Blackwater Holylight. (Credit: Candice Lawler) A move to a warmer climate didn’t push the gloom away for Blackwater Holylight. The former Portland, Oregon band may have decamped to Los Angeles in 2021 after releasing their […]
Lucinda Williams Sees a World Gone Wrong
Lucinda Williams performs with Buick 6 at the Stone Fox on September 17, 2015, in Nashville, Tennessee. (Credit: Erika Goldring/Getty Images for Americana Music) Lucinda Williams has made a career out of listening to other […]
Cat Power Takes Us Back In Time With New EP ‘Redux’
Cat Power. (Credit: Inez & Vinoodh) It looks like Chan Marshall gets the last laugh. Pitchfork’s oft-dismissive review of her 2006 album The Greatest doesn’t even talk about the music until its third paragraph. Instead, […]
Sleaford Mods Still Have Plenty To Be Angry About
‘The Demise of Planet X’ It only takes 33 seconds for Jason Williamson to drop an F-bomb on “The Good Life,” the first track from The Demise of Planet X, Sleaford Mods’ first record in […]
The Sha La Das Stay in the Picture
The Sha La Das’ new album, ‘Your Picture.’ When the Sha La Das released their 2018 debut, Love in the Wind, it was a bit like the discovery of an animal long thought extinct. A […]
Lipstick Killer and the Rise of Baddie Metalcore Energy
Lipstick Killer knows exactly how to set a tone. In a recent Instagram post, the Pittsburgh-born artist shared a short video of herself vibing to her latest release, “Darkness“. A glass in hand, platinum blonde […]
Dry Cleaning Dance Themselves Dirty
Dry Cleaning. (Credit: Guy Bolongaro) Dry Cleaning singer Florence Shaw likes to keep some distance between her vocals and the rest of the band. Shaw’s curious confidences, spoken-word confessions, and bemused monologues appear to have […]
Tyra: The Dark-Pop Force Rising From Real Life
Tyra is an artist who doesn’t just make music, she turns lived experience into sound. The Swiss singer-songwriter has built her creative world around honesty, contrast, and emotional depth. Her Instagram bio says it simply: […]
Melody’s Echo Chamber Ascends Heavenward On ‘Unclouded’
Melody Prochet (photo: Diane Sagnier). For more than a decade, Melody Prochet’s songs have drifted through dream logic — language dissolving into texture, emotion refracted through haze. Unclouded, her fourth album as Melody’s Echo Chamber […]
On Kelly Moran’s ‘Mirrors,’ All Is Not What It Seems
(photo: Brian Karlsson) The latest Warp album from the New York composer/pianist Kelly Moran, Don’t Trust Mirrors, is the culmination of six years of work, and it sounds like a definitive career statement. In retrospect, […]
Jazz Upstarts SML Stay Heady On ‘How You Been’
(photo: Charlie Weinemann). At a March Seattle gig, SML generated three epic improvisations of subtle groove science (the second piece even evoked the funky swagger of Average White Band’s “Schoolboy Crush”) and galvanic hypnosis. It […]
Luke Spiller Brings Us ‘the Christmas Song Nobody Asked for’ (But Needed)
A scene from the music video for Luke Spiller’s new Christmas song, a cover of Slade’s 1973 holiday staple, “Merry Xmas Everybody” (Courtesy of The Syndicate) Luke Spiller has had a year of “achievements.” He […]