Audio

Arguably, the world doesn’t need another song about New York City any more than the Red Hot Chili Peppers need another love letter to California. Still, NYC remains an asphalt jungle—its skyline boxed in by concrete, its daily rhythm a relentless hustle to survive. Unless you’re Aaron Judge, it’s not a place for the faint […]

In the late summer of 2023, something shifted for Michael Rudd. Songs began arriving in the middle of the night — fully formed melodies, stray lines of lyrics, entire arrangements vivid enough to jolt him awake. Within weeks, the music was no longer confined to sleep. It followed him through the day, insistent and unrelenting, […]

Born in Nashville and reshaped in Portland, Family Worship Center operates less like a traditional band and more like a traveling rock-and-soul commune. Their sound—groove-heavy, piano-pounded, and drenched in communal harmonies—pulls from dog-eared spiritual ephemera and strange, cult-adjacent texts uncovered during a cross-country field-recording odyssey. The result is a secular gospel of sorts, rooted in […]

Few artists are still carrying the torch for hard country with the conviction — and volume — of Dale Watson. For more than four decades, the Texas native has stood as a self-appointed guardian of honky-tonk, outlaw country, western swing, and rockabilly, carving out a lane so distinct he gave it its own name: Ameripolitan. […]

Despite influences that stretch far beyond Texas, The Point. feel inseparable from Austin. The trio filters psychedelia, Saharan guitar music, and cumbia through a jam-band looseness that reflects the city’s anything-goes musical DNA. The result is a laid-back but deeply intentional sound—worldly in scope, grounded in groove. On their recent album Maldito Animal (Deluxe Edition), […]

Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter Karen Dahlstrom arrived at folk music the long way around. Raised on show choirs and jazz ensembles, she built her early voice around the precision of Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald, earning attention as a gifted soloist. But a preoccupation with technique eventually led her to step away from singing for much of […]

There are only a handful of artists who can speak to the moment just before their star starts to rise. Is it the fulfilling spectacle of years of hard work culminating in a dream come true, or simply a reminder that the journey is just beginning? Does a musician even sense that stardom is around […]

A total eclipse is a rare phenomenon when dark and light converge. Strangers lift their faces toward the perfect circle in the sky, and, for a moment, the world around us quiets and all divides erase. It’s a reckoning similar to the one Americans now face: a reminder that, however different we are, we share […]

Eliza Noxon doesn’t hide behind metaphor. Her songs arrive unguarded—clear-eyed dispatches from the messy interior of becoming. Rooted in traditional folk but streaked with an indie-rock pulse, Noxon’s music wrestles with loss, identity, and the off-kilter ache of growing up. Open tunings bloom into widescreen arrangements on her debut LP Good Monsters with Bad Habits, […]

Love is a tricky thing to get a hold of, and even when it’s in your grasp, the complexity of it all forces a loose, slippery grip. Once forged by time and memory, love becomes a solid stone to rest upon, but the moments of its creation can be among the most confusing and, ironically, […]