The highly demanded music producer and songwriter Mark Siegel announces the release of two new projects he has recently worked on, in the midst of the lockdown triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic: “Luckiest” by Jackie Castro and “Hold Me Down”… Read More
The title of Staten Island-based instrumental funk group Budos Band’s upcoming 15th-anniversary album, Long in the Tooth, is a perhaps obvious but no less satisfying piece of wordplay that speaks to both the group’s longevity and style. Evocations of the… Read More
In 1988, right in the thick of what has since been canonized as hip-hop’s golden age, the trailblazing rap outfit Public Enemy issued one of the all-time musical reckonings America has ever received with sophomore album It Takes a Nation… Read More
Peals are a band that somewhat confounds expectations while producing results that are equal parts surprising and soothing. The duo, consisting of bassists William Cashion (of Future Islands) and Bruce Willen (of Double Dagger), have crafted a sound that only… Read More
Jean Renoir is a poet of murder. That’s not how he’s typically described. We’re supposed to talk about his films’ humanism, lyricism and generosity, the subtleties of his philosophy, the details of his composition and camera gestures, the expansive protean… Read More
By 1970, John Lennon struggled to break free from his former Fab Four image and transform himself into a more cynical, hard-edged solo artist. John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, in particular, is known for its emotionally naked and brutally honest songs.… Read More
Death, the latest release from the formidable Portland, Oregon instrumental group Coastlands, arrives on 9 October via Translation Loss in the United States and Dunk! Records in Europe. Rather than serving as a grim reminder of the eventual vacating of… Read More
Medium Rarities is Mastodon’s first odds and ends compilation. With a career spanning two decades, it seems the band would have a lot of interesting extraneous material available for this sort of release, but it turns out there really isn’t… Read More
When the world learned that President Trump had tested positive for COVID-19 in the early hours of Friday morning, his supporters reacted with dismay. The reactions of his opponents, however, were more complicated. It seemed wrong to wish this plague… Read More
1. “Everything in Its Right Place” I still remember where I first listened to Kid A. There aren’t many albums I can say that about, but most of us at least remember how ridiculously anticipated the album was as the follow-up… Read More