First Listen: Dan Deacon, ‘Gliss Riffer’
Even when built around familiar pop-song structures, Deacon’s music is juxtapositional and wonderful — a pursuit of the ecstatic that obliterates genre distinctions.
Tag: NPR
First Listen: The Pop Group, ‘Citizen Zombie’
Recording a reunion album after 35 years, the defiant and inventive British band meets the modern era head-on, tempering its dystopias with the rhythms required to move bodies and open minds.
The Tiny Desk Concert Contest Winner Is …
Out of thousands of submissions, one soulful musician came out on top.
These Are The Best D.C. Submissions To NPR’s Tiny Desk Contest
I’m using both the terms “D.C.” and “bands” loosely when I say that 130 D.C. bands submitted videos to NPR’s…
First Listen: Six Organs Of Admittance, ‘Hexadic’
Band mastermind Ben Chasny built his own set of compositional rules around clusters of six poker cards in order to create a whirlwind of dreamy noise and harsh rock ‘n’ roll.
First Listen: Ibeyi, ‘Ibeyi’
The 20-year-old twins of Ibeyi make their debut with cool French textures and raw, emotional lyrics — underpinned with a deep, soulful Afro-Cuban sound.
First Listen: The Mavericks, ‘Mono’
After more than 25 years, the band’s weapons are still consummate skill, the clarion charisma of singer Raul Malo, and the wisdom to know that fun is what wins in the end.
First Listen: José González, ‘Vestiges & Claws’
González’s songs are slight little creations, with minimal words encapsulating big ideas and breezy pop melodies disguising weighty notions about life’s endlessly refracting illusions.
First Listen: A Place To Bury Strangers, ‘Transfixiation’
There’s a new-found tightness in the band’s attack that’s as refreshing as it is menacing. Destructive and dreamy, Transfixiation is the sound of APTBS turning its demolitionist tactics on itself.
First Listen: Pops Staples, ‘Don’t Lose This’
The late icon presided over some of the most crucial music of the 20th century. Fifteen years after his death, his final recordings have been completed with the aid of Jeff Tweedy and Mavis Staples.
Say Lou Lou, ‘Nothing But A Heartbeat’
Twin sisters Miranda Anna and Elektra June Kilbey-Jansson, a.k.a. Say Lou Lou, have been bubbling under for more than a year since they first popped up on the BBC’s Sound Of 2014 list.
First Listen: The Districts, ‘A Flourish And A Spoil’
The band’s cathartic rock rages in familiar ways, but with unexpectedly devastating twists of the knife. Proudly sloppy and artfully bloodthirsty, The Districts’ music never sounds monochromatic.
First Listen: Paperhaus, ‘Paperhaus’
The D.C. guitar band’s music can be jarring and jagged, as its members channel Krautrock and psychedelic blues. But it’s also dreamy, with lilt and grit.
First Listen: Quarterbacks, ‘Quarterbacks’
With 19 songs in just 22 minutes, Quarterbacks offers pop melodies at punk speed and a reminder that love and hurt needn’t always be rendered at epic scale.
First Listen: JD McPherson, ‘Let The Good Times Roll’
Though his music honors mid-century sounds with laser precision, the Tulsa rocker takes so many little chances in his songs that they never sound like mere replicas.
Bobby Bare Jr.: Tiny Desk Concert
The Nashville singer writes with acidic wit in lines worthy of his old mentor, Shel Silverstein.
First Listen: John Carpenter, ‘Lost Themes’
The film director is known for composing and performing his own soundtracks. On Lost Themes, he reaches beyond the movies to craft a collection of understandably cinematic-sounding music.
First Listen: Mount Eerie, ‘Sauna’
An arresting, frozen-moment splay of images and emotions, Phil Elverum’s latest album as Mount Eerie feels less like a meditation and more like a slow-motion mauling.
First Listen: Asaf Avidan, ‘Gold Shadow’
The Israeli singer has a compelling, unusual, wholly original voice. On Gold Shadow, his first official release in North America, he writes with passion and poetry.
First Listen: Title Fight, ‘Hyperview’
On its third album, the band doesn’t quite shed its punk roots — at least not entirely — but it does sound like something out of a dream spent underwater.