Like all of Pallbearer’s records, Forgotten Days is resonant with arched, dramatic melodies in the classic heavy metal tradition. Conceptually, it insists on confronting hard truths about time, memory, identity, and death. There are emphases throughout that are new for… Read More
When Sharon Jones tapped her feet on stage, singing and shaking in a glitter dress, the dust from everyday life turned into sparkle to let us shine. Backed by the Dap-Kings, her powerful yet kind voice, energy, and down-to-earth attitude… Read More
Steven Wilson has long been one of the most distinguished and adventurous, yet heavily scrutinized, artists in modern art/progressive rock. Be it the harsher trajectory of Porcupine Tree’s 2000s output, the avant-garde nature of 2012’s Storm Corrosion, or the unpredictability… Read More
You’d be forgiven if you never foresaw Detlef Weinrich and Emmanuelle Parrenin teaming up. The former is a Dusseldorf DJ known for his machine-like krautrock grooves; the latter is a French harpist and hurdy-gurdyist who made a name among cratediggers… Read More
Reviewing music built primarily on instrumental ambience and drone is a Rorschach Test. Ambiguous responses may or may not reveal something about the imagery flowing through an individual’s head. Any interpretation is unscientific and does not reveal a single common… Read More
Austrian indie-pop duo Leyya have played some of the world’s best festivals, including the Reeperbahn Festival, Primavera, Iceland Airwaves, and SXSW. Their catchy music has had more than 20 million listens on Spotify, and those clever hooks have wormed their… Read More
In 2008, Chinese journalist Yang Jisheng published Tombstone, a now-definitive account of how Mao’s ill-considered plan to industrialize the nation failed to bring about the intended Great Leap Forward and instead caused the Great Famine. Jisheng—a former reporter for state… Read More
Film critic Pauline Kael once declared cattily that the only flair in Candice Bergen’s acting work is in her “nostrils”. For over 50 years, Candice Bergen was a movie star, though for much of it, she was cast in ill-fitting… Read More
“I think the idea of the leather jacket-wearing, womanizing, drug-fuelled rock star should be burned,” Charlie Steen, the frontman for London’s Shame, told The Guardian back in 2018. It was just a few days before their debut, Songs of Praise… Read More
One of the first sequences in the documentary series City So Real shows the mayoral candidates in Chicago marching in the 2018 Bud Billiken Parade, a celebration for the start of the back-to-school season in the storied Black neighborhood of… Read More