"Operating as Jay Som’s sole songwriter, engineer, and producer, Melina Duterte has once again come away with a diverse set of songs held together more by her own intangible presence than by stylistic similarities" - Stereogum says in review of second album by Los Angeles indie-pop singer Jay Som. Referencing her family in the album […]
"He’s able to wield the madness with ease, satisfying in many modes... At the core, he’s rapping as good as anyone, like he always has. After years of rappers trying to be the next Young Thug, there’s still only one" - Pitchfork gives a verdict on Atlanta rapper's seventh album 'So Much Fun' (grade 8,4 […]
"Lillie Mae chants and sings non-lexical notes to create an ethereal energy... Captures the fear and beauty typically associated with angelic entities" - PopMatters says about second album by Nashville alt-country singer Lillie Mae. Here's a couple more reviews: "She plays acoustic guitar and fiddle throughout, but keeps her voice front and center, floating effortlessly […]
"Sleater-Kinney is changing, but change shouldn’t be a derogatory term. Changing is growing" - CoS says in a review of Sleater Kinney's new album 'The Center Won't Hold', produced by art-rock queen Annie Clark (St. Vincent), which some fans saw as betrayal. Two leitmotifs of the album is "how danceable it is and how almost […]
"The band’s most substantial and multidimensional offering to date... More of a career-encompassing opus than just the next album in their discography" - Metal Injection said, after hearing the album once. "A winding path through sounds mysterious and confrontational, uplifting and filled with darkness. Its 85 minutes unfurl like a brutal symphony in 7/4 time, […]
Contemporary folk played by the Slovenian band is "densely written and meticulously plotted music, played live on acoustic instruments, apparently without any overdubs", the Guardian states. "The songs (some of them 15 minutes long) are episodic, dreamlike voyages – qawwali-style vocal wailing and medieval drones mutate into free-jazz freakouts; steampunk techno (played on pots, pans […]
"Relentless, almost ruthless in its melodic radiance, both a testament to the power of positive thinking and a poignant reminder of its limitations" - Pitchfork says about their latest choice for Best New Music, third album by Long Island singer-songwriter Jade Lilitri. Lilitri was in an emo band prior to Oso Oso, and you can […]
Brazilian samba icon Elza Soares has shared a brand new song 'Libertação', featuring fellow Brazilian vocalist Virgínia Rodrigues (listen below). Soares (82) has released nearly three dozen albums across her career, which has spanned for nearly 70 years.
"Loud, nasty, serrated music, music built on thudding drum machines and squalling sirens and scuzz-rasp vocals and house pianos and distorted guitars" - Stereogum argues their latest AOTW choice (the man behind it, Benjamin John Power made music for the London 2012 Olympic opening ceremony). "Innocent music for degraded times... heavy and emotional"; listen to […]
You could say Moken plays afro-pop indie-folk, but what distinguishes him from the rest are his "richly bizarre imagination", as PopMatters puts it, and his voice and style of singing. So, yes, he's special - "it's certainly the musical road less traveled. But to hear Moken singing his truths is undeniably delightful". Part Time Audiophile […]
"Bold, fearless and exhilarating" - Kerrang! says about masked metallers' sixth album, but it's not only metal scene that likes it. NME calls it "an astonishing record", Exclaim says it's a "rebirth of the maniacal and constantly changing sound that earned them their fame, and opens a new chapter for the band", even the sophisticated […]
"YBN Cordae is one of the most interesting breakout stars of the year" - High Snobiety says in review of Maryland rapper's first official album 'The Lost Boy'. His style "switches from goofy to street smart to introspective at the drop of a hat", he is open about his emotions - "a heartfelt record", and […]
The London paper decided not to use the term "world music" anymore, since they deemed in derogative, instead all the music that isn't western popular music is "global" now. So, their latest Global album of the month is 'Parted Plains' by the American sitar player Ami Dang, and it's the chosen one for August because […]
"Constant internet access and social media as life support allows access to more and more content, but in ever shorter bits and pieces: tweets over breakfast; half an article on the bus; a flick through Instagram at the desk. 'Anima' seems to argue that this creates a society that’s tired, overstimulated, and undernourished" - the Quietus says […]
It's not really much of a surprise Pitchfork labeled Bon Iver's soon to be published album 'i,i' Best New Music (high mark od 8,8 of 10). Let's see why: "Justin Vernon takes the Bon Iver sound and reassembles it like a cubist collage, with his voice right out front... Vernon himself sings with more texture […]
"These songs are accessible and confidently constructed, with catchy choruses and unfussy execution... The kind of songs that are powerful and uncompromising but, on some deeper level, are just as unsure and vulnerable as the rest of us... Slicing electric guitars, padded synths, and an intoxicating New Wave-adjacent swagger add up to songs that are […]
Technically, Föllakzoid is this: "bass, drums, guitar, locked into a strictly rhythmic 4/4 groove, with occasional slow burning drones and heavily distorted vocals", sonically - "all of Föllakzoid’s music swells and convulses with desert spectres and spirits, it’s music that occupies a world wherein the horizon can never fully be focused on, and all is […]
"Newness isn't always the point. There's a place for growth and craft within a form, and that, too, can be great. Every time I think lo-fi indie rock is dead as dead can be, bloated on the beach, I discover at least a dozen people running around, reattaching limbs, shocking life back into it. And […]
Polish industrial techno producer Zamilska returns with her third album 'Uncovered', and it's her best yet, the Quietus says. Her intention, tQ feels, is "to create a sense of suspension, to hold you within a moment of tension between outright silence and cavernous booms". Listen to the album at BandCamp.
"'More Arriving', the latest from UK-based drummer/tablaist and composer Sarathy Korwar, is a confrontational, musically far-reaching addition to the revolution music toolkit... A remarkable meeting of jazz, hip-hop, Indian classical music, and radical politics" - the Quietus reviews new album by the London musician. "Bursts of reggae wooziness, gnarled free-jazz atonality, and electronic noise afford […]
Fierce women on stage doing their actual work. They sweat and make awkward faces. Wrinkles in their brows and the cellulite in their arms. Their eyes glaze over when the groove is strong... their eyes focus on the drummer to cue in the bridge verse. Untied shoes and precariously coiled amp cables - those are […]
Californian electronic producer Datach'i made his new record 'Bones' after his father died. He obviously found peace and hope, since album is "Full of gorgeous modular synth work to produce characteristically dreamy, ambient electronics and warm, soothing melodies", as PopMatters says. "A beautifully rendered IDM album with boldly expansive yet gorgeously rendered tracks that offer […]
Two years ago Clairo made a break-out success of YouTube hit 'Pretty Girl', now she has a debut album, 'Immunity' which critics mostly love. Paste Magazine says it's a "smoothly-produced pop record about queer relationships"; Sputnik Music says she's "deep in thought, full of confidence"; Stereogum is simple - "good songs"; Rolling Stone says she […]
There are: Memoriam - band built on ruins of Bolt Thrower, "hitting it right" on third album 'Shell Shock'; French band Grenouille play "brutal death metal in the unceasingly blasty and scuzzy fashion" on 'Les Vierges De Grasse'; Antigone’s Fate's 'Morgengrauen' is "an epic that goes from down and out to soaring above the clouds"; […]
Hayes (with a heroin habit and a heart condition) died at 38 in 1973 before he could distil his skills into something as single-mindedly hefty as John Coltrane, or as capriciously flighty as Ornette Coleman. But 'Grits, Beans and Greens' – made in 1969 just before Hayes’ health declined, long-lost and now finally mastered and […]
"'Safe And Also No Fear' is like a good short story collection, where you can glean enough personal details about the writer to get an idea of their point-of-view, but the focus is on other people and how they can be reflective of the world as a whole. Ewald has become a master of character sketches, […]
"And while the idea of Segall working without a guitar sounds akin to robbing an infant of its blanket, 'First Taste' is still quintessential Segall: shaggy, tripped out, and all over the sonic map" - Consequence of Sound really likes the 13th album the American multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter. "Segall once again makes the various ideas and […]
The Quietus made a selection of best albums and songs from the month of July. They chose: "the miraculous" 'Dolphine' by Californian folk singer Mega Bog, sludge punk 'No You' by Rainbow Grawe, the electro folk horror soundtrack for 'Midsommar' by The Haxan Cloak, the intense record 'Caligula' by Lingua Ignota, Berlin house-meister Barker, grime's new girl Nadia […]
French musician, poet, and visual artist Félicia Atkinson made her new album 'The Flower and the Vessel' while awaiting a child - “not about being pregnant but a record made with pregnancy", trying "to reassert her connection to the world". It is an album placed "in the intimate, unruly liminal space between comfort and discomfort, quiet […]
Guardian reviews new Bruce Springsteen biopic 'Blinded By the Light': "Another crowd-pleasing but emotionally sincere tale of teenage multicultural strife, but it is also yet another movie celebrating the power of classic, white-guy rock. It is beginning to feel like a conspiracy: repackaging the 20th-century rock canon to a generation who don’t really listen to […]
