Archive: 2020

Ezra Bell was founded late in the summer of 2013. It was warm enough to sit on the porch into the evening and learn a couple of songs. A lap drum, a banjo, and an out-of-tune guitar. Woodie Guthrie: “A folk singer’s job is to comfort the disturbed, and to disturb the comfortable.” That’s what […]

In the latest Wannabe, artist Chris Prunckle offers his illustrated commentary on The Unraveling, the new album from the Drive-by Truckers, in his signature six-panel comic strip form. Click on the image for full resolution (best viewed on desktop):

Leveraging her acclaimed Grammy-nominated 2016 Weighted Mind, building off her bluegrass roots and stunning vocal range and tone, Sierra Hull forges new ground on 25 Trips with a stellar cast of musicians. This is a hard one to categorize but it doesn’t matter. Hull’s pure, angelic vocals mixed with superior musicianship and solid songwriting make […]

Robert Cray and producer Steve Jordan are an unbeatable team with a history that’s already produced a Grammy win with 1999’s Take Your Shoes Off and a nomination with the more recent Robert Cray & Hi Rhythm. Cray, of course, has five Grammy wins so he has proven he can do it without Jordan in […]

Los Angeles psych-soul four-piece Chicano Batman has announced their new album Invisible People, out May 1st via ATO Records. The follow-up to 2017’s critically-acclaimed Freedom Is Free is also their most sonically-varied and cohesive. The record is a statement of hope, a proclamation that we are all invisible people, and that despite race, class, or […]

First Avenue in Minneapolis, MN played host to Raphael Saadiq on 2/22 in support of his impressive fifth solo album, 2019’s Jimmy Lee. Photos by Billy Briggs

Corruption continues to spread as Jimmy becomes Saul.

For just over two decades, Brooklyn-based musical collective Antibalas have been proudly waving the Afrobeat flag. What makes them such a unique act is that, instead of copying pioneers of the genre like Fela Kuti and simply taking a revivalist approach, they have expanded on it and forged a sound that is simultaneously faithful yet […]

King Buzzo, the iconic Melvins’ singer and guitar player, returns with his second solo album, Gift of Sacrifice, on May 15 via Ipecac Recordings. The nine-song release finds Buzz Osborne joined by longtime friend and Mr. Bungle bass player Trevor Dunn. The collection’s first single, “Science in Modern America”can be heard now. Album pre-orders, available […]

In early 2007 fate brought Emma Hill and Bryan Daste together via a Craigslist ad. Daste was a recording engineer at Magic Closet Studios in Portland, OR, and Hill had come in to record her first professional demos after a recent move from her home state of Alaska. Nearly twelve busy years, six well-received albums, […]