I really never intended to start reading the comics page of the Sunday newspaper again. As a kid, I always read the funnies, but when I was old enough to start getting a paper myself, it was the New York… Read More
There’s something comforting about the sound of familiar music. No matter how dark the outside world may seem, we can huddle in our rooms by ourselves and play our favorite songs for consolation and reassurance. Nashville’s Molly Tuttle has taken… Read More
The cover of Freeze, Melt, the latest album from Australian electropop group Cut Copy, depicts a glimmering ocean wave rolling towards the camera and a snow-capped mountain looming in the backdrop against a soft blue sky. A row of treetops… Read More
It’s tempting to compare the shebeens of apartheid-era South Africa to speakeasies elsewhere. Legal now, shebeens offered specific freedoms in a time of horrific oppression, both in terms of libation — Black South Africans were not allowed to drink at… Read More
How many artists have created their own genres? Robert Sikoryak may stand among few, especially for genres within the comics form. He has an eloquently simple concept: combine a set of words with incongruous drawings in the styles of famous… Read More
The titular distance chronicled on Jess Cornelius’ solo debut album can be measured in a plethora of ways: geographical as someone born and raised in New Zealand before moving to Australia and now residing in Los Angeles, but also the… Read More
The mid-to-late 1990s saw English guitar music surrender entirely to domesticity. For a remarkable spell, Britain had been an incubator of cutting edge outsiders who secured an audience desiring both challenge and entertainment. Exhausted by a recent recession and a… Read More
People are strange. This is the lesson we learn from strangers. The English “strange” derives from the Old French estrange, which in turn derives from the Latin extraneus. Thus, that which is “strange” is extraneous to our usual understanding of… Read More
“Down here in the bottom, there ain’t no room for me. I don’t wanna make no babies, I don’t need a man to save me,” begins “SULA (Paperback)”, the latest single from Chicago singer, songwriter, rapper, poet, educator, and activist… Read More
Danny Kirwan – Second Chapter (1975) This album is the second chapter in Kirwan’s professional life, following his firing from Fleetwood Mac in 1972. He is a gifted guitarist and songwriter who seemed to have a dual persona: reportedly volatile and argumentative,… Read More