Gogol Bordello makes music that is best experienced with a crowd. The band’s frenetic, Eastern European-flavored brand of punk is tailor-made for the mosh pit. Ever since breaking out with their Steve Albini-produced 2005 album Gypsy Punks: Underdog World Strike, the Eugene Hütz-fronted collective has played bigger rooms to larger crowds around the world. However, […]
Aaron Shaw is one of the “Friends” in Carlos Niño and Friends, and the song titles on the saxophonist and flautist’s new album reflect some the vibey California positivity of that Los Angeles percussionist’s crew: “The Path to Clarity,” “Echoes of the Heart,” “Jubilant Voyage,” “Inner Compass.” Niño shows up to do his customary rattling, […]
Across 30-plus years of existence, the four-headed plasma ball of Converge have continuously elevated the metalcore genre to altitude-sickness levels. It’s important to acknowledge that the band has never betrayed their audience. The acclaimed collaboration with the opaque Chelsea Wolfe (2021’s Bloodmoon 1) had them accessing new listeners in a whole new context, but don’t […]
Laughter in Summer is a whisper of an album. It feels like the embrace of a warm summer day, a wispy dalliance with joy. However, the origins of the record stem from news that would push most into darkness. In 2024, musician and trans activist Beverly Glenn-Copeland revealed he had been diagnosed with dementia. Rather […]
Staffed by Turkish, Indonesian and Dutch members, Altın Gün have always favored tunings and tonalities exotic to Anglo-American ears. Utilizing a saz (a long-necked lute played in Eastern Europe, the Levant and Asia) as lead instrument adds distinctive flavor to their respectful yet non-rote modernizations of Turkish folk classics and to their own serpentine compositions. […]
“Many found the music offensive, the dancing objectionable, and the popularity of both with young people verging on a mental health crisis.” So writes music historian Susan C. Cook about ragtime, the heavily syncopated ancestor of jazz that arose in the late 1800s. Like all things, ragtime’s subversiveness faded over time, and, a century later, […]
One of the delights of the prior Ratboys album, 2023’s The Window, is that I could recommend it to almost any indie rock fan. You like beautiful Americana? Ratboys. Fuzzy alternative rock? Ratboys. Pop-punk? Ratboys. Occasional noisy jams? Ratboys. It was such a fun grab-bag that I figured it couldn’t last. I assumed The Window […]
Last May, Ty Segall released Possession, a sophisticated set of psychedelic bubblegum that featured a string section, saxophone, and surprisingly sweet melodies. “Live” “at” “the” “BBC,” taped about a decade ago, may take recent fans of the L.A.-based garage rocker by surprise. Now in his late 30s, Segall’s already released 17 solo albums. The prolific […]
A move to a warmer climate didn’t push the gloom away for Blackwater Holylight. The former Portland, Oregon band may have decamped to Los Angeles in 2021 after releasing their third album Silence/Motion to escape the region’s dreary winters, but their new record Not Here Not Gone continues the band’s dark explorations. It is also […]
Lucinda Williams has made a career out of listening to other musicians. On Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, the songwriter’s classic 1998 record, she sings, “We’d put on ZZ Top and turn ‘em up real loud,” as if it’s a mission statement. Williams has also made a run of six “jukebox” albums since 2021 […]