Pop Spotlight

To the casual observer, Aphex Twin’s Richard D. James might appear miserly with his output. Since 2014’s Syro, which marked the veteran electronic trickster’s return after 13 years of (near) silence, he had until now […]

John Coltrane began the decade in which he became immortal in typically audacious style. He quit the biggest jazz band in the world, led by Miles Davis, at arguably the peak of their fame. His […]

AUSTIN has to be Post Malone’s guitar album, if only because, as he proudly noted, he plays guitar on every track. He’s no stranger to the instrument of course, and he has dialed down the […]

In Circus Maximus, the 75-minute documentary/brain poem that accompanies Travis Scott’s new album UTOPIA, our hero Travis gets into a scuffle with a tentacle creature and headbangs in an open field. He then climbs a […]

Jessy Lanza’s music carries an air of indelible, charged intimacy. The Ontario-born producer likes to lock into a yearning sweet spot by way of suggestive lyrics delivered in a whispering falsetto and snaking, rhythmic bass […]

What happens when a genre inspired by the hollowness of branding itself becomes a brand? Over the last few years, George Clanton’s 100% Electronica label has carried forward the momentum of a decade of vaporwave, […]

In the final moments of “Own,” a single from Far Caspian’s The Last Remaining Light, an ensemble of guitars, cello, and violin floats like starlings in a murmuration, shapeshifting from ovals to rhombuses before dispersing […]

When Elliott Smith sat down to lunch with Lenny Waronker, he hardly spoke a word for 40 minutes. The fact that he’d even been coaxed into a meeting with the co-CEO of DreamWorks—the glittery new […]

Joni Mitchell’s unannounced set at the Newport Folk Festival late last July was pure social media manna. Just minutes after the most sophisticated singer-songwriter ever associated with “folk-rock” returned to the stage for her first […]

The Clientele were once the discerning indie critics’ discerning indie band. The songs collected on the UK group’s debut album, 2000’s Suburban Light, were first delivered in the collectible, cult-building format of 7″ singles. This […]

Hit-Boy has brought his ear for samples and synths to collaborations with several artists in the past, but in Nas, he’s found a kindred spirit interested in the interplay of old and new. With every […]

The world has never been noisier. For people who grew up uncertain of being heard—and for people of color, queer people, and, most especially, Black trans folks, who grew up certain of being deliberately misunderstood, […]