First Listen: Lightning Bolt, ‘Fantasy Empire’
The duo takes a few steps toward modernity on Fantasy Empire, which finds Lightning Bolt moving away from congested, low-fidelity sounds in the pursuit of studio clarity.
Tag: NPR
The Austin 100: A SXSW 2015 Mix
View a list of 100 songs by artists to discover at the 2015 SXSW Music Festival.
Phox: Tiny Desk Concert
The Wisconsin band performs three of its warm, accessible songs in the NPR Music offices.
First Listen: Matthew E. White, ‘Fresh Blood’
He wanted to be the behind-the-scenes guy, not the star. But backed by strings, choirs, horns and the house band of his own label, White made a second album that isn’t different — just better.
First Listen: Omar Sosa, ‘Ile’
Sosa’s songs are saturated with the beauty and power of West African music dedicated to Yoruba deities. And yet an unmistakable reverence for jazz pervades every note.
‘You Have To Be Bored’: Dan Deacon On Creativity
The electronic artist’s new album, Gliss Riffer, is his most accesible yet. In a conversation with Arun Rath, he waxes philosophic on stress, technology and the value of a wandering mind.
First Listen: Purity Ring, ‘Another Eternity’
The Edmonton band mines the built-in tension between its many sources of effervescence and the darker shading in its words and backgrounds.
Dan Deacon: Tiny Desk Concert
The Tiny Desk becomes a DJ booth for an office space dance party. See Deacon perform three songs from his new album for an assortment of joyfully writhing public media personnel.
First Listen: Andrew Combs, ‘All These Dreams’
A 28-year-old Nashville singer-songwriter with a reticent demeanor and a fondness for offhand revelations, Combs sings subtly, without a lot of fuss.
First Listen: Of Montreal, ‘Aureate Gloom’
New ideas permeate the band’s 13th album, on which every song finds a way to surprise. Mastermind Kevin Barnes mixes a love of rock, funk and disco with unexpected ways to expand the brain.
First Listen: Moon Duo, ‘Shadow Of The Sun’
Visceral yet dreamy, the band’s third album plumbs ever deeper into droning psychedelia. Moon Duo’s influences are easy to spot, but the music feels like part of a continuum rather than a pastiche.
First Listen: Tom Brosseau, ‘Perfect Abandon’
Recording around a single microphone, the North Dakota singer sounds as if he’s performing in your living room. For these wonderfully honest stories, the fit is perfect.
First Listen: Tuxedo, ‘Tuxedo’
Detroit DJ, producer and singer-songwriter Mayer Hawthorne links up with Seattle boom-bap specialist Jake One to form the group Tuxedo, on a mission to push the funk back to the forefront.
First Listen: Swervedriver, ‘I Wasn’t Born To Lose You’
The British shoegaze band’s first album in 17 years sounds dreamy, subtle and winning. It mostly eschews the rocking of Swervedriver’s early years, but it compensates with disarming beauty.
Blur Announces First Album In 12 Years
The classic Brit-pop band’s eighth studio album will be called The Magic Whip. It will be out on April 28.
Summer Cannibals, ‘Something New’
How do you handle a breakup? Get a new haircut? How about a tattoo? Get sloshed? Kill a man? All are on the table as Jessica Boudreaux drinks and fights her way through the night in “Something New.”
First Listen: Kristin Diable, ‘Create Your Own Mythology’
The blues-rock singer combines the ambition and self-awareness of a longtime New Yorker with the easy swagger of her Louisiana home.
First Listen: Screaming Females, ‘Rose Mountain’
Compact and intense, the New Jersey band’s songs channel the spirit of punk, but also the density of heavy rock that’s had the fat cut out.
First Listen: THEESatisfaction, ‘EarthEE’
Cat Harris-White and Stas Irons have always concerned themselves with galaxy-building — their albums, videos and performances don’t arrive in this world so much as reveal theirs.
First Listen: Public Service Broadcasting, ‘The Race For Space’
Using samples from vintage news broadcasts and in-flight NASA chatter, a British duo tells the story of the Space Age’s first 15 years.