Oh my dear god. One of my favorite artists covering one of my all-time favorite artists. Annie outdid herself here. St. Vincent singing the Portishead classic “Glory Box” on The Tonight Show. That was spectacular. “For I’ve been a temptress too long!” No one is Beth Gibbons, but this comes pretty damn close. A feast…
Poliça announce a new LP coming, “When We Stay Alive” (Jan. 31), a tour and streams for two new tracks, “trash in bed” and “Driving”, the latter of which can be heard below. Poliça lead singer Channy Leaneagh fell off her roof while clearing ice in early 2018 and smashed her L1 vertebrae and battered…
By DDR | Their Bated Breath So happy to hear new Joe Henry music. He’d just recently talked about his Stage 4 prostate cancer diagnosis at a concert. To me, he’s a hidden American treasure. He’s been that his entire career. And he’s a songwriting master, deserved of the same realm as Bob Dylan and Bruce…
By DDR | Their Bated Breath ANGEL OLSEN “ALL MIRRORS” Here are my thoughts on each song, writing notes while listening to the album for the first time … LARK: Still as stunning as when I first heard it. Doomed strings. Wicked, sinister drum beat. Amplified vocals. Angel goes Eastern Beatles (circa “Within You, Without You”)…
By DDR | Their Bated Breath Has any film in the last 49 years, since the dissipation of the Production Code, truly taken on the singular topic of sex and made it transcendent? Is there a film that manages to encompass the erotic, the rich tapestry of sexual thought, the outward complexity and introspective nature of…
By Dee Rob 30. Wildhart “Love” 29. Free Cake For Every Creature “Around You” 28. Childish Gambino “This Is America” 27. Hana Vu “Crying On the Subway” 26. Sibille Attar “I Don’t Have To” 25. Iceage “Under the Sun” 24. Douglas Dare “Darling” 23. Suss Cunts “Newby” 22. Summer Walker “CPR” 21. Magic Potion ‘Shock…
Read a summary of the list below and click on the artists’ album cover to go to their music. Thanks! Happy New Year. 25. LALA LALA Album: The Lamb 24. PENELOPE TRAPPES Album: Penelope Two 23. SOPHIE MEIERS Album: Broken Clinic 22. HOOKWORMS Album: Microshift 21. BEACH HOUSE Album: 7 20. SURFBORT Album: Friendship Music 19. PHANTASTIC FERNITURE Album:…
Braids have followed up their 2015 LP Deep In The Iris and Companion EP with two new songs, “Collarbones” and “Burdock & Dandelion.” Lead singer Raphaelle Standell sings soulfully in both tracks about the falsity of outer appearances and about feeling comfortable in one’s own skin. In “Collarbones” she sings: “Breasts pushed up/ I’m trying…
Seattle singer-songwriter Damien Jurado may be associated with the upper Northwest, but he’s nailed down that hazy, top-down, wistful Southwest thing — whether it’s 2012’s Maraqopa or the beautiful newly released single, “Allocate”, off his upcoming Secretly Canadian LP release, The Horizon Just Laughed, due out May 4. Listeners online mentioned the track had a sound reminiscent…
I’ll say it again. Everyone should get the Sunday NYTs, while you still can, for that special section on the U.S. Constitution (annotated by famed historians, politicians, etc.) It’s stunning. On the cover is an illustration of the head of George Washington above the fold, below is Donald Trump. (Seems more than an apropos quick-scan…
By DDR | Their Bated Breath Quick Radiohead story … The celebration of the 20th anniversary of the band’s record OK Computer (and the subsequent OK Computer OKNOTOK 1997-2017 remastered release) made me think back to when I first heard Radiohead and why, despite the legendary status of the LP, I listen to their other albums more ……
Singer Nina Miranda, best known for her airy, seductive Brasilia-London band Smoke City back in the late 1990s has released her first solo record, Freedom of Movement, and it’s featured as the Bandcamp “Album of the Day”. Many music fans will remember her previous incarnation via the song “Underwater Love”, but for me, Smoke City…
Quick thoughts … So, what is the Saudi-arms deal about? Well, this is one aspect of what former President Dwight Eisenhower warned about in his famed “military establishment” speech on Jan. 17, 1961: “This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic,…
This is the first Perfume Genius track I’ve heard off “No Shape”, which I mean to get to in its entirety soon. It’s a gorgeous track, with hints of low-key Sade sexiness, all elegant and falsetto. The video is a beauty too, Mike Hadreas’ vulnerable and breathy high falsetto accented by Dali-esque chairs in frozen…
The 4AD-signed band Future Islands and their charismatic lead singer, Samuel Herring, are following up the smash hit LP Singles (2014) with a new single entitled “Ran”, the first song streaming from off the upcoming 12-song record The Far Field. The single should have Future Island fans dancing like Herring, above, like his memorable performance of…
By David D. Robbins Jr. Artist: Tei Shi What: A new single “Keep Running” Info: Continuing a trend from female artists in 2016, Tei Shi is decidely taking this track into a pop direction and it sounds terrific. I love this conceptual twist between running away from a relationship and time. Listen to the song…
David D. Robbins Jr. The swearing in of the forty-fifth president of the United States will be without poetry in more ways than one. Befitting the inauguration of Donald Trump, it is apropos this negation of verse at today’s ceremony comes only a day after The Hill newspaper published a story about a myriad of…
By DDR | Their Bated Breath | The Fade Out “Certified Copy” by Abbas Kiarostami IFC Films (This film appears on Criterion’s channel, Filmstruck, today with supplements.) Abbas Kiarostami’s “Certified Copy” is about life and art, truth and fiction, change and stagnation, love and marriage. The film calls into question the value of things. It’s an…
And the posthumous David Bowie surprises keep coming, this time appropriately on what would have been the artist’s 70th birthday. A plaintive, reflective music video for “No Plan” was posted on the official Bowie YouTube page, directed by Tom Hingston. The song is apparently one of three of the last Bowie compositions (that had not appeared…
A new video for the song “Little Bubble” from Dirty Projector’s creator Dave Longstreth, with directorial assistance from Adam Newport-Berra. It’s the second track released by Longstreth since September’s single stream of “Keep Your Name”. The main lyric, “We had out own little bubble for awhile”, seems like a elegiac note at a romance’s end, or I’m…
By David D. Robbins Jr. 25. Wildhart “Shake Off” 24. Warpaint “So Good” 23. Charlotte Cardin “Big Boy” 22. ILOVEMAKONNEN “Side 2 Side” 21. Unloved “Cry Baby Cry” 20. Kanye West “Real Friends” 19. Mitski “Crack Baby” 18. Wet “The Middle” 17. Frankie Cosmos “Fool” 16. Julia Jacklin “Sweet Step” 15. Danny Brown ‘Downward Spiral”…
By David D. Robbins Jr. A feature where I whittle down the world a bit for you, each week or so, by recommending some of the best topical links scattered across the internet … Let’s begin 2017 with two items I always look for on that last day of the year … 1. NYE 2017…
Happy 70th birthday to poetic badass and musical legend Patti Smith. “Birdland” is one of my favorite all-time songs. I could listen to it every day. I always wait for the wonderful, sad escapist verse where Patti belts out “where I am not human …” and the exquisite way she sings “a” in “It’s a…
Massive Attack Album: Ritual About: Dark, twisted, mesmerizing — and as engaging as ever. Vince Staples Album: Prima Donna About: “Smile” is one of the best tracks of the year. Burial Album: (Split) Young Death / Nightmarket About: Feels like a cool extension of everything that made “Rival Dealer” majestic. Wet Album: (Split) The Middle/Turn Away About:…
By David D. Robbins Jr. A feature where I whittle down the world a bit for you, each week or so, by recommending some of the best topical links scattered across the internet… 1. “Christians for a Moral America Pray for George Michael’s Death” By John Shore | The Huffington Post | 11-29-11 Yes, it’s good to remember…
David D. Robbins Jr. This is the list I submitted to the wonderful website DVDBeaver for its annual “Best of” compiling. (Which I might add, is the best list of its kind, featuring just us regular schmoes, a number of quality film critics, like Jonathan Rosenbaum and more.) This year it was “Pioneers: African-American Cinema” that stood out…
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