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Rigorous sound experimentalist Alan Licht delivers a sincere homage to...
Over his lengthy career guitarist Alan Licht has covered lots of disparate terrain, whether playing naif indie rock in Love Child or creating works of conceptual sound art as he did on his 2003 album...
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London producer Mr. Mitch reveals grime’s tender side on Devout
Grime—the phenomenon that borrows its hard edges from jungle and UK garage and has the baddest MCs rap over them—exudes an alluring nastiness right down to its name, which suggests the culture...
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Boss Hog reintroduce their weird and wailing blues-noise
It’s been 17 years since the husband-and-wife duo of Jon Spencer (of Pussy Galore and Blues Explosion fame) and the confrontational, underrated Cristina Martinez have released a full-length album as...
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Reedist Chris Potter reasserts his postbop primacy on a strong new quartet album
For much of the last decade reedist Chris Potter has been experimenting with new forms, whether dipping deep into a groove-heavy electric sound with his band Underground or exploring orchestral...
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With hushed delicacy, Joan Shelley unleashes her most poetic and empathetic...
Last month Louisville singer-songwriter Joan Shelley released her fifth album, the eponymous Joan Shelley, the first she’s made outside of Kentucky. She cut the record in Chicago at the Wilco Loft...
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Veteran improvising cellist Tristan Honsinger achieves a new level of...
Cellist Tristan Honsinger fled his native America in 1969 to avoid the draft, settling in Montreal, where he discovered improvised music and changed his musical life. Starting in 1974 he lived in...
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Formidable trumpeter Hugh Ragin makes a rare Chicago appearance as a leader
He’s made only a handful of recordings under his own name, but trumpeter Hugh Ragin has been a forceful presence in American free jazz for nearly four decades, among other things as a trusted sideman...
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Atlanta rap trio Migos have weathered a career path as loopy as their...
Atlanta rap trio Migos have experienced a lifetime of music industry ups and downs in less than half a decade. Rappers Quavo, Offset, and Takeoff first made it through the buzz of their breakthrough...
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American black-metal master Xasthur returns with an unexpected acoustic vision
When black metal reached American shores in the early 90s, it started a movement of artists trying to re-create the chilling, nihilistic sounds of their Norwegian forefathers—and it didn’t get much...
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Selam Ethiopian Kitchen brings it raw
An Uptown butcher shop and market has evolved into a forum for East African feasting. Let's say you've gone to war in the mountains. You and your men have a chance for a breather.…
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For Amy Thielen, there’s just as much magic in the midwest as in Manhattan...
A James Beard winner explores her roots in a new memoir. Food writing is some of the most eupeptic writing there is. It's impossible to feel completely miserable when you're reading about someone...
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With Natural Information Society, Joshua Abrams expands his sonic palette...
The power of Joshua Abrams’s Natural Information Society is in large measure derived from a singular sense of purpose: to lock in on a single chord and with subtle, kaleidoscopic modality cast a spell...
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Feist dispenses with soft edges on her raw, hard-hitting new album Pleasure
In recent interviews Leslie Feist has said that since her 2011 album Metals she’s been engaged in quiet introspection about whether making music is really what her soul aches to do. As she told Joe...
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Mutoid Man is what happens when hardcore savants need to get out the metal
I like to imagine guitarist-vocalist Stephen Brodsky of Cave In and drummer Ben Koller of Converge—each an integral part of the early 2000s hardcore scene—shooting the breeze one afternoon about...
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Indie lifer David Bazan keeps exploring the unknown and nuanced on Care
At 41, Seattle singer-songwriter David Bazan is still searching for his life’s best path. In March he self-released his fourth solo album, Care, on which uncharacteristic synth-heavy music aids his...
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Free-reed veteran Peter Brötzmann brings his newest duo to town
Peter Brötzmann justified the crude nomenclature of early recordings like Machine Gun, Nipples, and Balls with the coarse tone and pugilistic phrasing of his saxophone playing. So the vulgar cover...
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Escort aren’t really disco, but they still make audiences dance
In the late 2000s, New York City was experiencing a disco revival, mostly due to genre nights at clubs like Passerby, Santos Party House, and Studio B, and DJ-producer groups such as Hercules and Love...
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Could Tool be prepping for their first full-length in 11 years?
Tool have long been notorious for operating at a glacial pace, but those once-familiar five-year gaps between full-lengths today seem like insignificant stretches when you consider that their last...
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Prog-rock band Bent Knee leavens its ambitious arrangements thanks to singer...
The members of Boston’s Bent Knee came together in 2009 while attending the Berklee College of Music, and there’s no question that the wildly ambitious sextet absorbed a lot of lessons and ideas while...
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On Big Bad Luv singer-songwriter John Moreland introduces some romantic...
I’d never spent any time seriously listening to the music of Oklahoman John Moreland until I got a copy of his new album Big Bad Luv (4AD), but in some ways I feel like I’ve been listening to him most...
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