It’s tempting to compare the shebeens of apartheid-era South Africa to speakeasies elsewhere. Legal now, shebeens offered specific freedoms in a time of horrific oppression, Continue Reading
Music Dose
Sikoryak's 'Constitution Illustrated' Pays Homage to Comics and the Constitution
How many artists have created their own genres? Robert Sikoryak may stand among few, especially for genres within the comics form. He has an eloquently Continue Reading
Jess Cornelius Creates Tautly Constructed Snapshots of Life
The titular distance chronicled on Jess Cornelius’ solo debut album can be measured in a plethora of ways: geographical as someone born and raised in Continue Reading
'Can You Spell Urusei Yatsura' Is a Much Needed Burst of Hopefulness in a Desultory Summer
The mid-to-late 1990s saw English guitar music surrender entirely to domesticity. For a remarkable spell, Britain had been an incubator of cutting edge outsiders who Continue Reading
The Erotic Disruption of the Self in Paul Schrader's 'The Comfort of Strangers'
People are strange. This is the lesson we learn from strangers. The English “strange” derives from the Old French estrange, which in turn derives from Continue Reading
Jamila Woods' "SULA (Paperback)" and Creative Ancestry and Self-Love in the Age of "List" Activism
“Down here in the bottom, there ain’t no room for me. I don’t wanna make no babies, I don’t need a man to save me,” Continue Reading
The 10 Best Fleetwood Mac Solo Albums
Danny Kirwan – Second Chapter (1975) This album is the second chapter in Kirwan’s professional life, following his firing from Fleetwood Mac in 1972. He is a Continue Reading
'History Gets Ahead of the Story' for Jazz's Cosgrove, Medeski, and Lederer
Drummer Jeff Cosgrove lives in the rural environs west of Washington, DC, making reasonably frequent appearances at DC clubs or in nearer-by Frederick, Maryland. But Continue Reading
Jaga Jazzist's 'Pyramid' Is an Earthy, Complex, Jazz-Fusion Throwback
Pyramid is certainly a fitting title for the new Jaga Jazzist album. It’s beautifully structured and obviously crafted with meticulous care. The long-awaited follow-up to Continue Reading
HBO's 'Lovecraft Country' Is Heady, Poetic, and Mangled
When Watchmen premiered last fall, its opening sequence set during the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 provided a harrowing entry point into the series’ tangled Continue Reading
Kathleen Edwards Finds 'Total Freedom'
There’s a strange beauty to Canadian singer-songwriter Kathleen Edwards’ latest album, Total Freedom. She wistfully looks back at the people she’s known and loved, the Continue Reading
Jaye Jayle's 'Prisyn' Is a Dark Ride Into Electric Night
As age sets in, a lot of the thrill of new music is in hearing the rejuvenation and reinvention of tropes and approaches that one Continue Reading
The Devonns' Debut Is a Love Letter to Chicago Soul
You will hardly find a band more defined by the covers they play than the Devonns on their self-titled debut album. The Chicago quartet led Continue Reading
A Fresh Look at Free Will and Determinism in Terry Gilliam's '12 Monkeys'
Auteur Publishing have followed up their Devil’s Advocates series of slim volumes on individual horror films with Constellations, an even slimmer set of volumes on Continue Reading
Eleanor Underhill Takes Us to the 'Land of the Living' (album stream)
Eleanor Underhill’s Land of the Living arrives on 7 August. The Asheville, North Carolina singer-songwriter has delivered an expansive, LP that touches on familiar elements Continue Reading
Monte Warden and the Dangerous Few Play It Cool
According to recent polls, Americans are having more sex in the daytime than ever before. The conventional wisdom says this is likely because people are Continue Reading
JOBS Make Bizarre and Exhilarating Noise with 'endless birthdays'
JOBS thrive on tension. Their music is suffused with jitters and anxiety. Monotone-sung mantras, shards of twitchy effects, electric guitar bursts, atonal squalls: it’s not Continue Reading
Max Richter's 'VOICES' Is an Awe-Inspiring and Heartfelt Soundscape
From the Balkan Wars to the Iraq conflict and London’s 7/7 terrorist attacks, the electro-ambient-classical composer Max Richter has never eluded socio-political and humanitarian concerns Continue Reading
Nnamdï' Creates a Lively Home for Himself in His Mind on 'BRAT'
Nnamdï’s sounds are a testament to the continual melting away of genre distinctions in the current era of (particularly Black) music. There are material and Continue Reading
DYLYN Dares to "Find Myself" by Facing Fears and Life's Dark Forces (premiere + interview)
As a former electropop artist who once hit the road with distracting dancers or fading teen idols past their prime time, Toronto singer-songwriter DYLYN grew Continue Reading