First Listen: Los Lobos, ‘Gates Of Gold’
There are no guidebooks for aging rockers who want to stay creative after countless tours, recording dates and songwriting sessions. But Los Lobos could probably write one.
Tag: NPR
First Listen: Julia Holter, ‘Have You In My Wilderness’
On her fourth album, Holter shares a part of herself that she’d always kept hidden. She’s always sung about running away, but never with such darkness or vulnerability.
First Listen: Youth Lagoon, ‘Savage Hills Ballroom’
A sensitive, trembling soul, Youth Lagoon’s Trevor Powers mixes precision and poise with a sense of being forever on the verge of falling apart.
First Listen: Dungen, ‘Allas Sak’
The paths forged by the boundary-pushing Swedish psych-rock band have gotten harder to define, but they’re also more rewarding to follow.
Review: Mac Miller, ‘GO:OD AM’
The Pittsburgh rapper makes his major label debut and presents himself as a more balanced artist and human being.
Sam Lee: Tiny Desk Concert
This former burlesque performer found his voice by finding and preserving old British, Irish and Scottish folk songs.
First Listen: Windhand, ‘Grief’s Infernal Flower’
The Virginia metal band’s third album transcends era and genre, thanks to the group’s ear for deceptively infectious songwriting — not to mention Dorthia Cottrell’s gutsy, hypnotic voice.
First Listen: Telekinesis, ‘Ad Infinitum’
Michael Benjamin Lerner’s fourth album as Telekinesis is what happens when a songwriter recognizes a bout of artistic lethargy and uses it as an opportunity to challenge himself.
Review: Battles, ‘La Di Da Di’
Careful displays of sophisticated musicality sit next to wobbling, monstrous sounds on the band’s new album of instrumental broken-robot rock.
Review: Darlene Love, ‘Introducing Darlene Love’
This is a huge-sounding album, not to mention an unapologetic celebration of the Wall Of Sound the 73-year-old singer helped build.
Review: Glen Hansard, ‘Didn’t He Ramble’
A veteran of The Frames and The Swell Season, Hansard possesses a worn but wonderfully flexible voice. Throughout his second solo album, his voice conveys kindness and warmth.
An Unlikely Archivist For Armenian Aleppo: A Punk Drummer From D.C.
He’s not a musicologist, but he’s documented several of Syria’s religious minorities, including the Armenians of Aleppo. And his work has become all the more timely — and pressing.
Happyness: Tiny Desk Concert
If you’re a fan of dark, incredibly dry, wry humor, you’ve just found Happyness. Watch the London trio perform three songs that enchant and lull, even as they jar you with their quirkiness.
First Listen: Ben Folds, ‘So There’
The ambitious singer and pianist splits his new album into halves: one recorded with the New York classical ensemble yMusic and one 21-minute “Concerto For Piano And Orchestra.”
First Listen: Jonas Kaufmann, ‘Nessun Dorma: The Puccini Album’
With a muscular, mahogany-colored voice, one of the today’s finest tenors sings his way through the hits and lesser-known operas by Puccini.
Review: Shemekia Copeland, ‘Outskirts Of Love’
The blues singer continues to resist genre constraints while tackling big issues and sounds. The resulting album speaks to the times in bold, rabble-rousing ways.
Review: Petite Noir, ‘La Vie Est Belle/Life Is Beautiful’
A bright new star from South Africa, Yannick Ilunga doesn’t need to be sonically tethered to his African roots to gather notice in rock and electronic-music circles.
Review: Gary Clark Jr., ‘The Story Of Sonny Boy Slim’
Cool and in control, Clark can shed his voice’s earthier timbre and slide into a dreamy falsetto at will. That makes for a striking contrast with his turbulent guitar attack.
First Listen: Low, ‘Ones And Sixes’
Intimacy, unease and aggression coexist in bracing, beautiful ways throughout Ones And Sixes, which feels as intimate as a whisper over pillows and as obtuse as transmissions from a faraway satellite.
Desert Music: Burning Man Confronts The Rising Beat
As Electronic Dance Music becomes more and more popular at the world’s most extreme outsider arts festival, the playa’s vibes are a-changing.