Category: ESSENTIAL NEW MUSIC

Essential New Music: Shizuka’s “Heavenly Persona”
The appeals of the P.S.F. Records catalog are many and diverse, but they can be summed up rather simply this

Essential New Music: Metallica’s “72 Seasons”
It was nearly two decades between 1991’s Metallica and 2008’s Death Magnetic. Nearly two decades of collective head-scratching among fans,

Essential New Music: Jozef Van Wissem & Jim Jarmusch’s “American Landscapes”
When you hear the words “American landscapes,” maybe you imagine your favorite Ansel Adams photograph or that time you surveyed

Essential New Music: The Necks’ “Travel”
Many musicians rack up the miles just to get to work, but travel has been an especially inescapable aspect of

Essential New Music: Tony Conrad/Arnold Dreyblatt/Jim O’Rourke’s “Tonic 19-01-2001”
This recording represents a nodal point in musical history. The three participants were already connected by a web of acquaintance

Essential New Music: P.G. Six’s “Parlor Tricks And Porch Favorites”
Tea drinkers doubtless knew from the start: Keep an eye on this P.G. Six guy. The name, which seems to

Essential New Music: Magic Tuber Stringband’s “Tarantism”
The 21st century may seem rough, but we really do live in kinder, gentler times. In our era, a character

Essential New Music: James Brandon Lewis’ “Eye Of I”
Like many suddenly ascendant artists, James Brandon Lewis was around for quite a while before he broke into wider public

Essential New Music: White Heaven’s “Strange Bedfellow”
Strange Bedfellow is the second album by White Heaven, a band that was active in Tokyo from 1985 to 1997.

Essential New Music: Yo La Tengo’s “This Stupid World”
Live long enough and you’re bound to build some confidence in what you know. But if you live that long,

Essential New Music: Robert Forster’s “The Candle And The Flame”
Circumstances shape how art is made and how it’s perceived. So it is with the circumstances surrounding The Candle And

Essential New Music: Meg Baird’s “Furling”
In name and sound, Furling feels like a record that makes sense of the last few years. After all, one

Essential New Music: Gunslingers’ “Supreme Asphalt Doser”
Calling your band Gunslingers is just asking for a world of trouble. Failure to deliver the badassery it implies practically

Essential New Music: Mike Gangloff’s “Evening Measures”
In Mike Gangloff’s galaxy, solo albums are like comets; they don’t come around very often, but when they do, they

Essential New Music: Non Plus Temps’ “Desire Choir”
If you try to drill down into the specifics of that frequently voiced complaint that music doesn’t sound like it

Essential New Music: Primordial Undermind’s “An Imaginal Abydos”
An Imaginal Abydos is the first album by Primordial Undermind in more than a decade. You might suppose that the

Essential New Music: Ibises’ “In The Swim”
Ibises is a trio of Chicago-based musicians who were not even a band yet when they played the gig that