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A következő címkéjű bejegyzések mutatása: Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds. Összes bejegyzés megjelenítése
A következő címkéjű bejegyzések mutatása: Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds. Összes bejegyzés megjelenítése

2022. március 3., csütörtök

FROM HER TO ETERNiTY FAVTRAX:MiX ~ 33 FAVOURiTE tracks 2014-2018 (2h 56m)


FROM HER TO ETERNiTY FAVTRAX:MiX ~ 33 FAVOURiTE tracks 2014-2018 (2h 56m) >>Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Mike Dillon, Duke Garwood, Sam Cohen, Mark Lanegan Band, David Bowie, Blonde Redhead, Thurston Moore, Jimmy Chamberlin Complex, Beak>, The Messthetics<<

M U S I C  (2h 56m)


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>A lejátszó mindig a legújabb playlist számait játssza.   


2014-2018



Since the late '70s, Australian singer and songwriter Nick Cave has proved to be one of the most enduring talents to emerge from the post-punk era. In addition to being a remarkably consistent recording artist, his songs have been covered by everyone from Josh Groban, PJ Harvey, and Johnny Cash to Arctic Monkeys, Metallica, and Chelsea Wolfe, to name a few. However, his often dramatic, romantic, and/or harrowing tomes sound best on his own recordings...
Formed after the breakup of the Birthday Party in 1983, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds became one of the most original and celebrated bands of the post-punk and alternative rock eras in the '80s and onward. Playing music that meshed with the dark, multi-layered narratives of Cave's lyrics, the Bad Seeds created sounds that were physically and emotionally powerful, but with a sense of dynamics and drama that set them apart from their peers...
From Her to Eternity (Nick Cave) 5:35
In the Ghetto (Nick Cave) 4:06
Tupelo (Nick Cave) 7:16
Nick Cave is a singular figure in contemporary rock music; he first emerged as punk rock was making its presence known in Australia, but though he's never surrendered his status as a provocateur and a musical outlaw, he quickly abandoned the simplicity of punk for something grander and more literate, though no less punishing in its outlook. Cave also had an approach to collaboration that made his backing band, the Bad Seeds, an integral part of his creative vision, even as their membership changed and their sound evolved over the space of three decades of fury and eloquence. In Kirk Lake's liner notes to Lovely Creatures: The Best of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, 1984-2014, he celebrates the band as much as their charismatic leader and songwriter, and the 45 songs collected on this three-disc set make the case that while Cave may be the frontman -- and a profoundly charismatic one with a powerful voice that can communicate from a whisper to a scream -- his musicians bring a color, shape, and texture to his songs that focus and amplify his gifts as a singer and lyricist... Lovely Creatures is a superior introduction to Cave's post-Birthday Party work, and while the lack of unreleased material might make it superfluous for serious fans, this remains a splendid summation of the work of a major artist who continues to create deeply personal, profoundly moving music.



Vibraphonist, percussionist, and songwriter Mike Dillon is an eclectic, highly adventurous musician with a sound steeped in post-bop jazz, funk, and avant-garde rock. Drawing upon such wide-ranging influences as Harry Partch, Thelonious Monk, Tom Waits, and Frank Zappa, he has led and co-led numerous ensembles, including the Dead Kenny Gs, Garage a Trois, and Critters Buggin'. As a sideman, Dillon has also worked with a varying cadre of acclaimed performers, such as Primus' Les Claypool, Karl Denson, Ricki Lee Jones, and Ani DiFranco. In addition, he has released his own genre-bending albums...
Head (Mike Dillon) 2:13
Homeland Insecurity (Mike Dillon / Jon Richards / John Speice / Clark Wyatt) 2:54
Missing (Mike Dillon) 3:48
Vibraphonist, percussionist, composer, and bandleader Mike Dillon has been a musical outsider since beginning his professional career more than 25 years ago. Though he's a jazz virtuoso, he's never restricted himself: he's played punk, post-punk, funk, rock, jazz, R&B, indie folk, and more, with his own bands and as a deft sideman and collaborator. Band of Outsiders features Dillon in the company of three New Orleans musicians: trombonist Carly Meyers, bassist Patrick McDevitt, and drummer Adam Gertner. Dillon handles electric vibes, marimba, xylophone, and a plethora of percussion instruments in addition to lead vocals. Everybody sings backup. There are a slew of guest spots by well-known friends, too. Band of Outsiders is unclassifiable; it careens across genres, tempos, dynamics, and textures with joy, fury, and an inherent spirit of mischief that the group developed over a the course of year spent touring through Mexico and Brazil... On Band of Outsiders, Dillon's vision makes generous room for his influences but ultimately, it's also his own, articulated with grit and sophistication by his bandmates and friends. This album is for those who like their music, raw, bawdy, challenging, and outrageously humorous.



Duke Garwood is a London-based multi-instrumentalist and recording artist whose expertise on a wide range of instruments has graced numerous albums by an eclectic range of musicians. While Garwood's own music is rooted in the blues, generating a dark and spectral sound full of late-night atmosphere on albums like 2009's The Sand That Falls and 2014's Heavy Love...
Some Times (Duke Garwood) 4:16
Heavy Love (Duke Garwood) 4:00
Snake Man (Duke Garwood) 3:27
from Heavy Love 2015
Heavy Love is Duke Garwood's fifth full-length solo album. It is a natural follow-up to Black Pudding, the collaborative album he cut with Mark Lanegan in 2012. Recorded in London and Los Angeles, Garwood self-produced the set and enlisted Lanegan and Alain Johannes from Queens of the Stone Age to mix it. Garwood plays many of the instruments himself, but gets selective assistance from friends along the way, including Johannes on various keys, backing vocalists Jehnny Beth and Johnny Hostile of Savages, and longtime friend, collaborator, and drummer Paul May. Garwood's guitar is the album's most recognizable feature, but his singing voice is its most natural companion. The songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist has always utilized a minimalist approach to the blues and the same holds true here... As a whole, the songs on Heavy Love seem to emerge from the soul's longest, loneliest night to meet the raw, bleary edges of a new dawn that makes no promises. In sum, Heavy Love is all of a piece: slow, slippery, jungly. It is easily the most confident, fully realized album in his catalog to date, and his most poetic to boot.



Songwriter Sam Cohen spent long stints as a bandleader, working as the core of the ecstatic Apollo Sunshine for the entirety of the aughts and then with Yellowbirds for the first part of the 2010's. After Yellowbirds called it a day in 2014, Cohen spent some time working on other people's projects but still managed to write a new set of sun-dazzled synth-rock tunes for his first album under his own name, 2015's Cool It...
The Garden (Sam Cohen) 3:49
El Dorado (Sam Cohen) 4:14
Kepler 62 (Sam Cohen) 4:27
from Cool It 2015
Beginning with his 2000s indie group Apollo Sunshine and then with his solo bedroom project-turned-collaborative band Yellowbirds, singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Sam Cohen has been cultivating a finely tuned brand of sunny throwback indie pop. When Yellowbirds fizzled out in 2014, Cohen decided to issue music under his given name, and though Cool It is a debut, it comes from a seasoned veteran years into sculpting a specific style of both songwriting and production. Among his other band projects, Cohen's stellar guitar playing and engineering skills have earned him session work on a plethora of big-name records. Both of those skill sets are in full force on Cool It... The album strolls by in a warm amble, with unexpected but subtle production moves bolstering Cohen's thoughtfully constructed but still easy-going tunes.



Singing with a deep, nicotine-ravaged growl that was rich, strong, and sensuously forbidding, Mark Lanegan rose to fame when his band the Screaming Trees won a taste of mainstream recognition in the '90s. Though his first success was tied to the grunge scene, Lanegan subsequently carved out a strong identity of his own as a vocalist and songwriter. Lanegan's music was nearly always informed by the blues, but the singer was willing to take his darkly poetic sensibility wherever his muse pointed him...
Death Trip to Tulsa [Mark Stewart's Exopolitix Demix] (Mark Lanegan) 3:30
The Killing Season [UNKLE Remix] (Sietse Van Gorkam / Mark Lanegan) 5:54
Seventh Day [Tom Furse Extrapolation] (Mark Lanegan) 8:18
With this collection, Mark Lanegan offers his fans a different perspective on his 2014 album Phantom Radio. Lanegan and his collaborator Alain Johannes have handed off most of the tracks from Phantom Radio (as well as several from the EP No Bells on Sunday) to other musicians and producers to create new mixes of the material. With the help of Soulsavers, Moby, Mark Stewart, UNKLE, Greg Dulli, Moon Gangs, Alastair Galbraith, and others, A Thousand Miles of Midnight spins new soundscapes from the moody frameworks of Lanegan's original recordings, bringing his electronic influences to the forefront and confirming the strength and versatility of Lanegan's work.


One of the greatest stars of the rock & roll era, David Bowie evaded easy categorization throughout his career, operating as the artiest rocker within the mainstream and the most accessible musician on the fringe. Bowie may have trafficked in ideas cultivated in the underground, but he was never quite an outsider as far as rock & roll was concerned. From the outset of his career in the 1960s, he attempted to break into the Top 40, playing British blues, mod rock & roll, and ornate pop before finally hitting paydirt as a hippie singer/songwriter... 
Blackstar (David Bowie) 9:57
Tis a Pity She Was a Whore (David Bowie) 4:52
Lazarus (David Bowie) 6:22
from Blackstar 2016
David Bowie died within days after the January 8, 2016 release of Blackstar, an event that immediately shaped perceptions of his 25th album. Unbeknownst to all but his inner circle, Bowie wrote and recorded Blackstar after receiving word that he had liver cancer, so the album was certainly shaped through the prism of this diagnosis... Bowie's remarkable achievement with Blackstar is how it's an album about mortality that is utterly alive, even playful.
Unlike its predecessor, 2013's The Next Day, Blackstar doesn't carry the burden of ushering a new era in Bowie's career... Certainly, the luxurious ten-minute sprawl of "Blackstar" -- a two-part suite stitched together by string feints and ominous saxophone -- suggests Bowie isn't encumbered with commercial aspirations, but Blackstar neither alienates nor does it wander into uncharted territory. For all its odd twists, the album proceeds logically, unfolding with stately purpose and sustaining a dark, glassy shimmer... Bowie recruited saxophonist Donny McCaslin and several of his New York cohorts to provide the instrumentation (and drafted disciple James Murphy to contribute percussion on a pair of cuts), a cast that suggests Blackstar goes a bit farther out than it actually does... This progression brings Blackstar to a close on a contemplative note, a sentiment that when combined with Bowie's passing lends the album a suggestion of finality that's peaceful, not haunting.



Moving from Sonic Youth-like art punk to eclectic pop over the course of their decades-long career, Blonde Redhead remained one of indie rock's most creative acts. The band formed in 1993 after Japanese art students Kazu Makino and Maki Takahashi randomly met Italian twin brothers Simone and Amedeo Pace at an Italian restaurant in New York. (The name was taken from a song by the '80s no wave band DNA.) With Makino and Amedeo on guitars and vocals, Simone on drums, and Takahashi on bass, the band's chaotic, artistic rock caught the attention of Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley, who produced and released the band's debut album, Blonde Redhead, on his Smells Like Records label...
I Don't Want U (Kazu Makino / Amedeo Pace / Simone Pace) 5:04
Astro Boy (Kazu Makino / Amedeo Pace / Simone Pace) 4:21
U.F.O. (Kazu Makino / Amedeo Pace / Simone Pace) 5:37
Before they made intricate, transporting pop for labels like 4AD, Blonde Redhead took inspiration from '70s no wave and released singles and albums on Smells Like Records, the label of Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley. This connection between the bands led some to call Blonde Redhead derivative, but in hindsight -- and especially on this collection -- the elements that endured in their music and made it special are what stand out. Another installment in Numero Group's 200 Line reissue series, Masculin Feminin gathers the band's first two albums, Blonde Redhead and La Mia Vita Violenta, which arrived in a prolific burst of creativity in 1995, as well as a generous amount of singles, rarities, and radio performances...


Thurston Moore's work with Sonic Youth rearranged the parameters of indie rock to an almost incalculable degree, merging experimental art rock tendencies with unconventional guitar tunings for a sound that would influence generations to come. Moore's abstract poetic lyrics and perpetually mysterious aura were core ingredients of Sonic Youth's 30-plus-year run, but also bled into countless side projects and less-frequent solo albums like 1994's sprawling and loose Psychic Hearts. After the group's breakup in 2011, Moore continued with his ambitions...
Exalted (Thurston Moore) 11:54
Cusp (Thurston Moore) 6:33
Turn On (Thurston Moore) 10:17
Reunited with his backing band for The Best Day -- My Bloody Valentine bassist Deb Googe, Nøught guitarist James Sedwards, and longtime drummer Steve Shelley, as well as poet/songwriter Radieux Radio -- Thurston Moore delves even deeper into that album's contemplative, redemptive side on Rock N Roll Consciousness... With two tracks stretching beyond the ten-minute mark, Rock N Roll Consciousness' songs are consistently longer than Sonic Youth's output, but they're not just expanded; they're heightened. The band locks in on the most transporting aspects of Moore's music, allowing his deadpan vocals to be the eye of the of the storms surrounding him...  Another fine addition to his solo work, Rock N Roll Consciousness proves that Moore's search for enlightenment through noise remains vital.



The Jimmy Chamberlin Complex is an exploratory jazz and rock outfit led by Smashing Pumpkins drummer Jimmy Chamberlin. A longtime jazz and fusion aficionado, Chamberlin formed the Complex in 2004 as an outlet to do something more experimental than his more alt-rock-oriented work. Also featured in the band are bassist/producer Billy Mohler, guitarist Sean Woolstenhulme, pianist Randy Ingram, and saxophonist Chris Speed. The group debuted in 2005 with Life Begins Again on Sanctuary...
Horus and the Pharaoh (The Jimmy Chamberlin Complex) 6:19
The Parable (The Jimmy Chamberlin Complex) 6:50
Magick Moon (The Jimmy Chamberlin Complex) 4:51
from The Parable 2017
Hard-hitting drummer Jimmy Chamberlin is famous among rock fans for his years of work with the Smashing Pumpkins. Jazz fans know Chamberlin from his recent work with saxophonist Frank Catalano. And diehard fans will recall Life Begins Again, his 2005 album by The Jimmy Chamberlin Complex. Bassist Billy Mohler and guitarist Sean Woolstenhulme, who both played on that album, are back for the band’s new release, a jazz effort titled The Parable, on which they are joined by Randy Ingram (piano, Fender Rhodes) and Chris Speed (tenor sax, clarinet). Here, Chamberlin combines the energy and production values of a rock album with the spontaneity of an improvised jazz session. “Jazz really allows you to paint in real time,” Chamberlin said in the press materials for The Parable. “You’re painting first drafts and being OK with them.” This program of six tracks contains some killer “frist drafts” that succeed wonderfully... Overall, Chamberlin proves himself to be a gracious bandleader, providing a platform for his colleagues to soar.



Featuring members of Portishead and Moon Gangs, Beak> is a trio crafting dense and atmospheric music inspired by dub, Krautrock, and the Beach Boys.., The moody sound of albums such as the group's self-titled 2009 debut made Beak>'s music a perfect fit for soundtrack work, which included 2016's Couple in a Hole soundtrack. On later efforts like 2018's >>>, the band's sound expanded to more structured songs as well as farther-flung experiments while retaining their unmistakable vibe...
The Brazilian (Geoff Barrow / Billy Fuller / Will Young) 4:12
Brean Down (Geoff Barrow / Billy Fuller / Will Young) 3:52
Birthday Suit (Geoff Barrow / Billy Fuller / Will Young) 4:32
from >>> 2018
"You don't like our music cuz it ain't up on the radio," Beak>'s Geoff Barrow sings on >>> with something approaching pride. This contrarian attitude defines the band's third album: Barrow and company could have easily made another album of sinister motorik-driven instrumentals like >>, but this time, they blow up their music. Since Beak> haven't released a full-length in six years and now include Moon Gangs' Will Young among their ranks, some evolution was inevitable. Even so, >>> reveals some drastic changes. The lock grooves that powered Beak>'s first two albums are almost entirely absent, freeing them to double down on their distinctively murky, eerie moods and express them in new ways. The vocals that served as texture on the band's previous work come to the fore on >>>, bringing with them more structured songwriting. However, the closer Beak> get to conventional notions of pop music, the stranger they sound... Some of the band's most entertaining and most challenging music, >>>'s eclectic experiments prove that the greater-than symbol at the end of Beak>'s name isn't just for show -- they keep pushing forward, and it's thrilling to go along on the ride with them.



A meeting of the minds between respected members of Washington, D.C.'s experimental music and punk rock communities, the Messthetics are an instrumental trio who combine soaring, visionary guitar work with one of the tightest and most powerful rhythm sections in rock. The Messthetics feature bassist Joe Lally and drummer Brendan Canty, members of the iconic punk/indie band Fugazi, marking their first collaboration since the band went on extended hiatus in 2002. Rounding out the trio is guitarist Anthony Pirog, an artist steeped in jazz who is also a major figure on Washington, D.C.'s experimental music scene, as well as working with the groups Janel & Anthony (featuring cellist Janel Leppin), Skysaw (who also include Smashing Pumpkins drummer Jimmy Chamberlin), and New Electric. The trio came together in 2017, rehearsing and recording material at Canty's practice space, and they began playing out late that year. In March 2018, the Messthetics released their self-titled debut album, primarily drawn from their practice space recordings and cut live without overdubs...
Mythomania 4:09
Once Upon a Time 4:20
Crowds and Power 4:53
from The Messthetics  2018
Ever since Fugazi went on indefinite hiatus in 2003, there's been a steady murmur from their fans for a reunion, with many hoping against hope that the band would once again create new music. Given this, it was no surprise that the announcement that Fugazi's rhythm section -- bassist Joe Lally and drummer Brendan Canty -- had formed a new band was greeted with much enthusiasm in the indie music community. And the debut album from Lally and Canty's new project, the Messthetics, will certainly resonate with a certain part of Fugazi's audience. Listeners who embraced Fugazi's more experimental side, especially their travels through dub-like space and guitar dissonance, will doubtless be pleased with The Messthetics. Guitarist Anthony Pirog, a Washington, D.C.-based artist whose background is in jazz and avant-garde music, is the third member of the Messthetics, and while Lally and Canty's playing is as taut, muscular, and expressive as one would expect, it's Pirog's work that gives this music its most distinct aural signature. Though the rhythm section makes this music rock, Pirog picks and chooses between atmospheric extended tones, rapid volleys of notes, and clouds of inspired noise that certainly contain elements of the rock vocabulary but don't acknowledge the clichés of the typical guitar hero. (If Pirog's work recalls anyone, it's Robert Fripp, though mostly in his sense of intelligence and adventure rather than any explicit similarity.)... In short, the Messthetics are not Fugazi, but they are a bold, bracing, fearless band from Washington, D.C. playing music that challenges and dazzles, and that's more than enough reason to make their debut album worth your time.












2022. február 3., csütörtök

03-02-2022 FAVTRAX:MiX ~ 33 FAVOURiTE tracks 2009-2015 (2h 26m)

03-02-2022 FAVTRAX:MiX ~ 33 FAVOURiTE tracks 2009-2015 (2h 26m) >>Rival Sons, Wolf People, Polar Bear, Nicolas Jaar, The War On Drugs, Ty Segall, Ultraísta, Alvin Lee, Mark Lanegan & Duke Garwood, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Mike Dillon, Duke Garwood<<

M U S I C  (2h 26m)


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.favtrax_mix on deezer

favtraxmix label The player always plays the latest playlist tracks. / A lejátszó mindig a legújabb playlist számait játssza.   


2009-2015



Evoking the riffy, bluesy rock of bands like Led Zeppelin and the Black Crowes, California's Rival Sons emerged in the early 2010s as hard rock classicists with a modern edge... Establishing a strong collaborative bond with Nashville producer Dave Cobb to helm each of their albums, the group enjoyed modest success at home in the U.S. while becoming perennial chart staples throughout much of Europe thanks...
Pocketful of Stones 2:56
Tell Me Something 4:06
from Before the Fire 2009
There’s a ton-wad of “When The Levee Breaks”/”When you get to the bottom, you go back to the top of the slide” blues-rock goodness inside Rival Sons‘ 39-minute opening salvo, Before The Fire (Front Line Music). This is rock so un-ironic that the singer screams, “Whooo!” before the intro to marvelously Zeppelin-y opener “Tell Me Something,” and they retain that high energy, just-barely-on-the-rails mojo throughout. Lead singer Jay Buchanan tears into every syllable with laughter and lust, the sort of sound that makes young girls damp and grown men spill their drinks. Buchanan strongly recalls the Freddie Mercury of Queen’s raunchy early work, and the rest of the band is messy-tight, flexing and strutting with utter confidence but little care for the jagged edges they leave behind. Rival Sons echo the best of their ’70s ancestors (the spark scattering pairings of Bowie/Ronson and Page/Plant come readily to mind, with interestingly a small sprinkling of The Monkees to boot) and do the tradition of thumping, hormonal rock ‘n’ roll proud by simply embracing its most appealing traits and presenting them with fresh enthusiasm.



The brainchild of singer and guitarist Jack Sharp, Wolf People started in 2005 when Sharp recorded a demo album in the English town of Bedford. Named after the children’s book Little Jacko and the Wolf People, the band is a throwback to the bluesy psychedelia of Black Sabbath, Cream, Traffic, and early Jethro Tull and Fairport Convention, tackling the sounds of the past with a kind of nostalgic reverence...
Tiny Circle (Wolf People) 5:10
Cromlech (Wolf People) 3:17
from Steeple 2010
So much of music is about taking the lessons of the past and improving upon them in an attempt by the artist to leave their mark on the artistic landscape. Occasionally, a band comes along and reminds us that those old sounds are so good on their own that they don’t really need anything added to them to stand on their own in the modern era. On Steeple, the first proper album from England’s Wolf People, the band takes up the challenge of championing the bluesy, psychedelic rock of their homeland. With a sound that’s deeply rooted in the fuzzy riffage of Jethro Tull, Hawkwind, and Cream, Wolf People pick and choose the best parts of that old British sound in a way that makes them feel more like curators than a band...  If the rise of chillwave has taught us anything, it’s that the line between vintage sound and ironic pastiche is a thin and treacherous one. Fortunately for them, Steeple proves that Wolf People is a band that is more than capable of traversing it.




Not to be confused with the American alternative rock outfit of the same name, Polar Bear are a British experimental post-jazz five-piece influenced by the likes of Beethoven, Stevie Wonder, and Björk. Formed in London in 2004 by drummer Sebastian Rochford, previously an early member of Babyshambles, saxophonists Pete Wareham and Mark Lockheart, double bassist Tom Herbert, and electronic musician/guitarist Leafcutter John, the band first attracted attention with its 2004 debut album, Dim Lit, whose eclectic fusion of avant jazz, folk, electronica, and punk earned them a nomination for Best Band at the BBC Jazz Awards...
Happy for You (Sebastian "Seb" Rochford) 4:08
Drunken Pharaoh (Sebastian "Seb" Rochford) 3:26
Peepers (Sebastian "Seb" Rochford) 4:24
from Peepers 2010
Polar Bear are an interesting band. On paper, two tenor saxes, acoustic bass, and drums look like a fairly standard jazz setup, but the addition of guitar/electronics puts a decidedly different spin on things. The music is clearly not written as a vehicle for soloing; these are songs, played by a band. They're concise and generally have a pop song structure. Everyone contributes to the songs, without grandstanding or tenor battles. Drummer Sebastian Rochford (who writes all the tunes) is a tasty and melodic drummer, supported nicely by bassist Tom Herbert. Pete Wareham and Mark Lockheart are both fine tenor players who can add some edge when need be but generally play it pretty cool. Leafcutter John splits pretty equally between rhythmic guitar comping and well-placed "what-the-hell-is-that-sound?" electronics... Peepers is the sound of jazz-rock in the new millennium. Very well done.

2019. december 7., szombat

PnM.MiX - 33 1st/2nd tracks from bestof 2019 by AllMusic

PnM_MiX - 33 1st/2nd tracks from bestof 2019 by AllMusic


"It's time to celebrate the best music of 2019. We begin with our overall top 100 albums of the year..."



First known as the frontwoman for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Karen O branched out from the band's incendiary rock soon after their debut album, Fever to Tell, was released in 2003.
One of the early 21st century's most influential musicians and producers, Danger Mouse parlayed his skill at blending and juxtaposing elements of rock, hip-hop, dance, and pop into an unmistakable approach that he likened to being an auteur.
Danger Mouse / Karen O - Lux Prima from Lux Prima
...Together, the pair sets a dramatic, mysterious, and strangely luxurious mood that fits Lux Prima's musings on birth and rebirth. They begin the album with its most ambitious track: A nine-minute, four-part suite, "Lux Prima" swirls eerie synth passages, symphonic grandeur, and slinky R&B together with an unhurried mystique. It's an impressive, somewhat daunting prologue that hints at just how much ground Karen O and Danger Mouse cover on the album, and how well they complement each other...


Electronic indie folk outlet of West Midlands producer and multi-instrumentalist Stephen Wilkinson.
Bibio - The Art of Living from Ribbons
On 2017's excellent Phantom Brickworks, Bibio's Stephen Wilkinson took a deep dive into his music's ambient side that was unexpected, yet made perfect sense within his body of work. This time, Wilkinson spotlights the acoustic elements that have added warmth to his sound since the beginning, and the freshness of Ribbons suggest that his break from song-based music reinvigorated him. In interviews, Wilkinson has mentioned he prefers the simplicity of writing on acoustic guitar, and that purity shines through on the album's numerous instrumentals...

Singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and leader of eclectic traditional folk group the Carolina Chocolate Drops.
Rhiannon Giddens - Gonna Write Me a Letter from There Is No Other
Often, the phrase "there is no other" carries an air of romanticism, but Rhiannon Giddens turns its conventional meaning on its head on her collaboration with Francesco Turrisi. The pair focus directly on "othering," the process of identifying different cultures as alien from a person's own experience -- a phenomenon that the pair refute not only with the title of their 2019 album but the very music it contains. Giddens claims classical music and old-timey folk as her musical heritage; Turrisi is a jazz musician who studied early music -- backgrounds that provide a considerable amount of common ground, something that is evident throughout the restless, haunting There Is No Other.

An established guitarist and solo artist who has worked with everyone from Lambchop to Charlie Louvin... Having established his reputation as a versatile and supremely inventive guitar ace, he then launched a solo career that focused on instrumental, often experimental compositions that pulled from a variety of styles, from sparse American Primitive to pastoral country-driven rock and folk.
William Tyler - Alpine Star from Goes West
Although its title suggests a continuation of the pastoral Americana meditations from 2016's wondrous Modern Country, guitarist William Tyler's fourth solo outing is in fact a brighter, occasionally frolicsome set, rife with sublime melodies and executed with an understated confidence. Its title, Goes West, refers not to the dusty cross-country voyages that inspired its predecessor, but to Tyler's recent relocation from his native Nashville to sunny Los Angeles. As on Modern Country, the all-instrumental Goes West again employs a full band, though its leader sticks solely to acoustic guitar with Meg Duffy joining him on electric guitar, James Anthony Wallace on piano, Griffin Goldsmith on drums, and co-producer Bradley Cook covering bass, synths, and a smattering of other instruments...


Singer/songwriter from New Zealand who deals in minimalist and slightly gothic contemporary folk.
Aldous Harding - Fixture Picture from Designer
The New Zealand singer/songwriter's third studio effort, and her second time working with producer and frequent PJ Harvey collaborator John Parish, Designer eschews the post-last call darkness of 2017's Party for something a bit sunnier, though no less peculiar. Aldous Harding remains an enigma; she's an elusive but captivating presence who can invoke both a nervous giggle and a slack-jawed tear via her careful pairing of abstract lyrics and subtle hooks...

This virtuoso guitarist, composer, and producer lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.
Steve Gunn - New Moon from The Unseen In Between
Annabel Mehran's black-and-white cover photo for Steve Gunn's The Unseen In Between is a portrait of the guitarist and songwriter seemingly on the move. It evokes those found on early- to mid-'60s recordings by Bob Dylan, Koerner, Ray & Glover, Jackson C. Frank, Bert Jansch, and others. Gunn has shifted his focus considerably. Rather than simply showcase his dazzling guitar playing, he delivers carefully crafted, uncharacteristically tight and well-written songs with guitars, keyboards, strings, reeds -- and percussion -- translating them without artifice or instrumental disguise.... Opener "New Moon" commences with an acoustic guitar and bassline delivering a syncopated psych-folk vamp before a heavily reverbed electric guitar paints over them both...

Violinist, singer, songwriter, and composer known for his eclectic pop-folk style and multi-layered sound.
Andrew Bird - Sisyphus from My Finest Work Yet
Given that he's as well known for his whistling as for his singing, not everyone picks up an Andrew Bird album expecting a cogent lyrical statement. The impressionistic verse that's dominated his work bears this out, but given the cultural tumult of life in America in 2019, it's not surprising that even Bird has something to say about the world at large. My Finest Work Yet (never let it be said Bird is afraid of making a bold statement) isn't the work of an artist mounting a soapbox, but most of the songs do follow a consistent theme that in a time of chaos and upheaval, apathy and cynicism are our worst enemies, and that when we have enemies rather than adversaries, we've given the opposition power rather than blunted it...


Welsh indie singer/songwriter who produced for Deerhunter and other peers in addition to crafting her own intricate solo albums.
Cate Le Bon - Miami from Reward
Welsh artist Cate Le Bon's fifth album, Reward, was created in a vacuum of solitude. While Le Bon was in an intensive furniture-making course by day, she spent her nights alone at the piano writing the skeletons that would be fleshed out as songs here. Nonstop activity is part of Le Bon's brand, and while her collaborative band Drinks and production duties for Deerhunter's Why Hasn't Everything Already Disappeared? took up space on her resumé not long before Reward, three years passed between its release and her last fully solo album, 2016's Crab Day...

Over a long span, the London band have made energetic, heartbreaking indie pop that relies on punk, mod, country rock and incisive lyrics for support.
Comet Gain - We're All Fucking Morons from Fireraisers Forever!
When a band has been around as long Comet Gain have -- over 25 years -- and keep making great records, it's easy to take them for granted. They have a foolproof plan for always getting the full attention of their listeners though: make the angry songs feel like the attack of a swarm of insane bees, make the pop songs pop like giant bubblegum bubbles, make the sad songs cry-a-bucket-of-tears sad. While their previous record Paperback Ghosts had an autumnal, almost pastoral, tinge on many of the tracks, the sound of Fireraisers Forever! is almost the opposite...


The part Dutch, part Turkish combo are dedicated to updating the psychedelic sounds of Turkey in the early '70s, adding deep funk beats and synthesizers to the mix.
Altin GünYolcu from Gece
Altin Gün were formed by former members of Jacco Gardner's band to pay tribute to the Turkish psychedelia of the early '70s that they discovered and fell in love with while on tour in Turkey. Bassist Jasper Verhulst fell under the spell of artists like Baris Manço, Selda Bağcan, and Erkin Koray, who blended traditional Turkish folk sounds with the wild sounds of their day, so Verhulst decided he wanted to do something similar in the 2010s, using modern production techniques and synthesizers along with psych guitars and Turkish instruments...


Texas guitarist who combines blues roots with contemporary soul and hip-hop.
Gary Clark, Jr. - This Land from This Land
"F*ck you, I'm America's son/This is where I come from." Gary Clark, Jr. spits out that line with all the venom he can muster on the opening track of 2019's This Land, and while he's specifically challenging a racist neighbor who doesn't believe he can afford the Texas ranch he calls home, it also sounds like he's shouting down anyone who has dared to question his creative ambitions or tried to pigeonhole him as just another bluesman. Since making his major-label debut with 2012's Blak and Blu, Clark has steadily been widening his boundaries as a musician, and This Land is his toughest and most ambitious work to date, a bold and often ferocious set of songs that serves as a polyglot of African-American musical idioms and sharply articulate thoughts about American life in the midst of the Trump era...


Mississippi-born blues guitarist boasts a full-bodied sound and worked with Buddy Guy and Eric Gales before he could buy beer.
Christone "Kingfish" Ingram - Outside Of  This Town from Kingfish
At the ripe old age of 20, Clarksdale, Mississippi guitar slinger Christone "Kingfish" Ingram has been anointed "the next explosion of the blues," by no less than Buddy Guy. The proclamation is accurate. Ingram is young, but he's spent most of life pursuing the blues across the Delta and Chicago traditions, with nods at '70s hard rock and soul along the way...


Acclaimed Mississippi bluesman and member of the Bentonia blues school who also operates America's oldest surviving juke joint.
Jimmy "Duck" Holmes - Cypress Grove from Cypress Grove
Jimmy "Duck" Holmes is one of the last practitioners of old-fashioned Mississippi blues, playing a variation that belongs to the Yazoo county town of Bentonia. Holmes kept that sound alive at his own juke joint and on a series of records in the 2000s, but the 2019 album Cypress Grove is designed as a vehicle to introduce the bluesman to a wider audience. Dan Auerbach, the lead singer of the Black Keys and head of the Easy Eye Sound studio and label, shepherded the project, bringing Holmes up to Nashville to record with a bunch of his cohorts, including guitarist Marcus King...


Los Angeles-based roots music diva who records old-school, purist rockabilly.
Kim Lenz - Bogeyman from Slowly Speeding
On her fifth album, Kim Lenz delivers her most stylistically broad production to date with twangy songs dusted with themes of pain, desire, and the supernatural. Lenz, who first emerged in the '90s with her trademark backing group the Jaguars, is largely known as a queen of traditional rockabilly, a torchbearer of the swaggering, wickedly sexy style of '50s female rock icons like Barbara Pittman, Wanda Jackson, and Janis Martin. With Slowly Speeding, she expands upon this approach, exploring ever more nuanced aspects of the Americana tradition...

A Midwestern-based blues band that keeps the sound of Chess and Sun Records alive.
The Cash Box Kings - Ain't No Fun (When the Rabbit Got the Gun) from Hail to the Kings!
It's hard not to see the title of Hail to the Kings! as the Cash Box Kings celebrating themselves, but this 2019 album -- the group's second for Alligator -- makes it plain that the quintet can occasionally plant their tongues firmly in cheek... It's funny and it's smart, revealing that all of the Cash Box Kings are not only in on the joke, but that their hearts belong to Chicago. Certainly, Hail to the Kings! is an enthusiastic celebration of Chicago blues in all of its electric forms...



Kentucky-based singer/songwriter mixing both '60s folk and old-time country.
Joan Shelley - Coming Down For You from Like the River Loves the Sea
Joan Shelley hails from Kentucky, and her best music reflects the placid, Sunday evening sound of life in the rural American South. So why did she travel to Reykjavik, Iceland to record her fifth solo album, 2019's Like The River Loves The Sea? That's anyone's guess, but the results show it was an experiment that worked, and worked well for her. The sweet, smokey sadness of Shelley's voice has rarely been better served than it is on these sessions, blending a folkie clarity and quaver with a natural soulfulness that gives her performances a strength that betrays the subtlety of the presentation...

Vocalist who makes atmospheric orchestral pop showcasing her torchy image and sensuously husky singing style.
Lana Del Rey - Mariners Apartment Complex from Norman Fucking Rockwell!
With the creation of her Lana Del Rey persona, singer/songwriter Lizzy Grant stitched together the iconography of a fading American dream with soaring but melancholic pop songwriting, becoming an icon unto herself in the process. Her distinctive approach blurred sadness and longing just as it did past and present, drawing on the influence of classic American pop while integrating modernized touches like trap beats and millennial cultural references. With sixth album Norman Fucking Rockwell!, Lana Del Rey expands her vision with the most daring and vulnerable work of her catalog...

Indie folk artist and singer/songwriter with releases on Drag City and Jagjaguwar.
Sharon Van Etten - No One's Easy to Love from Remind Me Tomorrow
...Van Etten maintains that sense of drama on Remind Me Tomorrow, her fifth full-length album, but she's radically shifted her presentation. Working with producer John Congleton, she's expanded her sonic palette, incorporating vintage synthesizers and drum loops while occasionally cranking up her amplifiers. Some of the sounds are conscious throwbacks, but they don't play like retro nostalgia, not in the context of Remind Me Tomorrow, which juxtaposes fearless aural adventure with keenly observed observations of easing into a satisfied life...


Brash, bold power pop-inspired trio fronted by Wild Flag and Helium's Mary Timony and featuring members of the Aquarium and the Fire Tapes.
Ex Hex - Tough Enough from It's Real
On Rips, Ex Hex reimagined the instant gratification of rock & roll with thrilling results. On their second album, Mary Timony, Betsy Wright, and Laura Harris take a deeper dive into rock's transporting powers. At once tighter and more complex than Rips, It's Real reflects the two years Ex Hex spent touring in support of their debut, as well as the year it took to craft the album in the studio (one key piece of gear was the Rockman, an amp that Boston's Tom Scholz developed in 1982). In much the same way that some power pop and new wave bands expanded their music to arena-sized proportions as the '80s unfolded, It's Real is bigger and more deliberate than its predecessor...


Brooklyn indie rock quartet steered by the vulnerable songwriting of singer/guitarist Adrianne Lenker.
Big Thief - Contact from U.F.O.F.
By the arrival of Big Thief's third album, U.F.O.F. ("UFO friend" per lyrics in the title track), songwriter Adrianne Lenker had established herself as a singular force in indie music, both through two acclaimed albums with her band and with more delicate solo material including 2018's Abysskiss. In the meantime, Big Thief had toured almost constantly between preparing their 2016 debut, Masterpiece, and recording U.F.O.F., all the while becoming more and more tight-knit as a group...



L.A. quartet whose spiky yet vulnerable mix of punk, chamber pop, and singer/songwriter confessions influenced decades of artists that followed.
that dog. - Just The Way from Old LP
"I haven't felt like this since 1995," Anna Waronker snarls at one point on Old LP, the first album from that dog. in 22 years. During that time -- nearly half of Waronker, Rachel Haden, and Tony Maxwell's lives -- the band's spiky yet vulnerable mix of punk, chamber pop, and singer/songwriter confessions shaped later generations of indie rock and pop artists. It's all the sweeter, then, that Old LP is a near-flawless blend of experience and exuberance... The band's fiery side also sounds better than ever on "Just the Way You Like It" and "Down Without a Fight," both of which hone their deadpan punk-pop to an even sharper point...


West Coast indie group helmed by Dusty Reske featuring elements of space age pop, shoegaze haze, and dream pop sweetness in their layered sound.
Rocketship - Under Streetlights Shadows from Thanks to You
Cue the record scratch sound effect because 2019's Thanks to You is exactly that. Working mainly with vocalist Ellen Osborn, Reske concocted a record that nearly measures up to their debut in every way, and it's clear that while time has passed and there are new elements added to Rocketship's sound, Reske's gifts as a writer and producer haven't faded at all. Whether dipping back into the space-age shoegaze sound (complete with vintage organ chords) on the opening "Under Streetlights Shadows"...


Former Golden Grrrls members who went on to form Sacred Paws, producing sunny, polyrhythmic pop.
Sacred Paws - The Conversation from Run Around the Sun
Sacred Paws' second album doesn't deviate from the winning formula the duo perfected on 2017's Strike a Match: twanging Afro-pop guitars, pulsing drums, giddy vocal interplay, and songs catchy enough to latch on like a deer tick and never let go. Rachel Aggs (vocals, guitar, bass) and Eilidh Rodgers (vocals, drums) apply the same high standards to Run Around the Sun, working with much the same team to create a joyous indie pop listening experience...





Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter who blends ethereal indie electro-pop with dark thematic tones.
Billie Eilish - bad guy from WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?
On her big-league debut, Billie Eilish makes a bold entrance into the mainstream, leaving the fringes behind to embrace her role as an anti-pop star for the disaffected Gen Z masses. With a youthful, hybrid blend that incorporates elements of indie electronic, pop, and hip-hop (assisted by brother Finneas O'Connell), When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? captures the late-2010s zeitgeist by throwing conventional boundaries to the wind and fully committing to its genre-blurring self...


A tough-rhyming rapper whose approach is equally effective over jagged and smooth productions, Little Simz (originally Lil Simz) is also known as an actor for her recurring roles on the BBC's Spirit Warriors and E4's Youngers.
Little Simz - Offence from Grey Area
...On her third full-length album, Grey Area, Simz has reached a new peak, with an honest record that isn't afraid to take shots at the world at large. It's also incredibly concise -- an aspect that many of her peers often miss the mark on -- with no filler despite the broad variation the record boasts.
Simz comes out swinging on opening track "Offence," which acts as a declaration of intent for everything that follows, as she bellows "I said it with my chest and I don't care who I offend." It acts in part as a battle cry but also as a primer for truths, both personal and social, that she is capable of exploring...


Australian singer/songwriter whose seamless meld of dreamy indie pop and confessional alt-country evokes names like Angel Olsen and Sharon Van Etten.
Julia Jacklin -  Body from Crushing
... Jacklin's lyrics and vulnerable yet jaded vocal delivery are the primary focus, however, on a set of breakup songs that is, importantly, as much about reclaiming one's sense of self as it is about loss.
Crushing is riveting right from the spare, noir-tinged opening track, "Body," which remembers the moment Jacklin decided to leave the relationship after her partner got them thrown off a flight. The humiliating scene is punctuated by her wondering if he might use a nude photograph he once took of her against her; she describes the aftermath as "heading to the city to get my body back."...


Evoking trip-hop as well as the xx's spare electronic pop, FKA twigs' songs are haunting and vulnerable.
FKA twigs - thousand eyes from Magdalene
On her early EPs and LP1, FKA twigs' Tahliah Barnett expressed the intersections of love, pain, fragility and strength with remarkable eloquence. While making Magdalene, she embodied them. Not only did she endure the end of a long-term relationship, she had surgery to remove six large uterine fibroids (colorfully described by her as a "fruit bowl of pain"). These events became the heart of her second album, which uses the duality of Mary Magdalene as a lens for its wounded yet resilient feminine energy...

Singer, songwriter, and producer who debuted with pop-oriented R&B and grew into one of the more adventurous, expectation-defying artists of her era.
Solange - Down With the Clique from When I Get Home
Unfazed by having to follow a landmark album that crowned the Billboard 200, went gold, and yielded a hit that took a Grammy, Solange leisurely detours with When I Get Home. Made in spots as remote as Los Angeles and Jamaica, the follow-up to A Seat at the Table was also recorded in New Orleans and Solange's native Houston. Most pertinent is the last location, referenced repeatedly in expressions of nostalgia, pride, and tranquility, as well as in titular geographic markers..


Witty, confident singer/rapper who blends hip-hop and soul as she tackles issues of race, sexuality, and body positivity.
Lizzo - Cuz I Love You from Cuz I Love You
Since her indie days, Lizzo has been a distinctive and multi-talented artist capable of blending rap, soul, pop, and her classical training with positive messages and a sharp sense of humor. On her major-label debut Cuz I Love You, she takes all of these strengths to the next level, and the results are her most consistent, and consistently joyous, set of songs yet. Working with a creative team that includes producer Ricky Reed -- with whom Lizzo connected shortly after releasing her second album, Big Grrrl Small World -- she continues to embrace her gospel roots and the full power of her voice...



Singer and songwriter, as well as a poet and activist, who naturally applies the latter two outlets to her modern, soul-rooted R&B.
Jamila Woods - ZORA from LEGACY! LEGACY!
Jamila Woods conceptualized her second solo album after an exercise she presented to her poetry class at Young Chicago Authors. The students were assigned to choose a poem and "cover" it, as Woods terms it, by putting their individual spin on it...


Grammy-nominated American rapper traversing soul, R&B, and hip-hop.
Rapsody - Nina from Eve
When L. Lamar Wilson interviewed Rapsody for Oxford American in 2018, the writer and filmmaker asked the rapper -- coming off two Grammy nominations, her profile still on the rise -- if she felt part of the same cultural lineage as Nina Simone and Roberta Flack. The exchange fired Rap's imagination to conceptualize the follow-up to the celebrated Laila's Wisdom.. For the album's title, Rapsody refers to the Book of Genesis, thereby uniting and honoring black womanhood, herself included...

London-based IDM producer signed to Kode9's Hyperdub label.
Loraine James - Glitch Bitch from For You and I
Loraine James' first Hyperdub release is an homage to her London upbringing, as well as an exploration of her own identity, specifically as a queer black woman residing in the city. The cover art shows her standing in front of her childhood flat while holding up an old Polaroid photo of the same building. Reflecting the multiculturalism of the city, her music is influenced by numerous genres and styles, but it rarely feels like she's dipping into any of them for train spotters' sake. Her music is the sound of spontaneous expression beyond any perceived limitations. Opener "Glitch Bitch" is a motivational club track frayed with skips and stutters, nearly crashing into itself by the end...


Eclectic and powerful post-punk band that's steadily evolved under the leadership of one of rock's most celebrated songwriters.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Spinning Song from  Ghosteen
Plenty of artists have built careers out of writing about death, but only a tiny handful have shown the capacity to honestly and eloquently write about grief. Nick Cave knows more than a bit about grief, and he's been willing to stare into that particular abyss, doing so with a particularly keen focus on 2013's Push the Sky Away and 2016's Skeleton Tree, the latter partially informed by the death of his teenage son in 2015. Grief is hardly the only emotion that Cave and his ensemble the Bad Seeds explores on 2019's Ghosteen, but a sense of loss and a heavy heart permeates these songs like a thick fog, as well as the bonds of family and how they can bring us together and keep us apart...