Review: La Luz, ‘Weirdo Shrine’
A surf-rock album that rewards close attention: there’s deep intensity and knowing behind the mellow.
Tag: NPR
Paul Weller: Tiny Desk Concert
The beloved Britpop veteran stops by the Tiny Desk with songs from his new album, Saturns Pattern — and one from his best-known record, Stanley Road.
Review: Lianne La Havas, ‘Blood’
With this album, a London singer — a Prince favorite — and her versatile voice inch closer to mainstream pop.
Review: Totó La Momposina, ‘Tambolero’
Twenty-two years after La Candela Vive, the Colombian vocalist reimagines her seminal album with Tambolero.
Review: Red River Dialect, ‘Tender Gold And Gentle Blue’
Drawing on late ’60s British folk-rock and psychedelic music, this is a quiet and desperate record that is always but a squall away from breaking apart.
Review: The Mynabirds, ‘Lovers Know’
Recorded in both the Northern and Southern hemispheres, this is a record with an explorer’s heart.
Kate Tempest: Tiny Desk Concert
A celebrated English playwright and rapper connects with her audiences through storytelling and poetry.
First Listen: Titus Andronicus, ‘The Most Lamentable Tragedy’
Shakespeare references, a cappella intermissions and sprawling 10-minute tracks aren’t what first spring to mind when thinking about punk albums. But most punk albums aren’t remotely like this one.
Can You Have An Album On iTunes If You Don’t Exist?
The strange story of a made-up pop star who managed to keep an album on iTunes for six weeks and get 64,000 followers on Twitter, without recording a note of new music.
First Listen: Jessie Jones, ‘Jessie Jones’
On her debut album, the SoCal singer-songwriter takes an ambling path through many eras of psychedelic music, from acid blues to mystical odysseys and the late-’60s moment when psych met bubblegum.
First Listen: Watkins Family Hour, ‘Watkins Family Hour’
Nickel Creek’s Sara and Sean Watkins lead a good-natured variety show with an all-star cast that includes Fiona Apple, Greg Leisz, Benmont Tench and others.
First Listen: Omar Souleyman, ‘Bahdeni Nami’
There may be no more unlikely act in indie/electronic music than a sunglasses-and-keffiyeh-wearing wedding singer with a chain smoker’s gruff voice.
First Listen: Ashley Monroe, ‘The Blade’
A solo singer, go-to collaborator and member of the Pistol Annies, Monroe is a star who’s both arrived and rising: accepted by insiders without losing her veneer of outsider cool.
The Cruel Truth About Rock And Roll
Recent allegations that one of The Runaways was raped by the band’s manager remind us that sexual exploitation is part of rock’s foundation — and challenge the very idea that it is worth loving.
First Watch: Yo La Tengo, ‘Friday I’m In Love’
And we thought a new album of cover songs by the band was good news.
Is Transparency The Music Industry’s Next Battle?
A report on the music industry from Berklee College of Music offers recommendations for ensuring that royalties make it to their rightful owners.
Review: Tame Impala, ‘Currents’
Kevin Parker’s new music veers farther away from psych-rock bombast and toward falsetto-dripped soul, fragments of dance music, and long interludes set aside for woozy, disorienting deliberation.
Goodbye, Music Tuesday: Starting Today, Albums Come Out On Friday
Around the world, new albums will now be released on Fridays. While the change is meant to help keep music from leaking early online, it could create some new headaches for music sellers.
Review: White Reaper, ‘White Reaper Does It Again’
On its first full-length album, the freewheeling Louisville band plays to classic rock ‘n’ roll ideals while simultaneously trying to dissolve them in acid.
Review: Flying Saucer Attack, ‘Instrumentals 2015’
The English band’s first album in 15 years lives in the crevices between abstract noise and melodic atmospheres. It feels outside of time, as if its songs began eons ago and could last forever.