Pop Spotlight

Shannon Lay has always had an intimate connection with her heroes. On “November,” from her 2019 album August, she pondered the fate of Nick Drake and tried to consider him as a flesh-and-blood human rather than just […]

When Bruiser and Bicycle released their 2019 debut, Woods Come Find Me, the Animal Collective comparisons were inevitable. Though unsuspecting and humble in nature, their lo-fi sound tapped into similar vocal hijinks and manic acoustic arrangements as Sung Tongs, […]

Chat Pile are shaping up to be landlocked American heavy music’s equivalent of indie film auteurs, nerdishly tweaking the conventions of various genres while maintaining their singularly warped perspective like a rictus grin. On their […]

Kara Jackson doesn’t just wear her heart on her sleeve, she offers it to you in her palms after cutting it from her chest. In the music video for “no fun/party,” the lead single to […]

Hyperpop has entered an awkward stage. As the once-meteoric genre has trailed off into a number of micro-scenes that can’t agree on whether they’re dead or not, questions that plagued the music since its genesis […]

Call Me Terry, the fourth album by Australian post-punk four-piece Terry, seems disarmingly chipper at first glance. Its title is back-slapping and genial, and its songs have the swaying, hummable feel of nursery rhymes. The […]

At the dawn of the new millennium, charismatic hunk leader Joel Gibbs gathered his apostles, tens of ragtag Torontonians with fluency in gay culture and faith in indie rock. They gathered organs of every kind, […]

The rise of Material Issue seemed almost predestined. Their music lived in the realm of girls, cars, and hanging out with girls in cars. They sounded instantly familiar yet slightly wild, like a radio playing […]

After a few years of sweeping grandeur and synthy ’80s covers, Angel Olsen began a new chapter with last year’s Big Time. She gestured at Muscle Shoals warmth with flashing horns and embraced the pedal-steel twang of […]

On Multitudes, Leslie Feist is a new mother softly soothing her baby to sleep with lullabies of fear and death. She is a sorcerer channeling thunder and lightning, finding life in the rumble and the flash. She is […]

The community of genre-bending harpists is small. Few have the temerity to tackle the massive but delicate instrument, and those that do must grapple with its tendency to recede into the background. But most who […]

Don’t take it personally if the literal meanings within Frame & Canvas remain elusive after a quarter century: Braid themselves aren’t entirely sure what it’s about either. Five years ago, upon the 20th anniversary of their brilliant third […]