Category: ESSENTIAL NEW MUSIC

Essential New Music: Xiu Xiu’s “Forget”
As Xiu Xiu is anything and anyone that wobbly, quivering singer/sound-sculptor Jamie Stewart wants (David Lynch’s music to Twin Peaks,

Essential New Music: Father John Misty’s “Pure Comedy”
Your enjoyment of Pure Comedy very strongly depends on what you expect from a Father John Misty album in 2017.

Essential New Music: Spoon’s “Hot Thoughts”
The members of Spoon are masters of playing what’s not there. They have explored how space can sharpen an arrangement

Essential New Music: Nnamdi Ogbonnaya’s “Drool”
The first “proper” album from this precociously prolific Chicago trans-genre polymath places him (at least for the moment) in the

Essential New Music: Y Pants’ “Y Pants” And “Beat It Down”
Punk promised that anyone could do it, but it was no wave that cashed the check. For a while in

Essential New Music: Matt North’s “Above Ground Fools”
Matt North has a résumé that includes stints as a standup comic, an actor on Curb Your Enthusiasm and a

Essential New Music: Six Organs Of Admittance’s “Burning The Threshold”
Ben Chasny, the singer/guitarist/sole consistent member of Six Organs Of Admittance, is hardly the first musician to strive to avoid

Essential New Music: Spiral Stairs’ “Doris And The Daggers”
Music-dork convention dictates that when a band has two singer/songwriters in its ranks, they can be identified as “the poppy