Arts | Nick Rubin

Prince Piano & a Microphone 1983 (Warner Bros.) In case you somehow missed it, the first posthumous release from Prince’s storied vault is out—the mere fact of which gives a shiver, because what could be next, and then after that, ad infinitum in gloria? Meanwhile, there’s this album of not-even-demos, basically Prince spitballing at the […]

Arts | Nick Rubin

Anna St. Louis If Only There Was a River (Woodsist) Woodsist calls this the “debut” of Kansas City native Anna St. Louis— odd, since they also released her First Songs full-length last year. Maybe they want us to grade her on the “beginner” scale, but the truth is that If Only There Was a River […]

Arts | Nick Rubin

White Denim Performance (City Slang) The new record by Austin’s scraggle rock standard bearers opens with the tumble of a spinning radio dial. It sounds ironic but it could also be a statement of purpose; on Performance, White Denim skillfully updates various ’70s rock styles from the jump, the horn-laden, glammy stomp of “Magazin” leading […]

Arts | Nick Rubin

The Essex Green Hardly Electronic (Merge) I know I’m not alone in pronouncing this spring and summer a total bust—for every nice day, we’ve had a week of muggy, gloomy, rainy weather. Which gives The Essex Green’s Hardly Electronic both a wistful pang and a vicarious thrill, because the album’s 14 graceful indie-pop tracks collect […]

Arts | Nick Rubin

Jim James Uniform Distortion (ATO) Jim James takes enough chances that I gotta pull for the guy— usually from a distance, but hey. Uniform Distortion’s 11 squalling tracks walk the line between garage rock and classic rock demos before landing in the latter camp—the tip off coming on “You Get to Rome” with its quote […]

Arts | Nick Rubin

Vince Guaraldi The Complete Warner Bros. -Seven Arts Recordings (Omnivore) In “Linus and Lucy,” Vince Guaraldi created one of the most universally beloved recordings of all time, but it’s hard to find his stuff besides A Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack. Omnivore helps with this nifty two- disc reissue, comprising three albums from 1968-69 plus four […]

Arts | Nick Rubin

The Orb No Sounds Are Out of Bounds (Cooking Vinyl) The English ambient house legends have had an uneven if steady output since their landmark debut in 1991, but they seem to have settled into a reliable if redundant groove after their 2012 collaboration with Lee “Scratch” Perry. No Sounds Are Out of Bounds brings […]

Arts | Nick Rubin

Golden Dawn Arkestra Children of the Sun (Nine Mile) While borrowing Sun Ra’s band name and giving songs titles like “Ra Horahkty” and “Wings of Ra,” Golden Dawn Arkestra comes from a planet that’s as much spy rock as cosmic jazz. Despite some vintage keyboards and occasional attempts at menace, GDA never fully weirds the […]

Arts | Nick Rubin

Melody’s Echo Chamber Bon Voyage (Fat Possum) Melody Prochet’s 2012 debut was produced by Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker and shared many stylistic markers with Impala’s Innerspeaker, which was just peachy. Bon Voyage was co-produced by Dungen’s Reine Fiske, but while Fiske’s guitar and Dungen main man Gustav Esjtes’ flute are present here, they’re not exactly […]

Arts | Nick Rubin

Chip Wickham Shamal Wind (Lovemonk) Wickham, a flute-and-reeds player who has worked with artists from Badly Drawn Boy to Roy Ayers, relocated from Manchester to Qatar and emerged as a bandleader on 2017’s La Sombra—a fruitful hybrid of ’60s modal jazz and funk with Latin shadings. This follow-up is more of the same, and buoyed […]

Arts | Nick Rubin

Domenico Lancellotti The Good is a Big God (Luaka Bop) One of the most creative interpreters of traditional Brazilian pop, Lancellotti puts an odd foot forward on The Good is a Big God with the plodding incantation “Voltar Se” before correcting course and finding a groove on the title track, a clavinet-laden postcard from some […]

Arts | Nick Rubin

King Tuff “The Other” (Sub Pop) Didn’t King Tuff used to rock? Last year, an exhausted Kyle Thomas paused to recover and reflect—and he’s clearly going for some kind of contemplative statement on “The Other,” (yes, the title carries those pretentious quotes). But whether about alienation on the titletrack or about toxic technology on “Circuits in […]

Arts | Nick Rubin

The Voidz Virtue (RCA) Albert Hammond Jr. Francis Trouble (Red Bull) It seemed the Strokes had already endured the breathless-hype-into-vicious-backlash cycle even before its debut full-length, Is This It, dropped in 2001. The band’s momentum, attitude and simply perfectly simple songwriting blew through that milestone with authority. But since then, the band’s output has been […]

Arts | Nick Rubin

Van Hunt Popular (Blue Note) The “great lost” album by the vastly undersung Van Hunt is no longer lost, but it’s pretty great. The Ohio savant caught notice in 2004 with his self-titled debut and Grammy-nominated single “Dust,” then took a leap forward with On the Jungle Floor, and its agile mix of soul, funk, […]

Arts | Nick Rubin

First Aid Kit Ruins (Sony) Stockholm’s Klara and Johanna Söderberg have lived a charmed life. In 2007, Swedish state radio turned one of their demos into a summer hit. In 2008, their video of Fleet Foxes’ “Tiger Mountain Peasant Song” went viral, and their 2010 debut won rave reviews—all while they were still teenagers. On […]

Arts | Nick Rubin

Kyle Craft Full Circle Nightmare (Sub Pop) Portland’s Kyle Craft is about to rock, and you may salute him. Craft writes perfect nü-classic rock songs with pounding piano, pealing slide guitar, and sucking-in-the-’70s horn charts—all present on “Exile Rag,” naturally. And a ubiquitous musical element that also happens to describe Craft’s constant state of hot […]

Arts | Nick Rubin

Xylouris White Mother (Bella Union) “Goats are mothers, Zeus was raised on Amaltheia’s milk, Black Peak is Mother Earth. …Mother Earth is the mother of everything.” Giorgos Xylouris thus explains his duo’s third album, the first two being Goat and Black Peak. It’s inscrutable and suitable. Cretan lutenist Xylouris and heavy-duty drummer Jim White (of […]

Arts | Nick Rubin

Camila Cabello Camila (Sony) I don’t exactly follow Fifth Harmony, and I missed the controversy surrounding Camila Cabello’s split with the group. Hope I’m not supposed to hate her because this is just great pop—glossy but not oversaturated—“All These Years” and “Real Friends” are even borderline minimal. And Cabello is a compelling, versatile performer worth […]

Arts | Nick Rubin

Des Demonas Des Demonas (In the Red) I’m not a subscriber to the “worst times spawn the best punk” school of thought—after all, times are always bad on some level—and perhaps because the underlying rot has always smelled the worst in the nation’s capital, great punk has always come out of D.C., no matter who’s […]

Arts | Nick Rubin

Mavis Staples If All I Was Was Black (Anti-Records) I haven’t been checking out the Jeff Tweedy- Mavis Staples collaborations of the last few years—apparently, I have been a fool. If All I Was Was Black is a nearly-miraculous alchemy of Staples’ gospel-soul and everything Tweedy throws at her. The swampy opener “Little Bit” includes […]

Arts | Nick Rubin

Bill MacKay & Ryley Walker SpiderBeetleBee (Drag City) I came down hard on Ryley Walker’s voice on his last solo record, openly wishing for an instrumental affair—and whoa, I had no idea he had such a project up and running already. SpiderBeetleBee is the second album of acoustic guitar duets by Walker and the insanely versatile […]

Arts | Nick Rubin

Adam Ostrar Brawls in the Briar (Super Secret) Adam Ostrar, né Busch, former Charlottesville resident and WTJU DJ, was also a main mover behind Curious Digit, Manishevitz and SONOI. On Brawls in the Briar, Ostrar is joined by members of Califone and White Rabbits, and combines characteristics of all those bands. The tracks gently stir, […]

Arts | Nick Rubin

Gyða Valtýsdottir  Epicycle (figureight) A veteran of Iceland’s experimental Múm as well as the St. Petersburg Conservatory, multi-instrumentalist Gyða Valtýsdottir delivers an absorbing hybrid of those two worlds on Epicycle. The instrumentation hews to the traditional, but the sensibility and choice of material are adventurous, as Valtýsdottir interprets Crumb, Partch and Messiaen alongside Prokofiev, Schubert and […]