Brooklyn-based René Kladzyk calls herself a child of NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement). When she was nine, her father’s auto industry job was relocated, moving them from Michigan to El Paso, where he met her stepmother from the neighboring Ciudad Juárez. Her childhood largely informs her music — her abandoned Michigan home was used […]

Scoring a Netflix series is a rare triumph in itself, but it’s not likely that Survive, the Austin analog synth quartet that soundtracked Stranger Things, knew that glowing red logo would become like Coca Cola in the states, and that those four child actors would virtually turn into today’s Beatles. They also might not have […]

  For many readers, the name Kishi Bashi is not new. Kaoru Ishibashi has been making music under that moniker for a few years, releasing his debut LP, 151a, in 2012. But prior to that, people probably knew him as a member of of Montreal, or even from his days with Jupiter One, a group […]

It’s been three years since PAPA released their debut LP Tender Madness; three long years since childhood friends Darren Weiss and Danny Presant married LA-by-way-of-NY punk tendencies with a ravenous need to inject as much funk and soul into their romantically inclined frustrations. Since then, the duo has gone from playing their typical west coast circuit to opening for […]

Beginning as an erratic display of uncontrollable exuberance, Royal Canoe’s third studio album, Something Got Lost Between Here and the Orbit, exists as the sextet’s most introspective endeavor to date. Revolving inwardly, like a camera lens zooming to scrutinize their most candid vulnerabilities, their lyrics progress towards an ever intensifying brooding reflection of their lives thus […]

On Blonde, Frank Ocean fearlessly balances avant-garde themes and aesthetics with cathartic pop bliss Words: Jamie Lawlor For a minute there, we thought the day might never come, but on that sunny Saturday afternoon, the second studio album by Frank Ocean was finally out. A lot has happened in the realm of black culture since Ocean’s […]

Intimacy Ebbs and Flows in Paul Bergmann’s New LP, Stars and Streams Words: Zoë Elaine At my college radio station, a friend of mine created and hosted a beautiful folk show. It was a program filled with soft melodies and emotional croons. When she graduated, I took it over, but never was able to capture the […]

You can pretty much sell me on any music that utilizes a banjo. I have regular arguments with my mother about the third Mumford & Sons album, in which they decided to ditch the glorious instrument; she thinks removing it made them sound more modern, but my retort is that any music can sound as […]

There is not a genre so forlorn as the blues. That seems obvious; it’s all in the name. Cultural appropriation aside, blues has endured because, well, the human condition can sometimes lead us down a dark path. But Amy Blaschke takes turmoil and creates purpose in her newest album, aptly titled, Breaking the Blues. Blaschke […]

To achieve stadium arena fame in the music industry, you have to be very lucky and at least somewhat talented. Many times, it seems the most exciting new acts are unfairly ignored for arbitrary corporate reasons, but boutique agencies work to find those gems and polish them with care and attention. My first job out […]