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"Pitchfork Condé Nast Music Festival!" JPEGMAFIA exclaimed. "Look at it. And they're letting me up here with a live microphone. Mistake." It was not a mistake. The LA-based rapper and producer had just set up his laptop -- his only accompaniment onstage at Chicago's Union Park -- and was about to put on one of the most thrilling sets of the weekend. When he pressed play on the beat from "VENGEANCE...
Bradford Cox is known to pull some weird stunts. Back in 2012, he covered "My Sharona" for an hour straight at an Atlas Sound show. Yesterday, he had a ten-minute conversation with a heckler in the middle of his Deerhunter concert at Seattle's Showbox. Stereogum tipster Daniela B. shared footage of the incident, in which an audience member accuses Cox of appropriating Native American culture and yells...
Yesterday, President Donald Trump phoned Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven to advocate for A$AP Rocky's release from Swedish jail. He later tweeted, “Just had a very good call with @SwedishPM Stefan Löfven who assured me that American citizen A$AP Rocky will be treated fairly...[I] offered to personally vouch for his bail." (The Swedish criminal justice system doesn't include bail.) But a statement...
In the short amount of time Black Midi have been a band, they have stirred up a frenzy of hype in their native UK primarily on the strength of their live show. Up until this year, after all, they had barely any music available online, and they kept their debut album Schlagenheim -- which ranked in the top 10 on our list of the best albums of the year so far -- shrouded in mystery as long as possible....
Ryan Adams has resurfaced on social media for the first time since being accused of sexual misconduct, emotional abuse, and manipulative behavior in February. He posted a number of things to his Twitter and Instagram accounts today, including a lengthy statement alluding to the allegations and addressing his return to the public eye: I have a lot to say. I am going to. Soon. Because the truth matters. It’s...
Last month, Sturgill Simpson released “The Dead Don’t Die,” the original theme song for Jim Jarmusch's zombie movie of the same name. Now, the country singer-songwriter is leaning further into the apocalyptic vibe with a dystopian anime film and companion album in the works. Simpson announced Sound & Fury at San Diego Comic-Con this past weekend during a panel featuring two of the filmmakers,...
Sky Ferreira fans are used to waiting, and they've become accustomed to every possible obstacle manifesting itself in their hero's way. So despite a game performer with an abundance of awesome songs at her disposal, Ferreira's set Friday at Pitchfork Music Festival was extremely on-brand for not-great reasons. What should have been a triumphant step back into the spotlight was marred by technical difficulties...
Phoenix have never been the sort of band that demands a whole lot of attention, but they've been around for 22 years, and plenty of their songs have become parts of our cultural fabric. And now, the band will look back on their history in a new book called Phoenix: Liberté, Égalité, Phoenix!, set for publication this fall. Band members Laurent Brancowitz, Christian Mazzalai, Thomas Mars, and Deck...
“Pitchfork Condé Nast Music Festival!” JPEGMAFIA exclaimed. “Look at it. And they’re letting me up here with a live microphone. Mistake.”
There’s a song on Glitterer’s official debut album, Looking Through The Shades, called “The News.” Unlike the other 13 tracks on the record, which are all speckled with synths and/or propelled by a thumping drum machine, “The News” is just Ned Russin singing a simple melody over an equally rudimentary bassline. “Saw my face up…
In April of last year, Frightened Rabbit’s landmark, breakthrough sophomore album The Midnight Organ Fight turned 10. It was cause for celebration: This was the album on which the band came into its own, featuring some of Scott Hutchison’s most enduring songwriting, the album that fans would latch onto in their times of need and…
I have to constantly remind myself that Maxo Kream is a little less than two years older than me. Besides the black-and-green Supreme jersey, everything about the 29-year-old rapper emanates an OG persona. When he comes downstairs to a Flatiron District hotel lobby, he gives the type of hard handshake that makes you aware you’re…
We’ve Got A File On You is a new reboot of an old-school Stereogum franchise. Once called Annotated Media Guide, these are interviews in which artists share the stories behind the extracurricular activities that dot their careers: acting gigs, guest appearances, random internet ephemera, etc.…
The first time I saw Anthony Naples, he was shrouded in fog. He was DJing his residency at the Ridgewood, NY club Nowadays, lighting the misty dancefloor up with thorny techno and scrappy house. I saw an artist in full control of his craft as a DJ, unconcerned with appearances as a “performer.” Now, Naples…
We’ve Got A File On You is a new reboot of an old-school Stereogum franchise. Once called Annotated Media Guide, these are interviews in which artists share the stories behind the extracurricular activities that dot their careers: acting gigs, guest appearances, random internet ephemera, etc.…
“Where do you go when you just wanna go? Where do you go when you let it all go?” Emily Sprague asks on a song from Florist’s third album, which was written as an escape — from life’s external pressures, from the constant buzzing inside your own mind. It’s an album that’s constantly looking for…
“Method Man,” the lead single of Detroit-based rock musician Stef Chura’s new album, Midnight, paints a picture of a dude whose condescension is dreadfully magnetic. Driven by an fervor and fixation similar to that that fuels the type of relationship it describes, Chura’s vocals and the accompanying instrumentals speed up and intensify as the song…
Carlos Santana has a lot to celebrate in 2019. It’s the 50th anniversary of his band’s self-titled debut album, which was released on August 30, 1969. Two weeks before that, the band gave a legendary performance at the Woodstock festival in upstate New York. They’d been a popular live act in San Francisco, but their…
The rain can force us into unexpected places. Sometimes, it’s for the better. Such is the case when I meet Welsh musician and novice furniture maker Cate Le Bon in New York City during a torrential downpour. We take refuge in the Guggenheim, as our expected coffee shop has been overtaken by others also finding…
Trevor Shelley de Brauw is a pretty busy guy. In addition to being the guitarist in Pelican and RLYR — and releasing an excellent solo album, Uptown, in 2017 — he’s also a father and works full-time as a music publicist. (Full disclosure: de Brauw did press for my band United Nations’ last full-length in…
Do you remember being small in a big confusing world? Do you remember feeling excitement for the first time or being cognizant of how clothes fell on your body for the first time? Not many people do, or most of us don’t dare to think back on it. For shoegazey Madison rockers Slow Pulp, this…
(Trigger warning: this article contains discussion of sexual assault.)
In 2015, Charly Bliss had self-released a three-song EP called Soft Serve and were more than content to play tiny Brooklyn venues whenever the opportunity arose. “We were crushing it,” says drummer Sam Hendricks. “Spike Hill on a Tuesday.”
You can call Holly Herndon a doctor now. When I meet the experimental composer in lower Manhattan in April, she’s just arrived from the Bay Area, where she successfully defended her dissertation at Stanford’s Center For Computer Research In Music And Acoustics. Now that her PhD program is behind her, Herndon has moved from California…
