The Academy of Sun's The Quiet Earth is an interesting mish-mash of styles. Singer-songwriter-pianist-bandleader Nick Hudson prefers to use "Gothic dystopian post-punk" to describe the band.
On Half Price at 3:30, Art Feynman again proves himself adept at building colorful worlds from unexpected and well-placed aural flourishes.
Belgian avant-rockers Aksak Maboul bring their stylized shapeshifting to the 21st century with the new album Figures.
My Bloody Valentine's Loveless stands as an album of (at least) equal importance to Nirvana's Nevermind. A great deal of its importance is how it offers a gender-bending sonic style that severed the entrenched connections between the electric guitar and masculine phallic power.
Drab City combine sultry vocals, superlative songwriting, vibraphone chords, twangy guitar, and shadowy atmospherics to conjure an intense trip-hop fever dream on Good Songs for Bad People.
The Uzbekistan-born, Chicago-raised NIIKA combines art-pop and exotic jazz stylings to create a deeply rewarding listening experience on Close But Not Too Close.
At Severed Heads' third-last show in New York, after decades of playing electronic, art-pop, Tom Ellard swung a noose around his band's head and, with an imitable grin, slowly pulled tighter. After 40 years, Severed Heads is done, and Ellard muses on his long career.
Pop duo CMON mix and match contemporary and retro influences to craft the dark dance-pop on Confusing Mix of Nations.
Magnetic Ghost's Pixels is absolutely masterful stuff from a sound-sculptor sitting at the intersection of post-rock, post-classical, and strains of ambient music.
Meghan Remy's experimental pop project U.S. Girls ventures into more mainstream territory to mixed results on Heavy Light.
On "Fell Into the Ocean", Baltimore electropop producer Dan Deacon teaches us that you can make anything a fortune cookie if you try hard enough.
Mystic Familiar keeps Dan Deacon's signature musical appeal while utilizing a few new tools. The album delivers on the camaraderie and musicianship you expect from the Baltimore producer.
Poppy lays bare a necessary reminder to reject conformity and encircle empowerment. Whereas I Disagree explores what is confining and liberating - the latter is the album's unequivocal focal point.
Joe Meek's vision of life on a different planet is placed in a fresh context by Cherry Red Records' three disc box-set treatment.
Jenny Hval's The Practice of Love is a playful, conceptual pop record that makes sorting through its heady themes as fun as listening to it.
Slayyyter's debut mixtape suggests not only nostalgia for, but an intrinsic value in, a long-dead version of celebrity in which artists needn't make statements to achieve icon status.
Ahead of the release of Birthmark, art pop virtuoso Hanne Hukkelberg shares her newest single, "The Young and Bold I".
Reissues of two early albums are a startling reminder of Stereolab's power and influence. Their music not only re-invents itself, but it refreshes and renews its listeners as well.
Vanishing Twin's second album, The Age of Immunology, challenges borders physical, cultural, and beyond in a remarkable musical odyssey.
With their second album, DAD IS BAD, the experimental electronic duo Budokan Boys continue to build a soundtrack for a broken world.
The songs on Avey Tare's Cows on Hourglass Pond emerged from a need for material for a live show, but you wouldn't assume that when sucked in by their soothing, intricate surrealism. Tare speaks about his creative process, the technical forces driving the record, and where he's at lyrically.
Paco Sala's experimental synthpop blossoms on their third album, Our Love Is the Gold, wherein they produce entrancing, thinking person's pop music.
Lambchop's new album is the musical equivalent of that final "walk" monologue from Synecdoche, New York. It's a heavy listen, but potentially a rapturous one as well, for anyone who has ever experienced a reverie of aging and all it entails.
Norwegian quartet Pom Poko's debut Birthday is a stunning, mind-blowing mix of monster riffs and sweet melodies.
On her debut full-length Death Becomes Her, Cape Town artist Angel-Ho introduces her voice and amorphous trans identity, dismantling the colonial imaginary and its supposed binaries.
With his seventh full-length album, This Is How You Smile, Helado Negro offers a soothing, personal musical journey.
Panda Bear's show is truly a vocal performance backed by pulsating electronica with his latest, Buoys, as the primary source for much of the set.
SPELLLING's second full-length Mazy Fly escapes present genres and ages, from witching primeval ballads, sultry alternative R&B, to intergalactic disco. Simply, it's celestial, Afrofuturist, and wake work.
Elena Setién's Another Kind of Revolution conceptualizes transformation as rooted in empowerment. The album is a recognition of women and their ability to act as catalysts for a popular and personal insurgency.
Chicago sextet the Curl's "Hit Em Where It Hurts" is the latest showcase of the group's addictive quirkiness.
Scholars finds New York duo Buke and Gase once again pushing categorical boundaries within their unique experimental pop identity.
Leverage Models bring electronic textures, jazz inflections, and global rhythms to their infectious indie pop, all the while addressing potent cultural and political issues both personal and public.
As new album Chris proves, Christine and the Queens only need to touch a simple beat to transform it into their own.
Baltimore's resident oddball experimental quartet Animal Collective add a new dimension to their sound - for a good cause - on Tangerine Reef.
Experimental pop ensemble the Caribbean continue their long-standing streak of crafting audiovisual experiences that aim to truly innovate with "Vitamin Ship"—a song partially inspired by sun-sleeping cats.
Devotion lacks the clarity and urgency of Tirzah's earlier work.
Hilary Woods evokes open spaces, creeping darkness, contemplation at dusk. Given time, the melodies will gently wrap around the listener like ribbons.
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