First Listen: Joanna Gruesome, ‘Peanut Butter’
On a sophomore album that packs 10 songs into less than 22 minutes, the Welsh band showcases its considerable gift for balancing sweetness and chaos.
Tag: NPR
First Listen: Buffy Sainte-Marie, ‘Power In The Blood’
On her first studio album since 2008, the 74-year-old firebrand’s voice remains relevant, full of spit and vinegar and fun.
First Listen: Surfer Blood, ‘1000 Palms’
On its first album since leaving a major label, the Florida band sounds at once self-assured and wistful, as confident as ever and yet more careful.
José González: Tiny Desk Concert
Performing his first new solo songs in seven years, this soft-spoken Swedish singer left an imprint at the Tiny Desk that was gentle and long lasting.
Review: Torres, ‘Sprinter’
On her second album, Sprinter, Torres confronts the problem of confession head-on and proceeds to annihilate its boundaries.
First Listen: Chris Stapleton, ‘Traveller’
Stapleton presents himself as a true Southern character, a family man who clings to his vices and a searcher whose dreams of home don’t prevent him from wanting to roam.
Review: Kamasi Washington, ‘The Epic’
A versatile sideman serves as leader, filling a three-disc, nearly three-hour album with dozens of players, new ideas and transformed old ones. The title is justified.
Review: Metz, ‘II’
Raw, belligerent and dissonant — that’s just the tip of the noise-rock iceberg when it comes to Metz.
First Listen: Mac McCaughan, ‘Non-Believers’
For 25 years, the Superchunk frontman and Merge Records cofounder has quietly made some of the loudest pop in human history.
Review: Rana Santacruz, ‘Por Ahí’
Rana Santacruz’s latest, after a five-year hiatus, has music that could only come from a chilango — a Mexico City native — living in 21st-century Brooklyn.
First Listen: The Tallest Man On Earth, ‘Dark Bird Is Home’
The Tallest Man On Earth has a way of upending expectations and rendering familiarity moot.
Come To A Screening of ‘Salad Days: A Decade of Punk in Washington, DC (1980-90)’
The documentary traces the rise of the hardcore punk scene in the nation’s capital, and all the DIY energy, rage and creativity that came with it.
The Nearly Lost Story Of Cambodian Rock ‘N’ Roll
Before the Khmer Rouge regime, a thriving pop and rock scene adapted Western music heard on U.S. military radio stations. The documentary Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten took 10 years to make.
Review: Brown Bird, ‘Axis Mundi’
David Lamb of the folk duo Brown Bird died of leukemia in 2014. One year later, his musical and life partner Morgan Eve Swain is set to release the pair’s final album together.
First Listen: Jackson Scott, ‘Sunshine Redux’
If the psych-rock practitioner’s goal is to disorient, he’s succeeded. But Scott accomplishes it with the tuneful exuberance required to bring so many elements together.
Review: Bill Fay, ‘Who Is The Sender?’
Now on a tear after a decades-long hiatus, the cult songwriter mixes plain, uncomplicated humanist charm with a more questing cosmic aim.
Review: Paul De Jong, ‘IF’
The cellist and audio collagist unabashedly embraces and refines The Books’ sound on his solo debut, which contains some of the most resonant and beautiful music of his career.
First Listen: Braids, ‘Deep In The Iris’
Where the band’s last album used prickly electronics and cavernous arrangements to hold humanity at arm’s length, Deep In The Iris turns those elements into lulling hymns to cleansing and redemption.
First Listen: Mew, ‘+-‘
Six years after its last full-length album, the Danish progressive-pop band has morphed again, this time into a more streamlined, potent, startlingly evolved version of itself.
It’s Thin, It’s Plastic, It’s Back: Flexi Discs Find New Fans
In the ’60s, the cheap music format was stocked in vending machines and embossed on cereal boxes. Now, magazines like Decibel and bands like Deerhoof are reviving the once-dead flexi disc.