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Ryan Leslie
Most people know Ryan Leslie for his work behind the scenes, namely as the producer of Cassie’s “Me & U,” which went on to become possibly the biggest cult R&B hit of the past decade. Since then he’s garnered a cult fanbase of his own, both for his music – often compared to The-Dream at […]
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‘cOver the Pink: 20 Years of Tori Amos’ Under the Pink Live’
There’s been a recent flurry of Tori Amos re-appreciation thanks to this year’s excellent Unrepentant Geraldines, but surprisingly little attention given to the album celebrating its 20th anniversary, Under the Pink. The album itself is among Amos’ most sedate, but the Glasslands tribute promises curiously buzzy takes on Under the Pink tracks and a few […]
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Betty Who
A recent profile of Australian synthpopper Betty Who named her among a number of artists who define pop success in 2014; finding the border between indie and pop then winding streamers around it like it’s a maypole, running their careers less like megaconglomerates and more like scrappy start-ups. The pitch: give the people what they […]
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Betty Who
A recent profile of Australian synthpopper Betty Who named her among a number of artists who define pop success in 2014; finding the border between indie and pop then winding streamers around it like it’s a maypole, running their careers less like megaconglomerates and more like scrappy start-ups. The pitch: give the people what they […]
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Juana Molina
Once upon the ‘80s, Juana Molina was a sketch comedian on Argentinian TV; now, she’s best known for her decades’ worth of dreamy, Spanish-language folk. Her eclectic-electronic compositions have earned her multiple comparisons to Bjork, though she’s got more in common with artists like Lisa Hannigan or Cortney Tidwell, specifically their droll-affect harmonies and multilayered […]
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Kelela
There’s a long, fondly cherished tradition of R&B divas pushing against the trends with their producers, and Kelela’s lucky enough to hang with an entire crowd of them: the Night Slugs and Fade to Mind dance collectives, whose members (including Girl Unit, Kingdom and Nguzunguzu) lent some of their spacious, showiest best to last year’s […]
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Kristeen Young
Predating Amanda Palmer, Kristeen Young’s now logged over a decade of theatrical dervish shows along with a robust, ripe-for-rediscovery catalog of albums full of weaponized piano riffs and lyrics that aren’t TMI so much as too much candor, in the best way. She’s perhaps best known for railing at the canonical rock gods both on […]
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Warpaint
Warpaint have never been ones for the easy route. They namedrop hip-hop and nod to sonic trends and score commercials as well as the next buzz act, but when it comes to the music, the L.A. fourpiece makes neither the confrontational rock you’d expect from girl-group stereotypes or even just their name, nor the self-consciously […]
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OUT OF THE GARAGE
When the Dum Dum Girls emerged, they were part of a still-crowded field: garage acts that jacked, with scuzz and style, the subversive side of ’60s girl-group pop — and, in the Dum Dums’ case, their personnel (Richard Gottehrer of The Angels all the way on to The Raveonettes). Since then they’ve cleaned up, as […]
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Cate Le Bon
Welsh singer-songwriter Cate Le Bon’s music is all about the contradictions; she’s described with all the usual adjectives — ethereal, psychedelic, the sort of person you’d absolutely expect to have seen touring with wispy likes of Perfume Genius — but there’s a rootsy foundation to her music that grounds all that airy stuff. (Which is […]