Alistair Bonnett’s ‘Beyond the Map’ Asks, How Shall We Live in a Fragmenting World?
Geography, Bonnett claims in Beyond the Map, is becoming harder to read.
Jordan Penney
Jordan Penney is a writer based on the east coast, born in Canada and educated in England. He holds a PhD in History, and writes on history, music, pop culture, and public policy. He is a regular PopMatters contributor. Twitter: @jkp501.
Mudhoney’s ‘Digital Garbage’ Is a Massive F-you to the Alt-right in America
A grim tone prevails throughout Digital Garbage, Mudhoney's angriest and most explicitly political record.
We Think We’re the Center of the Universe
An unusual and potentially polarizing work of cosmology, Universe in Creation highlights some fascinating coherences and connections in the fabric of existence.
Yob Highlight Their Conceptual Vision on ‘Our Raw Heart’
To characterize Our Raw Heart as consistent is not to damn the record with faint praise as Yob's music is as powerful and beautiful as ever.
Hilary Woods’ ‘Colt’ Captures a Palpable Sense of Aloneness
Hilary Woods evokes open spaces, creeping darkness, contemplation at dusk. Given time, the melodies will gently wrap around the listener like ribbons.
Certainty Interrupted: ‘Exact Thinking In Demented Times’
As a history of ideas, this work is especially good at mapping the Vienna Circle's fascinating afterlife in the English-speaking countries where many prominent thinkers landed and flourished in the 20th century.
Change and Continuity: An Interview With Lucy Dacus
Lucy Dacus: "Good music, art, and media should suck you in, chew you up, and spit you out different than who you were when you encountered it."
King Witch Head in a Progressive Metal Direction with ‘Under the Mountain’
King Witch arrive at something like genuine progressive doom metal - atmospheric, heaving, dynamic doom riffs powered by strikingly sonorous vocals.
Anna von Hausswolff’s ‘Dead Magic’ Goes to Dark Places but Offers Paths Out of the Darkness
On Anna von Hausswolff's Dead Magic the darkness is deeper and the light is brighter than in anything in popular music today.
Lucy Dacus’ New Record ‘Historian’ Is All About Overcoming Obstacles
Lucy Dacus' Historian suggests the work of an artist with vision and control over her musical and emotional material.
Sebestyen’s ‘Lenin’ Is All Too Human
Vladimir Lenin's life, his short tenure in power, and the subsequent path taken by the Soviet Union will always be a rich if sombre source of speculation in the history of possibility. Sebestyen's humane biography brings additional clarity to the matter.
Sarah McQuaid Asks the Big Questions on ‘If We Dig Any Deeper It Could Get Dangerous’
Although rooted in the traditional folk music style of the British Isles, Sarah McQuaid also has an intuition for adding or removing musical textures in surprising and evocative ways