathaniel Star to Staci Jackson—are all about turning R&B on its head. August is an exciting month for soul. Nathaniel StarBush Master While Nathaniel Star’s voice is...
View ArticleAlbum of the Day: Kaleta & Super Yamba Band, “Mèdaho”
Leon “Kaleta” Ligan-Majek has performed in Nigerian bands led by both juju giant King Sunny Adé and Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti. Yet it’s the latter who provides the template for much of the Benin-born...
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For Psych Duo Guaxe, There’s No Such Thing as “Brazilian Music”
Although Americans often seem to view a musician’s country of origin as an essential factor in that artist’s creative identity, Pedro Bonifrate is right when he says there’s really no such thing as...
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Magnetic Fields’“69 Love Songs”: Ten Crucial Cuts
Illustration by Murugiah By 1999, The Magnetic Fields had long been darlings of the college radio circuit. The band, led by Stephin Merritt, emerged from Boston in 1991 with the single “100,000...
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Electronic Label Deepblak Prefers to Be Unclassifiable
Berlin-based label head, producer, and musician Aybee, aka Armon Bazile, describes his vanguard electronic label Deepblak as an ongoing relationship with the drum. Co-piloted by Afrikan Sciences (aka...
View ArticleAlbum of the Day: Mizmor, “Cairn”
Mizmor’s latest full-length, Cairn, is an exercise in extremes. The penultimate song, “Cairn to Suicide,” begins as an extreme metal workout, with double-bass drums and throat-rending shrieks. At the...
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The Best Jazz on Bandcamp: August 2019
The albums in this month’s column could, on their own, take up a third of the slots in a Year-End Top 10 List. That’s an amazing occurrence, and it proves yet again just how strong jazz and improvised...
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The Persistent Punk of Cockroach Clan
Photo by Dan A NachtnebelCockroaches are reviled by most right-thinking people, but there’s something oddly admirable about their resilience. Take, for instance, how their circulatory system is set up...
View ArticleAlbum of the Day: Kristin Hersh, “Crooked”
Kristin Hersh’s solo music has a raw, desolate tone that’s distinct from her work with her bands, alt-rock icons Throwing Muses or the pummeling 50 Foot Wave. Her conspiratorial voice sounds more...
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Musical World-Building: Albums Set in Lands of the Artists’ Own Creation
Illustration by Patrick Saville During the boom in science fiction and fantasy literature that hit during the middle of the 20th century, writers began exploring in greater depth and detail the worlds...
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Cemican Blend Indigenous Mexican Traditions with Metal Ferocity
As long as there’s been rock music, indigenous people have been making it. The 2018 documentary Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked The World filled in a lot of gaps, telling the stories of legendary Delta...
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Lifetime Achievement: The Burrell Brothers
Twin brothers Ronald (Rhano) and Rheji Burrell first fell in love with music when they were children. “When I was in 10th grade, a guy just came up to me and said, ‘I heard you playing keyboards. Want...
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R.E.M. Release “Fascinating”—Recorded in Nassau, Bahamas—to Benefit Victims...
Today, R.E.M. are releasing a 2004 version of “Fascinating,” a track originally recorded during the sessions for their 2001 album Reveal. All proceeds from sales of “Fascinating” will go to benefit...
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