Category: ESSENTIAL NEW MUSIC

Here we are contemplating Space Gun, Guided By Voices’ 25th album. Not just its specifics—though we’ll get to a few

Call it cocaine country or “western expanse music,” but that lonesome quiver traded by Carrie Keith and Dylan Sharp is

Music comes naturally to Laura Baird’s clan. She’s half of a sister act with Meg Baird, whom you probably know

Two decades after bootstrapping the insanely successful Bella Union label in the wake of Cocteau Twins’ 1997 split, that band’s

Since the release of Dopethrone in 2000, Electric Wizard has remained the ruler of an overpopulated sub-genre of metal without

When last heard from, Blake Hazard was, in her own words, “adrift.” 2013’s The Eleanor Islands was a breakup album,

For years, sitarist Neel Murgai dreamed of recording Terry Riley’s In C. And why not? Besides being an avant-classical composer

In 1969 Nick Garrie recorded The Nightmare Of J.B. Stanisla, a lush folk/pop album. When collectors discovered it in the

John Davis stopped playing music in public for a while after quitting the Folk Implosion in 2000. He was still

It’s three years since this instrumental Chicago trio released its last proper album, but Bitchin Bajas has hardly been idle.

This album comes as a sad-yet-welcome surprise. Sharon Jones died in November 2016 after a recurrence of pancreatic cancer—although she

The 20th album in as many years from Oh Sees/Thee Oh Sees/the Oh Sees/OCS/etc. is what a late-night, fireside, gypsy-caravan