Ralphie Choo: Supernova

On his debut album, Ralphie Choo, a former chemical engineering student, toys with genres with radical abandon, manipulating sounds like reagents and catalysts in a lab. Across 14 tracks, fluttering flutes, dembow riddims, and flamenco palmas bubble up in a… Read More

The National: Laugh Track

R.E.M. had been a band for 24 years when they released their worst album, 2004’s Around the Sun, a record that magnified that aging act’s growing weaknesses and succumbed to sheer tedium. The National, perhaps not coincidentally, were also marking… Read More

Piotr Kurek: Smartwoods

Piotr Kurek’s Smartwoods comes on gradually, then all at once. An electric guitar plucks out a tentative phrase; a harp responds with unhurried plucks; metallic taps, like steel pans, add shading. Finally, an acoustic bass draws a thick, smudgy line… Read More