Scott Walker: Bish Bosch
In a peerless career that now spans seven decades, including shape-shifting turns from '50s teen idol to '60s singer/songwriter to '70s has-been to '80s art-rocker, Scott Walker has spent the past 20-odd years mastering a sui generis style of chthonic cabaret, his otherworldly croon soaring over gorgeous orchestration, slaughterhouse dirges and cavernous silence. read more
Found in: Music, ReviewsTom Zé: Tropicália Lixo Lógico
The album doesn’t start all that differently from Animal Collective’s Centipede Hz actually—the electronic rhythm stabs that mark the opening “Apocalipsom A” are accompanied by cuts and growls and scrapes like any other collage-oriented indie-rock. Except this one’s by a 76-year-old Brazilian and no one quite knows where it came from. read more
Found in: Music, ReviewsSolange: True
All Solange Knowles shares with big sis Beyoncé is a family crest. read more
Found in: Music, ReviewsDeftones: Koi No Yokan
Why do the Deftones get away with it? read more
Found in: Music, ReviewsDean Blunt: The Narcissist II
Achieving the kind of purposeful anonymity previously reserved for underground misfits like Jandek, Dean Blunt is steadily ascending the ranks of the lo-fi ladder. read more
Found in: Music, ReviewsJohn Roderick and Jonathan Coulton: One Christmas at a Time
This is the Christmas Vacation of indie-rock holiday albums. read more
Found in: Music, ReviewsKaki King: Glow
With its haunting melodies and eclectic mix of sounds, Kaki King’s sixth full-length album, Glow, is a solid entry in the guitarist’s varied discography. Accompanied by famed string quartet ETHEL, King has crafted a beautiful instrumental album that puts her talent for folk music on full display.... read more
Found in: Music, ReviewsGem Club: Breakers
Even in the after-glo of chillwave’s crest, nostalgia continues to be pervasive as a theme and aesthetic construct in contemporary indie pop. The warped and faded sound, loosed from its bedrock of vaguely-New Wave synthesizers has proven an effective, applied to chamber instruments. read more
Found in: Music, ReviewsThe Jayhawks: Mockingbird Time
Back in the 1990s, the Jayhawks were supposed to be huge. They’d plugged away for several years before releasing their breakthrough, Hollywood Town Hall, in 1992, earning the label alt-country more by coincidence than by actual sound. That album and its follow-up, 1995’s Tomorrow the Green Grass, honed the rustic harmonies and observational songwriting of Gary Louris and Mark Olson, who sang beautifully together about real people traipsing through the snowy Midwest. Although critically praised, the band never quite graduated from a cult to a mainstream act, which resulted in Olson leaving the band and Louris soldiering on and writing some embittered songs. read more
Found in: Music, ReviewsVan Hunt: What Were You Hoping For?
For a while, Van Hunt was a well-connected industry type, writing and producing for pop singers like of Dionne Farris, Joi and Nikka Costa. He’s even managed by Randy “Pitchy Dawg” Jackson. But beneath his velvet-smooth, VH1-friendly lover man persona is a bit of a superfreak. His evocative arrangements have always shown touches of Prince and Peter Gabriel, he covered Iggy Pop on his sophomore album and recorded a third album so free-wheeling and unconcerned with genre or anyone’s hopes that he becomes John Legend 2.0 that his previous label refused to put it out it. The punk-inflected Popular can be found on the internet, but has yet to garner an official release, and Hunt left EMI on bad terms. read more
Found in: Music, Reviews
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