“Doctor” by Liam Moore: Warm, Eccentric Music about Insomnia
Liam Moore’s mission statement is simple. “Liam wants the songs stuck in his head to get stuck in yours,” reads his Spotify bio. “Then he wants an ice cream sundae.” We should all aspire to sum up our personal ambitions as clearly and concisely as Moore; what’s more, his music fulfills the promise of that […]
“She’s Pure Astral Light (Or So She Says)” by Pretty Bitter: Love, both Sacred and Profane
“She’s Pure Astral Light (Or So She Says)” is the kind of song title that gets more interesting the more you look at it. Without the parenthetical, it sounds like a metaphor one would use for a lover, like “She’s a Rainbow”. But when was the last time you heard anyone – or anything – […]
“lie to me” by Whitten and Williams: Lo-Fi Pop that’s One of a Kind
As you can imagine, I listen to a lot of music. I’m the managing editor of this blog, which means that I’m the one who goes through our Submithub queue and decides which songs to feature. The number of submissions vary, but it’s usually somewhere between twenty and forty songs a day, sometimes going up […]
“the sea is coming in” by Naomi Pacifique: Gorgeous, Sensual Music with Expressive Vocals
Roger Ebert once said “it’s not what a movie is about, it’s how it’s about it.” The same principle applies to songwriting, perhaps even more than it does for movies. Movies, after all, are mostly driven by narrative, no matter how oblique or strange that narrative might be. While there are some songs that adhere […]
“Passes the Flame” by Laura Loriga: Mysterious, Bewitching Jazz Pop
There’s a particular kind of music that’s like catnip for me. It features a vocalist, usually female, singing over rich, atmospheric, percolating jazz-pop. The mood is mysterious, but not necessarily dark; understated, but not without emotion. It flirts with the avant-garde, but while it may be dissonant it never loses track of melody. Occasionally, there […]
“Memory” by Lala Lala: A Rejection of Easy Nostalgia
When people talk about “lo-fi” these days, they’re probably not talking about Daniel Johnston, or early Smog cassettes. While “lo-fi” generally refers to any music recorded with low fidelity, it’s most commonly used nowadays to refer to “lo-fi hip-hop”: dreamy downtempo beats with a cozy sort of atmosphere. They’re often compiled in YouTube videos or […]
Thom Yorke’s “5.17” Is Another Haunting, Mournful Soundtrack Contribution
Two members of Radiohead moonlight as excellent film score composers, although one is certainly more prolific than the other. Guitarist and string arranger Jonny Greenwood has become one of the most in-demand composers in the business, bringing a dissonant yet strangely elegant sound to the movies of (among others) Paul Thomas Anderson and Lynne Ramsay. […]
“Voicemail” by Carli & the Dark: The Rush and Release of Grief
Grief is something you can feel coming, like vomiting or panic attacks. When you’re reminded of someone you lost, through death or otherwise, there’s a split second before the reaction kicks in and the waterworks start. It’s a moment of icy clarity, sometimes more upsetting than the memory itself: fuck. It’s coming. This is really […]
Uhl’s “Miss United States” Shows the Tragedy of a Woman’s Life Squandered
In this day and age, there’s something almost quaint about beauty pageants. They have been rightly criticized for perpetuating restrictive beauty standards and outdated gender roles, demanding absolute purity from the contestants while ogling their swimsuit-clad bodies. But many institutions have been outpaced by the Internet, and beauty pageants may be losing the sexist arms […]
Banshee Beat: The Ten Best Songs by Animal Collective
In 2000, a curious little album picked up modest acclaim: a psychedelic oddity with faded storybook album art and an aura of childhood innocence, eerily distorted. It was called Spirit They’re Gone, Spirit They’ve Vanished, and it was released by two stoners from Maryland named Dave Portner and Noah Lennox, also known as Avey Tare […]
