Credit: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic
Barbra Streisand has faced significant backlash in the wake of controversial comments she made about the allegations of abuse against Michael Jackson. In an interview with the Evening Standard yesterday, she said that she "absolutely" believes Wade Robson and James Safechuck, the two men who claim that Jackson abused them when they were children in the recent HBO documentary Leaving Neverland, but...
Today, Tim Showalter returns with Eraserland, his sixth album as Strand Of Oaks. It almost didn't happen. As the touring behind 2017's Hard Love was coming to a close, Showalter found himself defeated. After the wild journey from his 2014 breakthrough HEAL to its follow-up, something didn't click. Unsatisfied with his band, with the project overall, with himself, he entered into in a bout of deep depression. Then...
MTV wouldn't really spin the video for "Windowlicker," the Aphex Twin single released by Warp/Sire 20 years ago today. It was a Busby Berkley-meets-David Cronenberg mix of bikini butts, hip-hop gloss, and gender-bent body horror; it was 10 minutes long; it featured more than a 100 swear words; it was promptly criticized as sexist and/or racist. However, two decades later, it's pretty evident that "Windowlicker"...
It's hard to imagine a less of-the-cultural-moment movie than The Dirt, the story of Mötley Crüe's rise to fame and fortune. The 2001 book on which the film (out today on Netflix) is based, and about which its "as-told-to" guy Neil Strauss is contractually forbidden to speak, depicts the members of the group, in their own words, as disgusting criminals — predatory drug addicts, straight-up rapists,...
For years I've been toying with two metaphors for Olivia Tremor Control's beguiling, befuddling, bewildering album, Black Foliage: Animation Music Vol. 1. First, a garden: Its mix of brightly melodic, supremely catchy pop songs and unruly sonic experiments sounds like colorful flowers blooming in a bed overgrown with weeds, dead leaves, spider webs, suspicious mushrooms, a menagerie of creepy-crawlies,...
Shabaka Hutchings is very tall. I'm gonna guess at least 6'5" and maybe 6'6". I'm 6'2", and he loomed over me when we met last year. On Monday night, I saw him perform with The Comet Is Coming at New York's Mercury Lounge, and he towered over his two bandmates, keyboardist Dan "Danalogue" Leavers and drummer Max "Betamax" Hallett, too. (With TCIC, he calls himself King Shabaka.) The Comet Is Coming...
Presidential hopeful Beto O'Rourke loves to remind us that he loves music. Throughout his campaign against Ted Cruz for a Senate seat last fall (he lost), he brought out Willie Nelson and Margo Price and Spoon and Travis Scott at his rallies. And in interviews, he often mentions how much he idolizes legendary punk Ian MacKaye. O'Rourke biggest claim to fame, music-wise, is that he was once in a band...
Spring is upon us and the air is losing its oppressive chill. Festival season rears its head every year when our bodies are mid-thaw, vulnerable and lonely enough to submit ourselves to days of collective debauchery and dehydration. Our raw intentions are laid bare under the unfamiliar sun as we revert to a high school-style ecosystem. The jocks are shotgunning beers, the stoners haven’t moved from...
Today, Tim Showalter returns with Eraserland, his sixth album as Strand Of Oaks. It almost didn’t happen. As the touring behind 2017’s Hard Love was coming to a close, Showalter found himself defeated. After the wild journey from his 2014 breakthrough HEAL to its follow-up, something didn’t click. Unsatisfied with his band, with the project…
“Jailbreak The Tesla” is an evocative title, one that can work as a mantra for the Phoenix hip-hop trio that created it. “That was kind of the idea of Injury Reserve,” says Nathaniel Ritchie, the rapper also known as Ritchie With A T — “taking this thing that’s supposed to be this futuristic modern car,…
Throughout SXSW last week, there was one question everyone invested in this year’s crop of emerging indie names seemed to be asking: “Have you seen Black Midi yet?”
Tracking Down is a Stereogum franchise in which we talk to artists who have been out of the spotlight for a minute.
The last time Dido booked a tour, it was 2003 and the soft-pop singer was riding high on the success of mid-’00s radio megahits “Thank You,” “Here With Me,” “White Flag,”
Plenty of bands have long histories, forged from bonds of friendship formed in a distant childhood past. Shared upbringings, shared surroundings — these can provide good raw material for a couple artists to come together and define their identity within and against the rest of the world. In the case of Isaac deBroux-Slone and Raina…
Ever since the Malian “desert blues” band Tinariwen began to build an international audience at the dawn of the millennium, a steady stream of Saharan guitar music has been making its way around the world. The list of renowned Tuareg rock acts has grown to include the likes of Algeria’s Imarhan, Niger’s Kel Assouf, and…
Three years ago, Johanne Swanson released her first album as Yohuna, Patientness. Its title was a mantra — a reminder to stay calm during a period of upheaval that took Swanson from her native Wisconsin to New Mexico and Berlin, before landing in New York City, where she’s been ever since.
The title…
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.
When an artist gets 40 years in, chances…
Mercury Rev had a pretty good 2018, mostly because they had a great 1998. Though the band hadn’t released any music in a couple of years, in 2018 they became the beneficiaries of a free promotional campaign, thanks to the 20-year nostalgia cycle that inevitably spawns think pieces and retrospective listicles. And no…
When Noah Lennox began writing his new solo album, Buoys, he started with just a guitar. Though previous Panda Bear albums have emerged this way, they’ve resulted in increasingly widescreen visions such as 2011’s Tomboy and the euphoric glow of 2015’s Panda Bear Meets The Grim Reaper. But Buoys feels different because its skeletal framework…
Playing minimal metal at maximum volume, sound wave masseurs Sunn O))) are now entering their 21st year as the ne plus ultra of suffocating drone. Still searching for the most accurate representation of their famed, body-vibrating live performances, their upcoming eighth album — Life Metal, due in April — was recorded to tape with famed…
Jon Simmons admits he’s trying to be more direct in 2019, but it doesn’t come naturally. The Balance And Composure frontman carefully admits to the one criticism he’s taken to heart over the years — that his lyrics can run a bit vague compared to the stylish, slegdehammer alt-rock of his band.
Decidedly, Cherry Glazerr’s Clementine Creevy and I are not tea connoisseurs. But on a peculiarly warm day in January, we’re learning a lot about the aromatic beverage.
Kim Gordon has long been one of our most intimidating rock stars. From her work with the legendary Sonic Youth to her side gig Free Kitten and current project Body/Head, she’s always been able to wield harsh noise, anti-patriarchal vitriol, and rock star cool with ease. But even though she can summon the feedback to…
There’s been something happening in Dublin. Across 2014 and 2015, a group called Girl Band started to generate international buzz thanks to their idiosyncratic blend of noise-rock, post-punk, and techno-inspired rhythms. Here was a new sound, one nobody associated with a specific generation or scene in Ireland. Girl Band then went silent for several years,…
