Dummy - "Free Energy" | Album Review
ALBUM OF THE WEEK: Jessica Pratt - "Here In The Pitch"
Here in the Pitch is a natural continuation of Pratt's previous three LPs, intimate folk songs through the grandeur of a studio. If you know these previous albums then you likely can immediately sense where you will fall with these cuts. She saunters closer evermore to popular music standards, creating new refractions that welcome deep listening.
Niecy Blues - "Exit Simulation" | Album Review
Over its 41 minutes, Exit Simulation is an insistent listen, pervading and reverberating the walls of whatever space it can attain. The album is brilliantly paced to function as a transitory performance that assumes the song itself is only a part of a larger tapestry, requesting the full respect of its space to unfurl.
Sonic Youth - "Live In Brooklyn 2011" | Album Review
The band’s document of near-impending implosion, Live in Brooklyn 2011, is perhaps the most giving and gracious accidental greatest-hits and entry point to Sonic Youth they could have asked for. It was given a digital release in 2020, but now is the first of any of those digitals to receive a proper physical treatment in this decade.
Public Phone School - "Public Phone School" | Album Review
A Night With The Flenser: Sprain, Drowse, and Agriculture Play Permanent Records Roadhouse | Live Review
Drowse, Agriculture, and Sprain played LA’s Permanent Records Roadhouse on June 8th. The nine folks across two four pieces and the lone one-man project are venturing east on a trek towards Austin, Texas’ Oblivion Access festival for a Flenser Showcase. The kind that seems to be a particular moment of triumph for the label.
Wednesday - "Rat Saw God" | Album Review
Kate NV - "WOW" | Album Review
Horse Lords - "Comradely Objects" | Album Review
Comradely Objects is arguably the most platonic release of the quartet's quintessential style they have concocted to date; everything falling in its right place doing exactly what music is supposed to. The sound on these seven cuts accomplishes a task the band has been inching towards and actively ace.
PVA - "Blush" | Album Review
In keeping with the promise of their 12”, Blush is an exciting addition within that catalog. An album length statement that stands rather asynchronous from the momentum of this New British Alternative moment; more akin to a dark horse alternative nudging towards the dancefloor catharsis of hundreds or even just one.
Young Jesus - "Shepherd Head" | Album Review
The near-28 minute album is the latest in a more maverick, singular-songwriter emphasis. This is not exactly a self-conscious decision or predetermined outcome. It’s just that the 4-piece that refined each other and the improvisational methodology reached a limit, perhaps a temporary one. It’s still one that finds Rossiter solo.
Pavement - "Westing (by Musket and Sextant)" (Reissue) | Album Review
In its own manner, compiling Pavement’s “tortured context” comprised of the self-released Slay Tracks 1933-1969, early singles, and flexi-disc cuts made Westing (by Musket and Sextant) a 7" gold mine of exciting dipshit noise whose collage cover and phrases and song titles alluded to its own canon subversion.
Black Midi - "Hellfire" | Album Review
Black Midi continually evolve to the theatricality of the spectacle. They will stop at nothing to conjure and bring us for the spectacle. At long last, Hellfire is their studio album level spectacle; available for home surround sound systems, car CD players, tape decks, or the transient online comatose system of the internet.
700 Bliss - "Nothing To Declare" | Album Review
On their Hyperdub debut, Nothing to Declare, there's enough gusto and finesse for anyone to latch onto and jump forth from. Moor Mother releases are time-travel ready. Nothing to Declare is the rare moment that really sees her grounded to the present, in step with both her own and DJ Haram's sound of this moment.
Naja Naja - "Naja Naja" | Album Review
Bush Tetras - "Rhythm and Paranoia: The Best of Bush Tetras" | Album Review
Nyokabi Kariuki - "Peace Places: Kenyan Memories" | Album Review
Nyokabi Kariuki’s Peace Places: Kenyan Memories is an EP worth thinking about in regards to the language of the abstract. Over the twenty eight minutes, you never hear a synthesizer. In its place there are voices harmonizing melodies, humming out a scripture of its own accord, communicating in languages that tie Kariuki’s six songs.
Cate Le Bon - "Pompeii" | Album Review
Michael John Grant - "Be Amused" | Post-Trash Premiere
Luggage’s Michael John Grant has self-released his new solo album, Just Like Smoke, on his personal Bandcamp. Today we’re looking at the track “Be Amused,” which is a straightforward guitar-pop blast. Grant’s loaded it with call-and-release vocal harmonies that beget you singing along with your laptop.