Lopatin’s patchwork panoply of snippets and songs in collision is kaleidoscopic, peaceful, and placating. The purloined production of Daniel Lopatin’s Magic Oneohtrix Point Never, “recorded”/constructed in pandemic-imposed solitude, is suffused with dizzying, sumptuous static redolent of a sibilating station of FM radio (i.e. New…
If songs/instrumentals is to mark a pause in Lenker’s prolific output over the past couple years, it’s a fitting and intimate ellipses. After a prolific year that yielded one solo album and two records with her band, Big Thief, Adrianne Lenker returns with two more albums…
Phil Elverum continues to write his sonic autobiography with Microphones in 2020, a delicate, Proustian journey through his memories. The unfolding biography of Phil Elverum’s life — which he has for years been telling under his Mount Eerie moniker, most exceptionally in a trilogy…
Barwick’s latest is still welcomingly adventurous but the artist’s slight pivots make for diminishing returns here. For an artist who’s been heavily characterized by certain aesthetic features of her work — namely, the gentle construction of her songs and overlapping choral vocals — for…
Gold Record isn’t Bill Callahan’s greatest sonic effort, but it represents a thematic, emotional maturation for the artist. Nobody broods quite like Bill Callahan. From his early work performed under the moniker of Smog, up to his most recent releases, the musician consistently exudes a…
Inner Song reflects a continued evolution for Owens and a further distillation of a sound that’s becoming recognizably her own. Kelly Lee Owens wears a lot of hats on her stylish, sleek second album Inner Song, an inviting tech house-pop record connected by a vibe:…
Whole New Mess might be a reinterpretation of old material but its intimate, melancholic shift poignantly reflects 2020’s somber mood. Angel Olsen is back, this time with a rework of 2019’s All Mirrors titled Whole New Mess. While this may sound like material more suited…
Deftones have somehow managed to remain relevant since they first emerged out of the nu-metal explosion of the late 1990s and early 2000s, but to associate them with such a short-lived genre that is riddled with criticism is to do the band a large…
While most of us have turned inward this year, Fleet Foxes have opened back up. Shore, the follow-up to their impenetrable, depressive third album, the long-awaited Crack-Up, cut the incubation period in half and delivered the most drastic departure from the trajectory of their…
After a nine-year absence, Bright Eyes returns with Down in the Weeds, Where the World Once Was, the group’s ninth LP and a shining reminder of a largely dissipated mid-aughts indie folk/emo movement. If the album fails to reach the heights of Bright Eyes’…
