A Spike Lee documentary 'American Utopia' about Talking Heads frontman David Byrne's 2019 concert show has opened the 2020 Toronto Film Festival, and the critics love it, BBC reports. 'American Utopia' shares its name with Byrne's 2018 album and 2019 Broadway show. Variety said it was "playful and entrancing", the Hollywood Reporter called it "simply spectacular", while IndieWire says it isn't "just a concert doc, but also a life-affirming, euphoria-producing, soul-energising sing-along protest film".

"The Band’s story seems perfectly concise and contained, ideal celluloid fare, and 'Once Were Brothers' director Daniel Roher does a fabulous job of scooping it up in one piece and placing it neatly on film" - Mark Beaumont writes in the review of the new documentary about the Americana godfathers. "Everything about The Band feels so steeped in dust and mythology that the entire film feels like a window into something strangely arcane".

"Regrowth’s sound is a grand, intense form of hardcore — huge, anthemic, emotionally wracked, full of big-gesture hooks. They scream hard, play big riffs, and put busy textures into their sound... The songs on 'Lungs' are long and ambitious and sometimes beautiful. They can be heavy, but they always have hooks" - Stereogum writes about the debut album by the Sardinian band.

Dutch-Iranian singer Sevdaliza's 'Shabrang is an album of sad music bringing joy through sheer beauty. The album is slow, but her voice gives it strength. It's pop music, but its sadness makes it alternative. Technically, there's not much music here, but its emotional maximalism gives it richness. A case of beautiful alter-pop music...

"'Mach's Hard Lemonade' favors brevity, and there's something very effective in our information-overload times about a 9-song, 22-minute album that never lets up and lends itself to replays" - Brooklyn Vegan stated about Mach-Hommy's new album. Both of the essential elements are upped on this one -"Mach-Hommy's production sounds bolder and richer than usual on this album, and his rapping is louder, clearer, and more attention-grabbing, but he hasn't abandoned the psychedelic, radically left-of-center sound that's made him such a cultishly loved artist in today's rap underground".

Electronic duo Nightports invite a collaborator into their glitching realm. The collaborator improvises and Nightports will manipulate the recordings into one cohesive artwork. This time around they invited The Comet is Coming drummer Betamax who gave them his "quick fire tubthumping". The resulting album is on the edges of experimental and pop music but also, as the Quietus says, "a thought-provoking undertaking. It is made interesting by its wild-eyed invention, and Nightports’ constant ability to get melody and ambience from the recordings they’re working with. But it’s made enjoyable by the energetic performance of Betamax behind the drum kit".

British producer and PC Music label boss A.G. Cook released his first proper album '7G', comprised of seven discs, totaling in over 2 and a half hours of music. Every disc includes seven tracks, each dedicated to a different instrument: drums, guitar, supersaw, piano, Nord, spoken word, and extreme vocals. On the guitar one, he’s reimagined as a sad-sack Bandcamp god; in another, he’s a maniacally demented pop musician. There’s a lot to admire in here, a lot that helps illuminate why Cook has become a creative sounding board for his fellow weirdo pop musicians. His ear for melody is masterful, and his take on pop music can range from hyper-glossy to hyper-abrasive - Stereogum argues. The full album is here.

Microphones released their first new album in 17 years, 'Microphones in 2020', today, comprised of one, 44-minute song, that comes with a beautiful one-shot still video. It is a slide-show of 800 printed photos of band's leader Phil Elverum's childhood and touring years, accompanied by the lyrics to the songs (watch/listen to it here). Critics like the album a lot: Stereogum branded it their Album of the Week because "he weaves together vast metaphysical explorations and minute personal memories"; Pitchfork branded it Best new music (grade 8.5) for exploration of "artmaking, self-mythologizing, and what it means to bear witness to one’s own existence and transformations"; Exclaim goes philosophical and poetical on us: "This is Elverum's indelible stamp of style, distilled into a single track that flows like waves in the ocean or hills on the mountainside".

"Billy Woods... has a voice that commands, a booming orator akin to no one but himself. Then there’s Elucid, prone to bars of labyrinthine complexity, a rapper who’ll declare 'fuckboys deserve to be liberated too' as evidence that revolutionary rage and killer one-liners can coexist with ease" - The Quietus writes about the New York hip-hop duo Armand Hammer, declaring them "recognisers of looping cycles".

"'Wooden Cave' -- easily one of the best, if not the best album of this horrifying year so far -- does what so many of the best albums do. It creates a unique artistic statement that's a pleasure to hear from start to finish but includes plenty of ugly truths and harsh realities" - PopMatters says in its rave review of singer-songwriter Thin Lear's new album (9 of 10 stars).

"Its two-hour runtime pales as news in comparison to just how much savage intensity Paysage d'Hiver maintains over that span, and how brief the project thereby makes this lengthy duration" - Invisible Oranges argues in favor of their latest editor's choice of the best new albums. "This is black metal that can simultaneously accelerate and decelerate time: it's over in an instant, but somehow it feels like a centenarian's lifetime".

'CrossBread' is a six-part ABC mockumentary podcast that charts the fortunes of a non-Christian Christian hip-hop group of the same name, and the Guardian says it's great. It's about siblings Josh and Joan who find unlikely success on the Christian rock circuit and have to pretend to have found Jesus in order to maintain their status as the hottest hip-hop act in the parish. There's a "reverend Philip Brock – an archetypal 'groovy priest' figure, played by veteran musician John Waters – sees potential ('they were the only Christian band that didn’t make me want to crucify myself'), so long as he can smooth out their rough edges". Check it out on ABC.

"The most evocative about 'Beyond The Pale': the ways in which Cocker’s lyrics, sharp as ever, reflect his own aging and experiences within these recurring Big Picture references to human progress, human destruction, and the stupid little things we fill our time with otherwise" - Stereogum writes about their newest Album of the week, debut by Jarvis Cocker's new project JARV IS. Cocker is still as clever and witty - "He has a way of making you laugh at the absurdity and inevitability of everything and you’re struck by each observation he offers".

"Consistently exciting, always surprising, and full of soul, it is undoubtedly one of the most remarkable releases of the year to date" - PopMatters is full of praise for the big collaborative project Keleketla! featuring Coldcut, Tony Allen, Shabaka Hutchings, Miles James, Soundz of the South, Freedom Groove, and many other British and African musicians. Guardian chose it for their Global album of the month - "Here, the component parts of hip-hop, jazz, dub and protest music are pieced together, like the many languages of a diasporic conversation". AllMusic said it is "a powerful combination of activism and musical exploration" to "express messages of joy, optimism, and revolution". Financial Times heard it as a "lively, cosmopolitan tale of musical resistance to a world of borders and repression".

British singer/songwriter A.A. Williams ha released her debut 'Forever Blue', with guest vocals from Cult of Luna members Johannes Persson and Fredrik Kihlberg and Wild Beasts' Tom Fleming. Critics from all sides like it: "It’s a debut of richness, depth and genuinely shattering emotional engagement – pure melancholic majesty" - Beats per Minute; "Ambitious blend of post-rock, folk, goth, metal, and classical ingredients" - All Music; "A classically trained cellist, pianist and multi-instrumentalist, Williams’ blending of post-rock and post-classical elements has a hypnotising quality, that slowly lulls its listeners into an exquisite fervour" - The Line on Best Fit; "A stunning, haunting work" - American Songwriter.

"The sound of art-punk, industrial, ambient, techno, and glam imploding on themselves. It’s vicious and physical" - Pitchfork defines new album 'The Passion Of' by the New Orleans quartet Special Interest. That's the sound. The lyrics are "consistently ablaze, whether writing about sex and longing at end times or gentrification and the militarization of cities". In general - "punk offers a moment of ignition. But for Special Interest, there is also a horizon".

In 1990, Richard Shannon Hoon started filming himself, and continued doing so during his days in psychedelic rock band Blind Melon, until he died of an overdose in 1995. His recordings are assembled in a new documentary 'All I Can Say' where everybody can see "the disillusionment of stardom psychically shut somebody down, piece by piece, before your eyes", as Rolling Stone says in their review.

"Gabriel Ólafs understands how to craft short yet expressive piano pieces that recall the intimate sensibility of 19th-century salons as much as modern Icelandic indie groups" - PopMatters says in a review of the new album by the young Icelandic pianist. PM argues Ólafs "focuses on mood and emotive gestures to develop pieces, both concise yet brimming with beauty", adding he "shares more in common with the art-rock artists of his homeland (Sigur Rós, Sóley) than prominent contemporary classical pianists".

Documentary film 'Carmine Street Guitars' is "the digital equivalent of hanging out in the Manhattan shop of the title, a Greenwich Village institution of sorts... It is 80 minutes of pure woodwork-musicianship-upcycling erotica for a very specialist but passionate market", Guardian says in a review. "If a film had a smell, this one would be of sawdust, varnish and pure love" - the G says in its verdict. It's available on digital platforms now.

"It’s Haim as we haven’t quite heard them before: not just eminently proficient musicians, entertainers, and 'women in music', but full of flaws and contradictions, becoming something much greater" - Pitchfork argues in favor of the third album by the three California sisters. Other critics like it as much: "Haim take us through a dark place and they do it frankly. But they never let the momentum dip. And they never lose sight of the light at the end of the tunnel" - Independent; "Experimental, soothing and vulnerable; it’s a thing of great beauty" - NME; "Richly searching, explosively produced third album" - Guardian.

Debut album by the Canadian quintet is "one of those rare albums that does a convincing job of capturing the livewire energy of a band onstage. Clipped guitar rhythms meet warped vocal freakouts and gang-chant shoutalongs; the shapes of the songs tighten and tighten, worming their way into your body. It’s deeply physical music, but one from a strain of art-rock weirdos", Stereogum argues. It's "funk and punk and disco crashed together", by the band "committed to relentless grooves".

Critics really like former Savages' debut: "A sonic poltergeist with sentiment to boot" - Clash Magazine; "Beth’s ability to glide between vulnerability and intimidation is unnerving, and adds more shades of grey to a performer who’s previously operated in black and white" - Guardian; "Lyrically and musically, it vacillates between the corporeal and the ethereal, prudence and excess, softness and severity" - Pitchfork; "The music transforms from sweet and cinematic to harsh and claustrophobic, and Beth’s voice similarly vacillates between acidic and corrosive or lush and full of yearning" - Rolling Stone.

New EP by the non-binary Sudanese-American singer Dua Saleh was inspired by Sister Rosetta Tharpe, known as the Godmother of rock and roll, and it is "full of diverse soundscapes with hypnotizing synths and guitars for emotionally resonant trips through Dua’s candid memories", Hypebeast says. Brooklyn Vegan hears "the influence of loud, distorted rock on this powerful EP, but you can also hear modern R&B, auto-tuned trap, atmospheric art pop, and more. It breaks down boundaries left and right". Listen to the EP in full at Bandcamp.

"An artist who’s quite literally said nothing new for the last eight years, he suddenly turned very loquacious indeed, unleashing a series of dense, allusive tracks packed with thorny references to art, literature and pop culture" - Guardian's Alexis Petridis wrote in a review of folk great's new album. "'Rough and Rowdy Ways' might well be Bob Dylan’s most consistently brilliant set of songs in years: the die-hards can spend months unravelling the knottier lyrics, but you don’t need a PhD in Dylanology to appreciate its singular quality and power". NME's Mark Beaumont is equally impressed: "Arguably his grandest poetic statement yet, a sweeping panorama of culture, history and philosophy peering back through assassinations, world wars, the births of nations, crusades and Biblical myths in order to plot his place in the great eternal scheme". In a rare recent interview in the New York Times Dylan said his songs "seem to know themselves and they know that I can sing them, vocally and rhythmically. They kind of write themselves and count on me to sing them".

Dan Franklin's latest book 'Heavy: How metal changes how we see the world' goes broadly and tries to position metal music within the cultural context. Guardian says it "situates heaviness within the 'iron-rich bloodline running through the bedrock of culture' . . . a book that pulls off the trick of offering something to both passionate fans and neophytes", with Sunday Times saying it "opens an ornate portal into a murky subculture, illuminating the marginalia as well as the big beasts". The publisher: "It gives shape and meaning to the terrible beauty of metal". The author made a playlist to listen to while reading it. Music Journalism Insider has an interview with Franklin.

GoGo Penguin "grew up in the era of techno and drum and bass, and have cannily adapted the rush of electronic music to a traditional acoustic lineup of piano, double bass and drums" The Observer writes in a review of electro-jazz trio's intense yet relaxing and gentle new album.

Colin Stetson has been making movie scores for a few years now, his latest, 'Barkskins' stands out as the richest and the most haunting. National Geographic's drama series investigates the subject of the deforestation of the New World from the arrival of English and French colonists.

Laura Marling hosted "the most authentic and exclusive live music event we’ve seen so far in the age of coronavirus. Held in an empty Union Chapel in London, the gig is ticketed, geo-locked to fans in the UK and Europe, and brings with it the delicious buzz of exclusivity and climax that makes live music so special" - NME wrote in a review of singer-songwriter's exclusive live stream. "The production values are simply exquisite, with 360 degree cameras intimately swirling around Marling... her cut-glass vocals spine-tingling throughout (turns out beautiful old chapels have better acoustics than bedrooms or living rooms) and transmitted wonderfully by the pop-up mixing desk set up in a truck outside the venue... More important than anything, though, the gig feels like an event".

California gangsta rapper Drakeo the Ruler this week released his new album 'Thank You for Using GTL', a project recorded through a prison phone over the span of two weeks. The rapper was acquitted of murder in July of 2019, but the district attorney's office used his rap lyrics as proof to connect him to illegal activities. The 26-year-old transformed GTL, the inmate telecommunications system contracted by Los Angeles County, into his studio and created a project with his producer JOOGSZN. Passion of the Weiss calls it "miraculous, hard to listen to, perhaps indefinitely challenging as fighting the Los Angeles Police State becomes trendy enough for Santa Monica".

"Love needs fury to fight hate. Clearly none of this is lost on the pair of indie, old head, no-fucks-giving, chain-snatching, self-professed menaces to sobriety behind this project. Their boisterous new album, 'RTJ4', makes time for trash-talking and chin-checking amid insurrection" - Pitchfork highly suggests Run the Jewels' new album (tagged it Best new music, grade 8.3). The P argues 'RTJ40 is closest to who Killer Mike and El-P are - "weary but unbroken, wary but not hopeless, eager to knuckle up".

Folk singer Ondara wrote and produced ‘Folk N’ Roll Vol 1: Tales of Isolation’ himself while in lockdown in Minneapolis in just one week, which is reflected heavily on this album with lyrics like "I'm not an essential worker" and "Hey Mr. landlord... I haven't paid my rent". Brooklyn Vegan compares the album to Bob Dylan, but adds "it feels just about as fleshed-out as its predecessor and Ondara's soaring voice and storytelling ability is still just as compelling".