One of the smaller but more passionately enduring subcultures in the world today is that around slow dance music. The core of its audience is a Gen X crowd, a good number of whom have stuck with club culture since the mid-’90s or earlier, with others who’ve rekindled their love of electronic music in middle age: people whose knees might not be up to stomping to techno for hours, but are still deeply committed to the experience of deep and prolonged immersion in repetitive beats.
Belfast’s Phil Kieran is a key mover and shaker in this scene. Though his career began 25 years ago as a producer and DJ of high energy techno and breakbeat, as a friend and ally of the late Andrew Weatherall, he was a part of the convergent evolution towards the more…
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One of the strengths of Hot Chip is the way they encourage individual band members to plough their own musical furrows. The approach has yielded six solo albums for Alexis Taylor, the singer free to explore musical directions in which his band have not yet travelled. For his latest long player, Taylor relocated to Paris – presumably in the spring – alighting at the studio of a good friend, Air’s Nicolas Godin.
While Alexis has an instantly recognisable voice, the music on Paris in the Spring paints a very different picture to the club-based yearnings and dancefloor celebrations of his band, which appear only intermittently. Now the layers are peeled away, the listener given an unexpectedly searching portrait of Taylor’s soul.
By the time they released Lotus Bridge in 2026, The Monochrome Set had been making records off and on for almost fifty years. Most bands in a similar situation are either nostalgia acts or have been reduced to making records that chase trends or come off as pale imitations of their best work. The group have avoided all these fates and since they reformed in the mid-2010’s, they’ve been making one excellent record after another that have all the spark and invention of their early work, plus an extra layer of confidence and wisdom. This album is no exception. It’s a thoughtfully written, perfectly produced, wonderfully played, and open-heartedly sung listen presided over by the evergreen voice of Bid. The songs revolve around recurring dreams the singer/songwriter had been…
Wake by singer/songwriter Foy Vance marks the end of a 26-year, seven-album project that began with the death of his father. In 1999, while playing a gig in Spain, the Belfast-born artist experienced a transcendent moment on-stage. The next morning he was informed of his father’s death from a massive coronary on that very night. Overcome by grief, he experienced a galvanizing clarity that gave him the resolve to create seven albums informed by his father’s example, each to signify his growth as an artist. Vance’s dad was a traveling preacher who moved the family from Ireland to the American South and pointed to his son’s vocation by teaching him to play guitar in early childhood. Vance’s first outing since 2021 marks the occasion of Vance bringing in Ethan Johns as…
Throughout his career, Chicago-based trumpeter Marquis Hill has traced and celebrated Black life, while reflecting a hard-spun hope in everyday life. Further, the Black Church has remained influential on his art and spirituality. (Beautifulism) Sweet Surrender is a ten track EP, that focuses its sound and creative gaze on spirituality and transcendence with an audacious cast. The core players include guitarist Emmanuel Michel, bassist Junius Paul, saxophonist Josh Johnson, drummer Marcus Gilmore, percussionist Juan Pastor, and a slew of guests including Makaya McCraven, vocalists Amyna Love, Zacchae’us Paul, and Manessah, and rappers Cisco Swank and Kumbayaaa. The music on this 34-minute set dances a loose line between contemporary jazz, neo-soul…
A Portal to Here is the 4th long-player from U.K.- based spiritual jazz ensemble Work Money Death, and their first following the death of guitarist Chris Dawkins. The core members — saxophonist Tony Burkill, bassist/producer Neil Innes, drummer Sam Hobbs, and percussionist Sam Bell — are joined by Sorcerers’ pianist Johnny Richards, harpist Alice Roberts, baritone saxophonist Ben Powling, Richard Ormrod on woodwinds, and Kev Holbrough and Steve Parry on brass. The themes of death, grief, and remembrance are threaded throughout four lengthy tracks.
“Pain Becomes Prayer and the Prayer Becomes a Song” is a dirge introduced by sparse bass and harp in a dark, slow groove. When Burkill joins, the modal vamp expands as he articulates…
Laurel Halo composed the score for Midnight Zone, a film created as part of an installation by Julian Charrière. The film is a lighthouse lens’ voyage deep into the Pacific Ocean, revealing all manners of underwater life, from the fascinating to the frightening. Even without the visuals, the score perfectly encapsulates the feeling of drifting deeper and deeper into the darkest recesses of the ocean, a sensation filled with both wonder and fear. The 11-minute opener “Sunlight Zone” is absolutely mesmerizing, with distant, almost thundering bass shuddering beneath waves of slowly shifting strings. As the lens gets farther away from the surface, the music gets heavier and cloudier, until it manages to clear out a bit by the end. The other pieces generally illustrate similar…
When Chicago five-piece Brigitte Calls Me Baby released their debut album in 2024, they offered up an alluring mix of yearning new wave and heartbroken retro-rock made all the more evocative by lead singer Wes Leavins’ towering vocals, which split the difference between Elvis Presley (whom Leavins has portrayed on-stage) and Morrissey (who himself was influenced by Presley and “the U.K. Elvis,” Billy Fury).
On the follow-up, Irreversible, Leavins and band lean fully into the lush, pining sound of ’80s New Romantics while leaving Elvis behind but bringing along a strong Smiths sensibility. While the Morrissey comparisons are inevitable this time around, Brigitte Calls Me Baby put their own soaring, lovesick twist on influences…
Los Angeles-based six-piece The Sophs landed a record deal with Rough Trade after cold-emailing demos to 30 independent labels and hearing back from two; the other one was a rejection.
It’s easy to understand both of these reactions upon hearing GOLDSTAR. A mercurial debut album that’s also quite theatrical — think Kurt Weill and rock opera — it indulges in multiple genre send-ups during its alt-rocky journey through the head of a frankly loathsome narrator. Singer/lyricist Ethan Ramon has described the persona as part character and part a depository for brutal honesty and intrusive thoughts.
They go all-in with this idea on the opener, “THE DOG DIES IN THE END.” A song partly about watching a neighbor walk his…
The themes that weave through Mud Blood Bone, the fourth record from Canada’s Cat Clyde, tackle large, universal ideas. Yet, it’s her gift for writing deeply personal lyrics that gives the album both depth and a striking sense of intimacy. From the remarkable opener “Where Is My Love,” which explores longing and absence, to the strikingly beautiful “Night Eyes,” a song about breaking free from a toxic relationship, the record moves through familiar emotional territory while feeling as confessional as reading someone’s diary.
Mud Blood Bone finds Clyde at her most confident lyrically, while the music moves effortlessly between folk, Americana, and blues. Those blues elements are immediately apparent on the album opener, “Where Is My Love.” The song…
…features five brand-new additions: four acoustic “live off the floor” versions recorded with guitarist BJ Baartmans and a new single co-written and recorded with Luke Doucet and Melissa McClelland of the band Whitehorse.
Memories often seem to gravitate around specific songs, which stick in your mind as some of the defining pieces of a particular time or place.
They hide in the recesses of your brain, awaiting the next time you’ll listen to that particular song again, and everything will come flooding back. Music defines different periods of your life, but it can also help you better understand them.
That is, if, like Suzie Ungerleider, you’re lucky enough to have the talent (and courage) to translate your experiences into music.
It’s unfair to say that Fleetwood Mac had no pop pretensions prior to the addition of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks to the lineup in 1975. When they were led by Bob Welch they often flirted with pop, even recording the first version of the unabashedly smooth and sappy “Sentimental Lady,” which would later be one of the defining soft rock hits of the late ’70s. Still, there’s no denying that 1975’s Fleetwood Mac represents not just the rebirth of the band, but in effect a second debut for the group — the introduction of a band that would dominate the sound of American and British mainstream pop for the next seven years. In fact, in retrospect, it’s rather stunning how thoroughly Buckingham and Nicks, who had previously recorded as a duo and were…
…A lot has happened to Sweet Pill since they first exploded onto the scene with their 2022 debut, Where the Heart Is. The 10-song project launched this quintet into the contemporary rock pantheon, balancing punk, indie, and emo to create an emotionally charged, cathartic rock that was undeniable from the jump.
The band’s debut, though, is not a reference point for their sophomore effort, as Sweet Pill evolves before our very eyes. Their first release written fully as a group, Still There’s a Glow glimmers beneath that innate chemistry and a fresh lease on collaboration. These 13 songs prove to be the band’s most focused and cohesive to date, a surface-level examination, but the band’s maturity is much more deeply rooted.
The Outfit present a career defining new album, Preservers of the Pearl, asserting themselves as messengers of the new wave of underground rock and roll, pushing the movement forward alongside fellow trailblazers Mystery Lights, Sheer Mag, Shadow Show, Uni Boys…
Everything has been leading here. Daniel Romano shifts from his position as sole writer, opening the floor to Outfit stalwarts Ian Romano and Carson McHone, and welcoming into the fold longtime friend and legendary Canadian rock-n-roller, Tommy Major. The band is functioning as a true collective – multiple voices and perspectives – all serving one creative pulse. The result is both a new beginning and a homecoming, a complete and fearless statement.
Anjimile (ann-JIM-uh-lee) Chithambo has forged a distinctive musical path characterised by unflinching introspection and deep honesty. Emerging from Boston’s vibrant indie scene while studying at Northeastern University, Anjimile captivated audiences with earnest songwriting, delicate sonic textures, and performances that felt like prayer and celebration.
Critical acclaim quickly followed; 2020’s Giver Taker, hailed by Rolling Stone as one of the year’s best albums, positioned him as a compelling voice exploring enduring themes of spirituality, identity, and liberation. With The King (2023), Anjimile intensified his examination of Black and trans existence amid personal and societal turbulence, reaffirming his courageous…
Kim Gordon’s third album, PLAY ME, is distilled and immediate, expanding Gordon’s sonic palette to include more melodic beats and the motorik drive of krautrock. “We wanted the songs to be short,” Gordon says. “We wanted to do it really fast. It’s more focused, and maybe more confident.”
The follow-up to 2024’s Justin Raisen-produced, two-time Grammy-nominated ‘The Collective’ processes, in her inimitable way, the collateral damage of the billionaire class: the demolition of democracy, technocratic end-times fascism, the A.I.-fueled chill-vibes flattening of culture – where dark humor voices the absurdity of modern life.
Despite its frequent outward gaze, ‘PLAY ME’ is an interior record, one in which a heightened emotionality pulses through physical…
Blending indie pop, rock, post-punk and elements of other genres, Halifax’s The Orielles have built a dedicated fanbase since releasing their debut LP Silver Dollar Moment in 2018. The eclectic trio now returns with their fifth studio album, another beguiling blend that is hard to categorise.
Opener ‘Three Halves’ encapsulates this melange with a swaggering opening that quietens down with Esmé Dee Hand-Halford’s vocals softly shining through. There are elements of shoegaze to it. There is a thunderous outro that makes it a fascinating track, with several pieces in one.
‘Shadow of You’ also packs plenty of oomph, Henry Carlyle Wade’s guitar licks jostling with Halford’s basslines and Sidonie B. Hand-Halford’s percussive, drumbeats providing fearsome…
The Vancouver-based musician Ora Cogan exists in liminal spaces, or, rather, her music does. It transcends anodyne signifiers — folk-gaze and psych rock — to reach an indeterminate realm, where her prayer-like songs float like mist. Ephemerality prolongs. Her songs are the stuff of dreams until they morph into a nightmare: the nymph-like Cogan will lure you to a river for ablutions before drowning you like Omie Wise, or something like that. Yet you’re happy to bear witness — in fact, ecstatic.
Yes, Cogan has a similar folksy gothic aesthetic to PJ Harvey‘s White Chalk era. You know, full of witchy incantations, where ghosts linger in the shadows. Spirits in the ether — all that normal stuff. Yet being a mystic will only…
Transmitter is the latest addition to the Cut Worms universe, but this is a very different artist from the one we’re used to. Led by singer/songwriter/musician Max Clarke and started as a solo home-recording project, Cut Worms was once a lo-fi outing with daring tendencies to stretch their limited recording equipment into universal moments of unifying rock.
…Produced by Jeff Tweedy at Wilco’s famous Loft Studio in Chicago, Clarke’s latest outing as Cut Worms is some of his most poignant work to date. The new, professional-level digs allowed the musician to put his lyrics and voice first, zeroing in on his range and current mindset to unlock new levels of honesty, almost as if Clarke is learning to trust the listener for the first time.
…feature the original album remastered by Sean Magee at Abbey Road Studios, a new mix by the band’s longtime collaborator Terry Brown, and remixed and expanded edition of the live album and video Grace Under Pressure Tour.
Following the release of Signals in 1982, Rush’s 10th album would find them continuing to experiment with electronic sounds, even incorporating elements of ska in their progressive melange. For the first time since their debut, the Canadian trio elected to work with another producer/engineer than longtime collaborator Terry Brown, though they parted amicably; Peter Henderson, best known for his work on Supertramp’s Breakfast in America, produced Grace alongside the band. The group spent…