The Nuanced History Eluvium’s Many Clockwork Fables
Ambient maestro Matthew Robert Cooper (Eluvium) is two decades into his career, and on his latest LP, overcomes surprising obstacles physical and geographical.
Evan Sawdey
Evan Sawdey started contributing to PopMatters in late 2005, and has also had his work featured in publications such as Entertainment Weekly, SLUG Magazine, YardBarker, The Daily Dot, and many more. He has been a guest on HuffPost Live, RevotTV's "Revolt Live!", and WNYC's Soundcheck (an NPR affiliate), was the Executive Producer for the Good With Words: A Tribute to Benjamin Durdle album ( available for free), and wrote the liner notes for the 2011 re-release of Andre Cymone's hit 1985 album A.C. (Big Break Records), the 2012 re-release of 'Til Tuesday's 1985 debut Voices Carry (Hot Shot Records), among others. He is the co-founder and host of The Chartographers, a podcast for pop music nerds, and previously hosted PopTalk for PopMatters. He currently resides in Chicago, Illinois. You can follow him @SawdEye should you be so inclined.
The Lively World of Dance Music’s Deadhead LP Giobbi
Possibly the only DJ on earth to get the blessing of the Jerry Garcia estate, LP Giobbi’s first solo record charts a new course for contemporary dance music.
Sue Clayton Is a Songwriter’s Songwriter (Quite Literally)
Morgan Kibby has written hits for Panic! at the Disco and Lady Gaga. Yet her true calling was found in a wild new songwriting persona: Sue Clayton.
Cybergrind Bibles & Messages to Ourselves: A Fire-Toolz Interview
Pivoting from cybergrind to New Age jazz within a song is nothing new for Fire-Toolz’s Angel Marcloid. What’s new is the fanbase she’s cultivating for her wild genre experiments.
Haunted By the Sky: The Secret History of Tor Lundvall’s Ambient Pop
With a decades-long career of crafting ambient material as flexible in tone as it is in scope, a new box set reveals secrets to Tor Lundvall’s unknown catalog.
Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s Epic Double LP ‘V’ Just Wants to Vibe
Unknown Mortal Orchestra return from a five-year hiatus to deliver a double album, V, containing both the best and blandest songs they’ve ever made.
The Auteurs’ New Box Set Neatly Slims Down Their Legacy
While Luke Haines’ morbid British rock outfit is happy as a cult act, this box set, repackaging their 2014 reissues, makes a case for the Auteurs’ greatness.
‘The Collected Works of Neutral Milk Hotel’ Are Newly Re-Issued
Essentially a re-issue of a 2011 box set with Neutral Milk Hotel’s recorded work, their legacy remains unparalleled even if there’s not much new to exhume.
Graham Coxon’s Memoir ‘Verse, Chorus, Monster!’ Sees Beyond the Blur
Graham Coxon could have made his memoir Verse, Chorus, Monster! a Blur / Britpop tell-all, but he wraps up honest observations in a lovely, conversational tone.
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The 10 Best Ambient Albums of 2022
The post-pandemic flood of self-released ambient records has oversaturated the market in the best way: here are the best ambient albums of 2022.
The 1975’s Latest Is a ‘Funny’, Confounding New Missive
The 1975 want to be funny in a foreign language, but on their fifth go-round, their ambitions are tempered in plain English.
Tove Lo’s ‘Dirt Femme’ Finds a Broken Heart in a Disco Ball
Free of major-label constraints, Tove Lo turns her dark sex-positive pop into something wiser and mature. Yet fans need not worry as Dirt Femme‘s BPM still kicks.