When J Mascis set up his home studio in preparation for Dinosaur Jr’s sixth album since their 2005 reunion, he decided to use a ’70s Mesa Boogie MK 1 amp for the first time since their 1985 debut Dinosaur. Independently but simultaneously, Lou Barlow was making his own nod to the past, incorporating on one song the distorted sound of a shortwave radio that he’d taped during the band’s first European tour and originally used on 1987’s You’re Living All Over Me. These two decisions say a lot about Dinosaur Jr in 2026, as Barlow and Mascis concurrently but separately reference their past, in a way so subtle and classy that nobody except them would even know they’re doing it. It’s a way of creating a bond to your history without disorientating the listener with…
Tag Archive: Jagjaguwar
Yes, the new Chanel Beads record is called Your Day Will Come (2026), which is the exact same title as the project’s previous LP, Your Day Will Come (2024). As a press release notes, the repetition is about challenging record industry norms, but it’s also a way of evoking “the duel between certainty and doubt” that mastermind Shane Lavers wrestled with during the record’s creation.
Or, to put that last part more plainly, the difference is a matter of intonation: “I’m Ron Burgundy?” versus “I’m Ron Burgundy.” So, which punctuation is Your Day Will Come (2026)?
Like its predecessor, the new album was recorded in Lavers’ small Brooklyn studio with the help of his frequent group of collaborators including singer Maya McGrory, violinist Zachary Paul…
Even the most manufactured pop stars are given the option to reinvent themselves.
Gia Margaret, however, really had no say over the circumstances that led to her breakthrough. The Chicago native started fast as a slowcore singer-songwriter who blew away South By Southwest. Then, somewhere around 2019, after coming down with laryngitis, she lost her voice. While the injury lingered, she went viral by turning herself into, of all things, an ambient artist. Now, at 38 years old, Margaret can finally sing again. Her new album occasionally falls flat, but Singing still hits plenty of high notes.
Margaret was never the type of singer to show off. On her first full-length, she sang softly and discreetly, coaxing meaning from each syllable.
VOLUMES: ONE, the first non-studio release from Bon Iver, captures 10 distinctive live performances, recorded between 2019 and 2023, showcasing Justin Vernon and his band at their most whole. There’s a warmth and exuberance across the album, as well as the sort of muscular sound you can really only get at a live show. For the uninitiated and die-hards alike, these recordings could well be the defining versions of the tracks, no doubt made possible through the essential live engineering of Xandy Whitesel and performances from bandmates Jenn Wasner, Sean Carey, Michael Lewis, Matthew McCaughan, and Andrew Fitzpatrick.
Vernon began working on VOLUMES: ONE in 2020, and he spent a considerable amount of time combing through concerts…
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.
Folk music has a bad habit of being presented as a deathly serious concern. It’s something you cry to, it’s overly sacred, it’s solemnly considered by critic-historians. But Folk Bitch Trio, former high school friends Heide Peverelle (they/them), Jeanie Pilkington (she/her) and Gracie Sinclair (she/her), have a shared sense of humour that is embedded deep in their music, and that sets it alight, safe from the self-serious traps of the genre.
Now Would Be A Good Time, their debut album, tells vivid, visceral stories, and is funny and darkly ironic in the manner of writers like Mary Gaitskill or Otessa Moshfegh. Their music sounds familiar, but the songs are modern, youthful, singing acutely through dissociative daydreams and galling breakups, sexual fantasies and media…