First Listen: Sufjan Stevens, ‘Carrie & Lowell’
A prolific, wide-ranging singer-songwriter crafts an intimate memorial to his late mother, who died three years ago.
Category: Sounds
First Listen: Death Cab For Cutie, ‘Kintsugi’
If Death Cab For Cutie’s 17-year career has focused on a single overarching theme, it’s the process of growing up and fumbling for connection.
No Deep Philosophy Here: Old Indian Just Wants To Play Sick Riffs
Old Indian doesn’t have any highfalutin ideas about its music. The fuzz-rock band from Frederick, Maryland, is focusing on the…
‘To Pimp A Butterfly’ Aspires To Be Music’s Great American Novel
Kendrick Lamar’s long-awaited new album dropped late Sunday night, nine days early. On it, the rapper wades into our current moment of peril around race, inequality and brutality.
Premiere: Polyon’s Hard-Driving New Single, ‘More’
In his bands Typefighter and Joy Buttons, D.C. musician Ryan McLaughlin has helped launch numerous heavy-duty rock songs into the…
Listen To An Enigmatic Song From Ensemble Volcanic Ash, Playing Tonight At Union Arts
The deep-voiced thrum you hear at the top of this tune isn’t bass, but cello. To be precise, it’s the…
First Listen: Buena Vista Social Club, ‘Lost And Found’
The famed Cuban collective dusts off treasures from nearly 20 years of recording and touring — just in time to say goodbye.
Review: Liturgy, ‘The Ark Work’
The metal band embraces classical music, glitchy IDM and even rap on its new album. The deeper into it you delve, the more its audacity and imagination start to bloom.
Review: Laura Marling, ‘Short Movie’
The singer’s new album shakes up her rumbling acoustic arrangements with an influx of electric sounds, in the process giving her a greater arsenal with which to brood, search, seethe and menace.
Review: The Go! Team, ‘The Scene Between’
With the aid of mostly unknown guest vocalists, the group’s proven formula receives a fresh shot of youth, enthusiasm and pure pop fierceness.
Ben Khan, ‘1000’
The young British soul singer floored us last year with his debut EP, 1992. On “1000,” he proves it wasn’t beginner’s luck.
Hear Lydia Loveless Cover Prince’s ‘I Would Die 4 U’
This roughed-up, rootsy take on one of Prince’s most ecstatic pop songs — out on Record Store Day — makes good on an April Fools’ Day prank that fans wished wasn’t a joke.
Think Baltimore Music Is Weird? In The ’90s, Towson And Glen Arm Music Was Even Weirder.
Spurred by new, affordable technology, the home-recording boom of the 1980s and ’90s produced some of the most idiosyncratic music…
This New Kokayi Video Might Make You Cry A Little
At the top of 2014, multitalented hip-hop artist Kokayi turned in what I considered the best local submission to NPR’s…
Listen To The Haunting Debut From R&B Duo April + VISTA
“If Light Escapes,” the debut single from singer-producer duo April + VISTA, shines without the gaudiness of most modern chart-topping…
First Listen: Chastity Belt, ‘Time To Go Home’
For a record that aims to interrupt and rewrite the machinations of college-age womanhood in 38 minutes flat, Chastity Belt’s new album is remarkably easygoing.
Review: Twin Shadow, ‘Eclipse’
In songs that go big and hit home, referencing the biggest sounds from the ’80s and beyond, Twin Shadow sets his musical register to “epic” and only looks upward from there.
Review: Houndmouth, ‘Little Neon Limelight’
For its second album, the Indiana roots-rock band expands on its youthful devotion to shaggy, swinging, big-screen storytelling.
Review: Inventions, ‘Maze Of Woods’
Explosions In The Sky guitarist Mark Smith and Eluvium’s Matthew Cooper make natural collaborators. On their second album as Inventions, they craft head-nodding, vaguely unsettling music together.
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.