Rachel Bobbitt arrived in Toronto from the hinterlands a few years ago, meeting up with similarly rural-born but city-loving musicians like Justice Der (her bandmate in dream-pop-into-hip-hop Call More).Her work in Swimming Towards Sand, then, elevates the drone and dirge of alt-folk into soaring multi-vocal pop, shimmering with the clarion tunefulness of Sharon van Etten and Jenny O.
Consider, for instance, the opener, “Don’t Cry,” which germinates from a buzzing, groaning long-tone, an archaically folky sound. Yet, it soon expands into euphoric pop, kicking into gear half a minute in with a burst of drumming and a swell of choral vocals. In anthemic mode, Bobbitt’s voice is remarkably pure, relentlessly…
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During the pandemic, Mike Hollon headed to Irving Park with a guitar, a notebook, and a bottle of wine. It was a period that inspired his debut album, and one he still remembers, saying, “I can take myself back there and it calms me.” Calm and confident are two words that best describe the eleven tracks on Irving Park, despite its initial recording being disrupted by Hurricane Helene, which destroyed the bar Hollon was working in at the time. A vintage baritone ukulele bought in Madrid adds atmosphere to the bright and breezy ‘Love’ and ‘Movin’ Along’. But it’s not all sunny skies and smiles; there’s some serious substance here. The opening ‘1000 Days’ is a post-breakup song where Hollon reflects on “a thousand days spent looking back.” While the blues-influenced ‘Fool No More’…
“Introducing Self Portrait, the latest chapter from the endlessly inventive one-man force Ryan Adams — a brand-new, 24-track album that brings together fresh, unheard originals alongside spellbinding reinterpretations of classics by R.E.M., New Order and more.
The broadside, as a form of communication, has a long and relatively complex history on both sides of the Atlantic, straddling the boundaries between politics and musical entertainment. As a composer, sound artist and folk musician with an interest in social commentary, 
The Brooklyn-based RVNG label has been putting out installments of their FRKWYS series since 2009, pairing artists across generations and letting creative sparks fly. It was barely more than happenstance that led to 
Based in the Ecuadorian Andes, ‘neotraditional’ 
In 2022, the San Diego punk-rock supergroup of Pinback’s Rob Crow, Rocket from the Crypt’s John Reis and Atom Willard, and Mrs. Magician’s Jordan Clark released a 
Londoner 
1. Big Thief – No Fear
As we’ve come to expect from Ace’s much-admired series of Jon Savage-curated two-CD collections, this new – and sadly final – volume is a multi-genre delight, taking the listener from house to baggy via post-punk, proto-grunge, minimalist avant-garde, the advent of sampling and more.
After more than a decade away from European stages, legendary Australian rock outfit The New Christs are finally returning. To celebrate this long-awaited comeback, Wild Honey Records and FOLC present 
It was a difficult time for me when I started working on this album. I had just uprooted myself from the city apartment building where I’d been living for twenty years to a house in a more rural town two hours away where I knew no one when one of my best friends died (“Ashes”), and then my dog died (“Constant Companion”), then my mother was diagnosed with esophagus cancer (“Scratchers”). I was pretty depressed for a solid year (“Long Slow Nervous Breakdown”) and lost and very lonely (“Harmonizing With Myself”). I was thinking about fate and circumstance and about how I’d ended up where I was (“Where Are You Now”).
From Academy Award® winning writer/director Chloé Zhao, 
If there’s one constant for the UK’s Wisdom Teeth label, it’s evolution. Perhaps that’s fitting, given that its name implies growth and maturation. Since it was founded, just a little over a decade ago, Wisdom Teeth has traversed a gamut of styles, moving as steadily as the progress bar crawling across the waveform of a DJ mix. Early experiments in dubstep gave way to unorthodox bass music and leftfield techno; successive compilations have been dedicated to narrowly bounded experiments in the wiggly terrain around 100 BPM or the quick-stepping possibilities of the 150-170 zone.
Originally issued in 1998, 
Narcomancer covers a lot of ground. The album’s opening tracks are reminiscent of acousmatic music in the GRM sense, loose structures built from overlapping fragments of sound. Undergirding these complex textures are brooding and dark layers of synth that move slowly with a muted sense of dread. However, they are punctuated by abrupt bursts of shimmering tones, falling musical figures, didgeridoo, weird vocalizations, and soft beats. The album employs ambient, techno, and electroacoustic techniques without falling clearly into any of these genres.