Episodes
SZA sends out a powerful 'SOS,' mixing pop, hip-hop and R&B
January 10, 2023 10:17SZA sings and raps fluidly on her latest album, which features frequent medium tempos and romantic imagery that harken back to Luther Vandross, Minnie Riperton and the "Quiet Storm" era of 1980s R&B. * This article was originally published here
Jason Moran's new album pays tribute to Black jazz pioneer James Reese Europe
January 04, 2023 10:05Jazz artist Jason Moran revisits the deep influence of Black composer and bandleader James Reese Europe, best known for serving with the Harlem Hellfighters in World War I. (Image credit: Courtesy of Newport Jazz Festival) * This article was originally published here
Beyoncé and Wet Leg top Ken Tucker's round-up of 2022's best music
December 28, 2022 10:24Beyoncé's album Renaissance celebrates disco rhythms and club culture, while the self-titled album by the Isle of Wight duo Wet Leg features intense, punk-influenced pop. * This article was originally published here
'Emerald City Nights' revisits jazz pianist Ahmad Jamal in a series from the 1960s
December 14, 2022 10:16When Jamal's trios visited Penthouse jazz club in Seattle in the '60s, they came to play. Now 92, the pianist has signed off on the release of a new series of live recordings from back in the day. * This article was originally published here
With a bold debut album, Julia Bullock curates an unconventional career
December 10, 2022 10:13The velvet-voiced soprano with a career on the rise chooses her projects, and the music on her debut solo album, with consummate intention. (Image credit: Grant Legan/Nonesuch Records) * This article was originally published here
These three new songs will help you grapple with romances of the past
December 02, 2022 10:18After a decade, Caitlin Rose is "Getting It Right." Weyes Blood's "It's Not Just Me, It's Everybody" is an ethereal ballad. And Carly Rae Jepsen and Rufus Wainwright duet in "The Loneliest Time." * This article was originally published here
Wizkid's 'More Love, Less Ego' is so relaxed it's nearly static
November 30, 2022 10:09The Nigerian singer is among the biggest stars of a generation. Though pleasant, his new album refuses to keep pace with a rapidly evolving genre. (Image credit: Fawaz Ibrahim) * This article was originally published here
SAULT's 5-album drop deepens its long-standing communal values
November 29, 2022 10:09The collective's new music — Today & Tomorrow, AIIR, Earth, 11 and Untitled (God) — suggests divinity void of control or coercion, in order to contemplate our common human needs. (Image credit: Courtesy of the Artist) * This article was originally published here
The personal apocalypse of Weyes Blood's 'And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow'
November 28, 2022 10:15The singer-songwriter's fifth album is an ecosystem of intimacy, in its power to redeem and to destroy. (Image credit: Neil Krug) * This article was originally published here
SAULT's five-album drop deepens its long-standing communal values
November 27, 2022 10:12The collective's new music — Today & Tomorrow, AIIR, Earth, 11 and Untitled (God) — suggests divinity void of control or coercion, in order to contemplate our common human needs. (Image credit: Courtesy of the Artist) * This article was originally published here
Album Review: 'Tu Historia' by Julieta Venegas
November 25, 2022 10:09Julieta Venegas, a legend of Latin American pop music, released her first album in seven years, called "Tu Historia." * This article was originally published here
GloRilla is finding her voice
November 24, 2022 10:16Though it feels like a mere sample of what's to come, the Memphis rapper's new EP presents her as a singular talent using her instrument as a megaphone for provocation and inspiration. (Image credit: Courtesy of the Artist) * This article was originally published here
'Revival' captures drummer Elvin Jones as a nascent bandleader finding his voice
November 19, 2022 10:12A previously unreleased live recording from 1967 finds the iconic jazz drummer experimenting outside the spotlight in a small New York club, assessing his next steps at a pivotal moment in his career. (Image credit: Francis Wolff/Courtesy of Blue Note Records) * This article was originally published here
In the devastation of climate change, Daniel Bachman captures what's left behind
November 18, 2022 10:09In field recordings and fingerstyle guitar, Bachman's diaristic Almanac Behind documents cataclysmic weather as it becomes a larger part of our lives. (Image credit: Aldona Dye/Courtesy of the artist) * This article was originally published here
There's still no one like Santigold
November 15, 2022 10:12On the startlingly direct Spirituals, and in headline-grabbing rebukes of music's trickle-down economy, Santi White is what she's always been: a forward-thinking alternative to pop's here and now. (Image credit: Frank Ockenfels/Courtesy of the artist) * This article was originally published here
Drake and 21 Savage are sore winners on 'Her Loss'
November 12, 2022 10:21The duo trades threats and out-of-pocket disses of virtually everyone they've ever encountered on a new album. It's ugly, but it mostly works as a more targeted, focused version of Drake's whole deal. (Image credit: Courtesy of the artist) * This article was originally published here
'Wakanda Forever' hopes to replicate the success of 'Black Panther'
November 11, 2022 10:12The sequel to the Marvel film Black Panther is in wide release this weekend. Wakanda Forever directly addresses the death of the character played by the late Chadwick Boseman. * This article was originally published here
How country music allowed Jerry Lee Lewis to vary his wild-man persona
November 09, 2022 10:04Lewis came up in rock, but proved his country chops on the 1968 album Another Place, Another Time. The music suited his piano style, and the lyrics fit the emotions he brought to every performance. * This article was originally published here
Jazz trio Thumbscrew celebrates 10 years together on 'Multicolored Midnight'
November 04, 2022 10:03From the beginning, Thumbscrew has had a thing for off-kilter rhythms and shifting accents. This new album is filled with idiosyncratic tunes — music befitting of the idiosyncratic band. * This article was originally published here
Taylor Swift's 'Midnights' mixes late-night dreaminess with steely control
October 28, 2022 10:12Swift's new album, which chronicles 13 sleepless nights scattered throughout her life, includes a bracing amount of clear-headed thoughts about love and life as a pop star. * This article was originally published here
Dawn Richard and Spencer Zahn find solace in color and motion on 'Pigments'
October 27, 2022 10:18Pigments comes to terms with the aches that make us human and asks listeners to act in accordance with their bodies' instinctive reactions to change, fear, doubt and love. (Image credit: Clifford Usher) * This article was originally published here
MAVI's clearheaded songs of endurance
October 26, 2022 10:29The Charlotte rapper's new album, Laughing so Hard, it Hurts, is more direct in thought and intention than his debut, more open and vulnerable, letting his observations guide his insights. (Image credit: Wyeth Collins) * This article was originally published here
On 'Blue Rev,' Alvvays finds euphoria in noise
October 25, 2022 10:03The third album from the Canadian noise pop purveyors feels like a conversation between clarity and cacophony, creating an exhilarating tension. (Image credit: Eleanor Petry/Courtesy of the artist) * This article was originally published here
'The Loneliest Time' showcases Carly Rae Jepsen's versatility
October 24, 2022 10:15Singer Carly Rae Jepsen has just released her latest album, The Loneliest Time. * This article was originally published here
On 'It's Only Me,' stardom makes Lil Baby more anonymous than ever
October 22, 2022 10:06The newly minted A-list rapper variously calls himself a legend, a hero and a boss on the album, but the songs never embrace that mythmaking or mold those labels into personas. (Image credit: Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images for Coachella) * This article was originally published here
In the haze of 'Midnights,' Taylor Swift softens into an expanded sound
October 21, 2022 10:15On Swift's 10th and most challenging album, she and producer Jack Antonoff push her voice in new directions, rethinking the sonic rhetoric of first-person storytelling and shaking off old habits. (Image credit: Beth Garrabrant/Courtesy of the artist) * This article was originally published here
Saxophonist Bobby Watson brings the sparks on 'Back Home in Kansas City'
October 20, 2022 10:15After decades in New York, Watson has returned to Kansas City. The core KC jazz values — a swinging beat, a personal style, and an earthy, bluesy sensibility — are firmly in place on this new album. * This article was originally published here
Singer-songwriter Ashley McBryde gives voice to an imaginary town on 'Lindeville'
October 15, 2022 10:27McBryde mixes passionate music with novelistic details on a concept album about the inhabitants of a small rural town, named after the songwriter Dennis Linde. * This article was originally published here
Katie Crutchfield and Jess Williamson tell their truth plainly
October 14, 2022 10:24Plains' I Walked With You A Ways, the collaborative debut from the Waxahatchee singer-songwriter and Williamson, combines wry wisdom with a classic country sound. (Image credit: Miolly Matalon/Courtesy of the artist) * This article was originally published here
Confronted with life's fragility, Wild Pink finds sanctity in stillness
October 13, 2022 10:07The band's new album, ILYSM — made in the midst of cancer diagnosis — shares much with the genre of slow cinema: It asks the listener to lean in, pay attention and find providence in small details. (Image credit: Mitchell Wojcik/Courtesy of the artist) * This article was originally published here
'Searching in Grenoble' showcases the unique style of jazz pianist Mal Waldron
October 03, 2022 10:03Nobody sounds like Waldron, a fact proved by a new 2-CD recording the artist made during a 1978 solo concert. Searching in Grenoble is a good introduction to the pianist's compelling sound. * This article was originally published here
With '$oul $old $eparately,' Freddie Gibbs cashes in on his cachet
October 02, 2022 10:22Forget what F. Scott Fitzgerald said about American lives and second acts, Gibbs is on his third or fourth. $$$ is a rewarding listen that sometimes labors under the weight of a forced progression. (Image credit: Nick Walker) * This article was originally published here
Fungi served as Bjork's latest muse in her new album, 'Fossora'
October 01, 2022 10:33Bjork's Fossora peers down into the soil, in a love letter to fungi. "Bubbly and fun" is how she describes her new album. * This article was originally published here
Yeah Yeah Yeahs' 'Cool It Down' is an exhilarating yet unhurried return
September 30, 2022 10:19The band's first new record in nine years confronts environmental ruin and pandemic-era isolation, but ends at a vantage of hope — one that sounds like it took all the intervening time to reach. (Image credit: Jason Al-Taan/Courtesy of the artist) * This article was originally published here
'Words & Music' offers 15 demos Lou Reed recorded as a fledgling artist
September 29, 2022 10:03Reed died in 2013. A new collection, recorded in 1965, captures the earliest-known versions of some of the Velvet Underground's best known songs, including "Heroin" and "Pale Blue Eyes." * This article was originally published here
Lambchop's long and winding road
September 28, 2022 10:12Kurt Wagner's Nashville collective has always been an expression of absolute possibility. The Bible, his best album in a decade, points that instinct at life's most inescapable truth. (Image credit: Erik Westra/Courtesy of the artist) * This article was originally published here
Jake Blount's 'The New Faith' is a cautionary, clarifying Afrofuturist tale
September 25, 2022 10:21On Blount's new concept album, the singer, scholar and multi-instrumentalist reimagines field recordings of spirituals to tell a story about a time after the climate crisis has destroyed the earth. (Image credit: Tadin Brown /Courtesy of the artist) * This article was originally published here
Makaya McCraven's 'In These Times': A musical marvel made by meticulous process
September 24, 2022 10:13On his new album the drummer, composer and self-described "beat scientist" makes music by way of an elaborate hybrid method combining improvisation with careful editing. It sounds like magic. (Image credit: Sulyiman Stokes/Courtesy of the artist) * This article was originally published here
A review of Space Force's new anthem, 'Semper Supra'
September 23, 2022 10:12The Space Force has released their new anthem, "Semper Supra." NPR's Ari Shapiro speaks with Stephen Thompson from NPR Music to review it. * This article was originally published here
Codeine's lost album 'Dessau' feels like a ghost
September 22, 2022 10:24Scrapped and shelved until now, Dessau mirrors a particularly fraught moment for the slowcore band. (Image credit: Mike Galinsky/Courtesy of Numero Group) * This article was originally published here
The uneasy confessions of Alex G
September 21, 2022 10:27As a songwriter, Alex Giannascoli has long taken a mutating, playfully distorted approach. But on his new album, full of songs about morality, he astutely focuses every magic trick in his discography. (Image credit: Chris Maggio) * This article was originally published here
Take a musical moment for singer Rina Sawayama's new album
September 19, 2022 10:06Laura Snapes, music editor for The Guardian, reviews Sawayama's "Hold the Girl." * This article was originally published here
On 'Hideous Bastard,' Oliver Sim mines horror tropes to embrace queer identity
September 18, 2022 10:03On his debut solo album, Sim — best known as a member of The xx — takes inspiration from horror movie villains on songs that look for humanity in the aspects of our identity that society rejects. (Image credit: Casper Sejersen/Courtesy of the artist) * This article was originally published here
On Quinn Christopherson's debut album, stories of growth emerge in monumental details
September 17, 2022 10:12On Write Your Name In Pink, the Alaskan singer-songwriter turns a compassionate eye towards his memories, threading together small moments to reveal moving stories about love, addiction and growth. (Image credit: Emma Sheffer/Courtesy of the artist) * This article was originally published here
On 'Hold the Girl,' Rina Sawayama's stadium sound obscures her signature appeal
September 16, 2022 10:07The pop singer has superstar ambition and a knack for clever genre collisions. But while her new album sometimes matches intensity with innovation, it more often grinds her nuanced story to a paste. (Image credit: Thurstan Redding/Courtesy of the artist) * This article was originally published here
Sudan Archives' vibrant music of exploration
September 10, 2022 10:33The self-taught violinist, producer, and songwriter doesn't just experience or consume global sounds; she interacts with them. Natural Brown Prom Queen feels like a world tour of her brain. (Image credit: Edwig Henson) * This article was originally published here
'The Elephant Man's Bones' is the culmination of two careers
September 08, 2022 10:13Holed up on opposite coasts, Roc Marciano and the Alchemist, two key figures in underground rap, have been gradually moving toward a shared sonic goal, reaching an apex with their new album. (Image credit: Castro Clifton) * This article was originally published here
Sean Shibe, a shape-shifting artist, redefines the idea of a classical guitarist
August 30, 2022 10:36The Scottish guitarist defies expectations, ditching his traditional nylon-strung instrument for a Fender Stratocaster to play a startling range of music – from Meredith Monk to Chick Corea. (Image credit: Iga Gozdowska/Courtesy of the artist) * This article was originally published here
This reissue proves Roger Miller was more than just a novelty act
August 25, 2022 10:07Best known for novelty songs like "King of the Road," Miller was also a serious songwriter who wrote ballads for artists such as Ray Price. Miller's '70 album A Trip in the Country is newly available. * This article was originally published here
New quartet album by jazz drummer Billy Drummond is a treat
August 24, 2022 10:18On Valse Sinistre, Drummond's ride-cymbal beat is lively, varied and full of passing cross-rhythms — the sound of a musician fully engaged and in the habit of attentive listening. * This article was originally published here