Four years ago, the Colombian-born and Toronto-based artist Lido Pimienta won Canada’s Polaris Prize for her album La Papessa. This week, Pimienta will follow that one up with her new LP Miss Colombia, an album partly named for the famous 2015 gaffe where Steve Harvey messed up and gave the Miss Universe crown to Miss […]
Pure X – "Middle America" & "Fantasy"
When I bought a house in 2014, certain albums instantly became backyard staples. Records like Jenny Lewis’ The Voyager and Real Estate’s Atlas were the perfect soundtrack for sitting on the deck with a beer while the sun went down, easing into adulthood with some idyllic soft-rock from the indie realm. Another favorite from that […]
Eleanor Friedberger – "Hell" & "The River" (Destroyer Covers)
Before live music — remember that? — became a purely hypothetical endeavor, Eleanor Friedberger opened a few shows on Dan Bejar’s tour in support of the new Destroyer album Have We Met. When Destroyer played Brooklyn Steel last month, right before the coronavirus hit, Friedberger came out during Bejar’s set to lead his band through […]
Meg Baird – "Cross Bay"
You can always count on Meg Baird to have new music in the works. Baird came to prominence in the aughts as part of the Philadelphia experimental folk group Espers, and upon moving to San Francisco, she drummed and sang for the psych-rock supergroup Heron Oblivion. Along the way she’s filled in the gaps with […]
Stream Rotting Out’s New Album Ronin
In the seven years since the San Pedro hardcore band Rotting Out last released an album, a whole lot has happened. The band has broken up. Frontman Walter Delgado has been arrested hauling 700 pounds of weed across Ohio. Delgado has spent a year and a half in prison. The band has gotten back together, […]
Hear An Early Mix Of “China Girl” From The New Iggy Pop Box Set
Iggy Pop’s classic 1977 albums The Idiot and Lust For Life, which he recorded while living in Berlin with David Bowie, are being reissued in a new seven-CD box set. The Bowie Years, out next month, will also include the 1978 live album TV Eye alongside rare outtakes, alternate mixes, and a 40-page book. Today, […]
Stream The Mountain Goats' New Boombox Album 'Songs For Pierre Chuvin'
Before the Mountain Goats became a real band, they were just John Darnielle, alone with an acoustic guitar, yelling fire and brimstone into a Panasonic boombox. And now, in these crazy mixed-up times we find ourselves in, that is what the Mountain Goats have once again become. For the past several weeks in quarantine, Darnielle […]
RMR – "Dealer" Video
Back in the long-ago nether-time of February, a strange video swam across our timelines. RMR, a masked and as-yet-unidentified singer, came out with his clip for “Rascal,” a lovely and minimal street-survival tale set to the tune of Rascal Flatts’ 2004 country power-ballad hit “Bless The Broken Road.” In the video, RMR and his friends […]
Midwife Releases New Album 'Forever': Stream
Madeline Johnston, a DIY musician from Denver, makes soft and dreamy music under the name Midwife. Johnston refers to her genre as “heaven metal,” which is an awesome thing to call your style of music, even if there’s absolutely nothing traditionally metal about what Johnston does. Instead, she makes insular-landscape empty-space music, like what might […]
Polo G – “DND”
It would be interesting if Polo G, young and permanently downhearted Chicago sing-rap prince, had just made a song about tabletop fantasy gaming. But that is not what’s going on on “DND,” Polo G’s new single. Instead, the letters in the title of the new Polo track “DND” stand for “Do Not Disturb.” As in: […]