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The Sparks Brothers (2021) | Official Trailer

Nightshift "Power Cut" (Official Video)

Glasgow indie band Nightshift (featuring members of Spinning Coin, 2 Ply and Robert Sotelo) are shrewd in their sonic choices. On their new LP, Zöe, avant-garde and no wave tendencies

Future Islands - "Seasons" @ Letterman 3/3/14

Nightshift - Space

Nightshift- Zöe

Nightshift: Zöe Trouble in Mind Records Glasgow indie band Nightshift (featuring members of Spinning Coin, 2 Ply and Robert Sotelo) are shrewd in their sonic choices. On their new LP, Zöe, avant-garde and no wave tendencies mingle with classic indie-pop influences, resulting in an alluring push and pull. For an album that thrives on their rhythmic interplay and colorful chemistry, it’s surprising that these songs were recorded remotely during lockdown, but they’re still able to lock into grooves with ease. The extended breakdown on the blissful “Power Cut,” for example, finds them riffing over each other like it’s a rapturous jam session—synths, bells, and guitars flutter and glow, until a screeching flute solo invades and takes the track into wonderfully freakish territory. Other tracks like “Make Kin” and “Infinity Winner” thrive on their spacious, hair-raising qualities, with a palpable gloom brought on by jazzy post-punk. Whether it’s an offbeat drum passage or charming shared pop vocals, Nightshift have plenty of curveballs and plenty of heart. —Lizzie Manno

Brijean - Ocean (Official Video)

Cloud Nothings - "The Spirit Of" (official audio)

“Am I older now or am I just another age?,” Dylan Baldi asks on track one of Cloud Nothings’ new album The Shadow I Remember. The band recently celebrated the 10th anniversary of their debut album Turning On, which was just reissued via Carpark Records, so it makes sense that they’re pondering the passage of time

The Shins: Oh, Inverted World One by One All Day

When Sub Pop selected “New Slang” as one of their Singles-of-the-Month, the response was immediate. Albequerque’s James Mercer was quickly looking at a full-on record deal, and the label that made its name during the grunge movement was about to get a second life as the epicenter of indie rock. There were plenty of other acts making music that would help usher in the indie era, but nothing marked the the appetite for quirky, folky, quiet rock quite like Mercer’s first falsetto oooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ohh-ooh-ooh-oooohs at the beginning of “New Slang.” With its opaque lyrics about deteriorating relationships and dissatisfaction about one’s lot in life married to bouncy rhythms and chiming guitar melodies connected with disaffected rock fans. The first iPod was released four months after Oh, Inverted World, and what better to fill up something novel than with something novel. Over the next few years, the band would be name-checked by Natalie Portman’s character in Garden State, and the album would earn its Gold Record status from the RIAA. It might not change your life, but it definitely changed the music landscape of the 2000s. —Josh Jackson

Sparklehorse’s Mark Linkous- Sea Of Teeth

The Dismemberment Plan - "The Face of the Earth"

The Dismemberment Plan were unparalleled at their zenith, when Change was released. We’re talking about a record that fell between the band being asked seemingly out of nowhere to open for Pearl Jam during the European leg of their 2000 tour, and their tour pairing with Death Cab for Cutie in 2002 when Transatlanticism came out.

Moontype "Ferry" (Official Video) 2021

Moontype: Bodies of Water Friendship, water and glass have a lot in common. For starters, they’re essential for modern life, and they can be beautiful, life-affirming and often long-lasting. Similarly, they’re all powerful and capable of wreaking havoc. But most interestingly, we can see our reflection in each of them, whether it’s a storefront, a pond or even a friendship. These three things also inform Bodies of Water, the impressive debut album from Chicago trio Moontype. The record is full of references to water in various states of matter, cherished quality time and glass as a symbol of perspective—all devices to highlight the tender, wholesome moments that keep us going. It’s a sweet, intimate record, bolstered by the love each band member has for each other. Soaking up their album really is a healing experience given its universal search for love, understanding and identity. Whether songwriter, lead vocalist and bassist Margaret McCarthy is pining for a friend she hasn’t seen in a while, feeling disconnected from someone who’s near, or trying to cope with being alone, Bodies of Water cherishes the special moments when connection comes easy, and we truly feel seen by ourselves and others. —Lizzie Manno

Godspeed You! Black Emperor: Job's Lament 2021

Godspeed You! Black Emperor: G_d’s Pee AT STATE’S END For the entirety of its existence, the Canadian post-rock group Godspeed You! Black Emperor has eschewed interviews, choosing instead to communicate collectively through terse, unsigned (and uncapitalized) statements. “this record,” reads the one accompanying the band’s new album G_d’s Pee AT STATE’S END, “is about all of us waiting for the end.” The truth is, Godspeed’s entire body of work over the past three decades has felt like a prelude to an end—an end that feels closer than ever before. It is surely no coincidence, then, that G_d’s Pee arrives now, its 52 minutes stuffed with forbidding drones, symphonic despair, eerie found sounds and vast swaths of epic, instrumental rock befitting the apocalypse and whatever comes after. —Ben Salmon

Dry Cleaning: New Long Leg 2021- Her Hippo

British quartet Dry Cleaning extract the profound from the mundane and the meaningful from the nonsensical. On “Viking Hair” from the band’s 2019 EP Boundary Road Snacks and Drinks, frontperson Florence Shaw’s everyday sexual fantasies stood in for the arbitrary guidelines determining acceptable and shameful desires; as she surreally rattled off “traditional fish bar, chicken and ribs, bus pass” and more on “Traditional Fish” from the band’s other 2019 EP, Sweet Princess, she scorned the very idea of commerce. And she did it all in a bone-dry, comical sing-speak set to rollicking, if not straightforward, post-punk courtesy of guitarist Tom Dowse, bassist Lewis Maynard and drummer Nick Buxton. New Long Leg, Dry Cleaning’s debut album (and first release for 4AD), is all of that and none of that. Shaw’s semi-accidental revelations about the ridiculousness of being alive when we live in a society are sharper than ever, and her voice newly takes the tone of a psychic waking up from a 70-year nap. Dowse, Maynard and Buxton have massively upped their game, too: The EPs’ post-punk foundation remains, but atop it come stomping glam riffs, dream-pop arpeggios and razor-sharp melodies that loosen Dry Cleaning’s prior tension without entirely taming the mania. —Max Freedman

Arooj Aftab - Ras Ke Bhare (w VANDANA, Charlotte Greve and Jonathan Levy)

Arooj Aftab: Vulture Prince A Lahore, Pakistan-born graduate of Boston’s Berklee College of Music now based in Brooklyn, composer and singer/songwriter Arooj Aftab’s new album Vulture Prince follows her 2018 collection Siren Islands, but is in direct conversation with her 2015 debut, Bird Under Water. Vulture Prince opens with “Baghon Main,” a new reimagining of her debut’s fourth track that replaces the original’s subdued harmonium with bright, beautiful strings, as if assuming a newly accepting outlook on a painful past.

The Armed - AVERAGE DEATH

Everything you read about The Armed’s latest album ULTRAPOP will mention the mysterious nature of the Detroit-based band’s true lineup. They’ll cite made-up names and untrustworthy interviews, falsified press releases and photos featuring models standing in for whoever’s behind such an uncommonly catchy and charismatic strain of hardcore punk. Here’s what we do know: Whoever is pulling strings and pushing boundaries for The Armed is doing a hell of a job. What’s most impressive about ULTRAPOP is not necessarily the killer riffs, the pummeling rhythms or the plentiful melodies, though all of those are consistently thrilling. What’s most impressive is the way this band brings together different, disparate styles in a way that sounds seamless and natural and new, even if others have done it before. When The Armed announced ULTRAPOP last winter, de facto leader Dan Greene was quoted as saying the album “seeks, in earnest, to create a truly new listener experience. It is an open rebellion against the culture of expectation in ‘heavy’ music. It is a joyous, genderless, post-nihilist, anti-punk, razor-focused take on creating the most intense listener experience possible.” With ULTRAPOP, they’ve done exactly that. Whoever “they” are. —Ben Salmon

SAULT - Fearless

Sault, the enigmatic British group that surprise-dropped the riveting, socially conscious soul album Untitled (Black Is) released another new album titled Untitled (Rise). Last year also saw them release two albums, with the first in early summer and the second at the end of summer, and they’ve continued that pattern in 2020. The group is a collaboration between Dean Josiah Cover (aka Inflo), Melisa Young (aka Kid Sister) and Cleopatra Nikolic (aka Cleo Sol), and their music spans soul, funk, Afrobeat and R&B. While Untitled (Black Is) was more pointed about the struggles of the Black experience, Untitled (Rise) shows the carefree, independent and celebratory sides of that existence. The rhythms are more central and vigorous, and there’s a relaxing flow to these songs, though there are still moments of powerful spoken-word speeches and stomps on tracks like “Rise Intently” and “The Beginning & the End.” With this album, Sault have proven their exceptional dynamism, talent and spirit once again as they’ve delivered another essential cultural staple. —Lizzie Manno

Soccer Mommy - royal screw up (Official Audio)

Although Soccer Mommy’s 2018 debut studio album Clean transformed her into a critical favorite, indie-rock leader and tour opener for Paramore, Kacey Musgraves and Vampire Weekend, anyone who’s grappled with mental illness knows that success isn’t a salve. Following Clean, Soccer Mommy (real name Sophie Allison) became especially vocal about her struggles with body dysmorphia, depression and anxiety. These challenges lay solely at the periphery of Clean’s tales about youthful, regretful romantic breakdowns and insecurities, but on her eagerly anticipated Clean follow-up color theory, Allison bravely pulls her mental illness from the sidelines to the forefront, and she also tackles a grave subject she’s spoken about far less frequently: her mother’s terminal cancer. Success neither curing mental illness nor reversing a parent’s medical death sentence is a lot for a 22-year-old to face, but Allison is more than up to the task. color theory is an astounding feat of lyricism as clever as it is devastating, and Allison’s songwriting, production and voice are likewise orders of magnitude stronger than they were on Clean, recalling ’90s alt radio while pushing Soccer Mommy in galvanizing new directions. —Max Freedman

Adrianne Lenker - ingydar

Everything Adrianne Lenker puts her name to could very well be the best thing she’s ever done. She’s best known as the frontwoman and songwriter of Brooklyn-based indie-folk band Big Thief, who released their debut album in 2016 and quickly became critical darlings, and Lenker herself became a particularly influential vocalist. When Big Thief’s tour was cut short back in March, Lenker decided to retreat to a cabin in the mountains of Western Massachusetts to record an album. Space and nature, after all, are hugely important to her work. Lenker’s last solo full-length was 2018’s abysskiss, an album where dreams can lie in pillows, wagons can carry desire and time can count us just as well as we can count it. With songs, Lenker hones in on the duality of life. Love can be pure or manipulative, intimacy can indicate separation or closeness, and pain can be soul-crushing or relieving—and all these realities still lurk beneath the surface even when one has more clearly manifested. These tracks are among Lenker’s most striking and emotionally nuanced. While it lacks the musical dynamism of abysskiss, songs’ lyrics are more potent and detailed. Much like Big Thief’s, Lenker’s music emboldens the listener to think about their mother and dig through photos from their childhood, and not out of typical sentimental longing, but a deeper, primal desire to love and be loved. —Lizzie Manno

Thundercat album 2021 - It Is What It Is How I Feel

While the cat noises and fart sounds on his last album, 2017’s Drunk, offended one prominent music critic so much he nearly crashed his car in a fit of frustration, bassist Stephen Bruner (aka Thundercat) didn’t actually need to tame his prodigious appetite for variety. On previous Thundercat albums, he reveled in his own zaniness, but he also showed a knack for going right to the edge of incoherence while maintaining just enough of a consistent thread. Listening to a player with a range that rivals the late bass giant Jaco Pastorius—and, arguably, the chops to match—part of the appeal comes from just watching the ideas roam free. That makes it all the more remarkable that Bruner has decided to rein in his wanderlust on his fourth solo LP, It Is What It Is. It’s not that It Is What It Is lacks variety. Much like on his other output, Bruner once again draws freely from the wells of funk, soul, disco, jazz, rock, hip-hop and lo-fi experimentation. The crucial difference this time is that he shoehorns those influences into a startlingly smooth flow that somehow accommodates dazzling technical proficiency. On It Is What It Is, Bruner brings ’70s-style R&B balladeering (“Overseas,” “How I Feel”) and fusion (“Interstellar Love,” “How Sway”) to the forefront as other styles recede into supportive roles. In terms of the impact of the record as a complete listening experience, the payoff is tremendous. —Saby Reyes-Kulkarni

SAULT - Sorry Ain't Enough

“The revolution has come (out the lies!) / Still won’t put down the gun.” This is the first line of Sault’s new album Untitled (Black Is). The album of the Movement has arrived—and every second of it is glorious. Last year, a mysterious soul group named Sault arrived out of nowhere with two albums, titled 5 and 7. No one knew the identities of its musicians, and the albums were released on an independent label, but they drew rapturous acclaim. 5 and 7 were feasts of rhythmic and exuberant Afrobeat, soul, funk and R&B—the songs are passionate, radiant, radical and rooted in rich Black musical traditions (which, by extension, are the same roots of most popular genres). They were unexpected triumphs, but after releasing two albums in the same year, one might’ve figured Sault would go silent—at least for a little while. But earlier this year, something incredible happened—they surprise-released another album, Untitled (Black Is). On June 12, they posted a square image of a Black power fist on socials with the caption: “We present our first ‘Untitled’ album to mark a moment in time where we as Black People, and of Black Origin are fighting for our lives. RIP George Floyd and all those who have suffered from police brutality and systemic racism. Change is happening … We are focused.” The languid synthesizers on “Eternal Life,” the fury-filled shared vocals on “Stop Dem,” the jazzy guitars on “This Generation” and the skittering beats on “Black” make up a rich tapestry of soul, funk and gospel music. While there are nods to Motown, these aren’t your parents’ classic soul records—you’re hearing the eccentricities, voices and personalities of today and tomorrow. —Lizzie Manno

Nothing - Just a Story

On their fourth album The Great Dismal, Philadelphia shoegaze outfit Nothing triumph with both bold and subtle sounds. The band have always excelled at details and dynamics, and they deliver here without fail. The final passages of opening track “A Fabricated Life” really cement the album’s prodigious and intimate themes: “Long before the fall / Did we have it all along? / Sing the same old songs / Beat the same old tired drum / But what else can I ask for? / I’m nauseous from the ride / Degeneration in the wind / A fabricated life.” These moods of erosion, numbness and uncertainty pervade the album, and their mythical soundscapes bolster the weight of these feelings and elevate their sense of urgency. The Great Dismal watches as humanity is put through the wringer and responds with godlike, pummeling guitars and metaphorical, emotionally revealing lyrics. One minute, they’re contemplating themes of love, reason, perception and death, on a grand scale and in simple terms, and the next, they’re marveling at people’s reactions to rain (“Isn’t it strange / Watching people / Try and outrun rain”). It’s a sweltering expulsion of anxieties and a thoughtful chronicling of our species’ downfall. —Lizzie Manno

HUM - In the Den

Space-rock cult favorites Hum made a triumphant return over the summer, releasing their fifth studio album—and their first in 22 years, following 1998’s Downward Is Heavenward—with little-to-no advance notice in June. The Champaign, Ill., quartet unleash “Waves” of intoxicating distortion, both on that tone-setting opener and throughout Inlet’s eight-track hour. Matt Talbott and Tim Lash’s dual guitar torrents are exceptional—powerful without being oppressive, they tap into nostalgia for the band’s mid-’90s heyday, yet don’t belong to any one time period. Meanwhile, Talbott’s vocals paint dark, imaginative portraits of an empty earth, “misplaced dreams” and “starlight fallen,” as if these songs are being beamed back in time from a near-future world where natural tranquility and humankind’s hopes are little more than distant memories. Inlet’s grit is like sandpaper for the mind, leaving it smoother and more serene than before. —Scott Russell

CAFE RACER - Faces

Some psychedelic albums reach a hypnotic end cheaply. But Shadow Talk, the second album from Chicago experimental five-piece Cafe Racer, reaches heady emotional and sonic heights, not by leaning on overused effects or sprinkling meaningless, abstract imagery, but by expecting more out of a song and its lyrics. Shadow Talk is all about finesse and dynamics—melodies cascade with subtlety and spark with a euphoric glow. They’re also masters of grooves both meditative and invigorating, and they experiment with foreground and background sounds in mind-numbing ways. It’s an extremely calming album until it isn’t—the guitar and synth fury on “Faces” is life-affirming, the guitar solo in “Exile” is painfully emotive and its subsequent outro track creates blistering, ambient havoc. It’s a moody, empathetic album, bolstered by repetition and the palpable scenes they create, whether that’s an imagined, heavenly gorge or the melancholy urban landscapes you traverse every day. —Lizzie Manno

The Associates No

Outside - Bird Box (Abridged) by Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross

Atticus Ross and Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor came up with the track "Outside". The 13-minute track is taken from the soundtrack of the Netflix movie "Bird Box". Sandra Bullock stars in this post-apocalyptic thriller released in December on the streaming service. Its soundtrack (10 tracks), composed by Ross and Reznor, is for sale on the Nine Inch Nails website in high-definition audio. It will be available on music streaming sites from January 25. According to the site, a long version exclusively available on physical media will be released in the spring and will contain an additional hour of music. Reznor and Ross have recently collaborated on the composition of several soundtracks, including the one for Jonah Hill's film “Mid90s” (2018) and the upcoming adaptation of “Watchmen” for HBO.

Tempers feat. Rem Koolhaas - Love At The Mall (Official video)

architect Rem Koolhaas construi a CASA da MUSICA no porto

Drew McDowall album Unnatural Channel song Tell Me the Name

The Wedding Present album Seamonsters - Suck

After recording with Steve Albini on their remake of 1990's "Brassneck" single, the Wedding Present decamped to Minnesota to record a full album with the notoriously abrasive producer. It proved to be a perfect match of band and producer and Seamonsters turned out to be the most emotionally powerful album the band could have hoped to make. Albini's dramatically stripped-down sound and David Gedge's utterly wrecked lyrics work to wring every last drop of desolate anger and angst from the songs. Simon Smith sounds like he's battering his drums with concrete blocks instead of sticks, Keith Gregory's wire-taut bass sounds like it's stalking the guitars, and Gedge and Peter Solowka's guitars explode into flaming balls of noise and sound when they aren't lurking in the mix like barely restrained demons. The simplicity of the recording, the intense range of dynamics in each song, and the almost painful amount of passion the band injects into every note is breathtaking.

Kira Skov - HOLLYWOOD