Stone Crush shines a light on the forgotten -- or never known -- artists that passed through the doors of Memphis' most storied studios in an attempt at just one fleeting moment of fame.
Bob Dylan's "Murder Most Foul" is a 17-minute story song about JFK's assassination and a suitable audio dispatch from and for the end times.
Arriving less than a year after Drift Code, Rustin Man consolidates a rich vein of form with the sepia-toned Clockdust, an autumnal record rendered generous and exquisite by each song's emotional weight.
Are You In Love? continues Basia Bulat's work with Jim James with equally excellent results but a slightly different theme about love in general.
Engaged, confident, and better than ever, Dua Lipa's Future Nostalgia is a dancefloor fire-starter but just a shade away from being a true pop masterpiece.
On their inspiring second album, Ohms, Arizona avant-garde collective Trees Speak invoke the best of expansive electronica through motorik repetitions across a sprawling masterwork.
Despite After Hours' infectious blend of '80s synthpop and dark, alternative R&B, the story's beginning to get old on the Weeknd's fourth studio album.
Canadian composer Nick Storring's latest album, My Magic Dreams Have Lost Their Spell, is mysterious, multilayered, and unforgettable.
With the help of some celebrity friends, Anna Calvi tinkers with her past and creates an alternate version of her last album.
Dua Lipa's Future Nostalgia is near immaculate meta-pop that refuses to forego tight songwriting for nostalgic bells and whistles, helmed by a singer is exponentially more aware of what she's capable of.
Sea Wolf's Through the Dark Wood holds space for psychological transformation. Alex Brown Church's masterful illustrations of vulnerability and adversity affirm grief as a step towards growth.
The Weeknd's After Hours naturally weaves together cinematic vignettes of debauched Hollywood and Las Vegas nights, following a new filmic tie to Uncut Gems and a prior decade of character building.
Gigaton sounds like Pearl Jam convincingly doing their very best to not sound like Pearl Jam. Liberated from their past and their expectations, the band have freed themselves to take some long overdue risks.
Evritiki Zygia's Ormenion has a ferocity that speaks to the tenacity of old traditions as well as to a progressive spirit. It's nothing short of hypnotic.
Every track on Lilly Hiatt's Walking Proof shines with imaginative playing, spirited vocals, and sensitive, literate lyrics. It's truly a kick ass record.
Katie Crutchfield's latest as Waxahatchee is a high point in an already impressive career. Saint Cloud finds an artist operating at the top of her game to produce a thrilling and inspirational work.
As society contends with sickness, anger, and fear, Donald Glover remedies the malignancy while fueling the anguish. 3.15.20 signals an important shift for Childish Gambino and secures the album's spot as one of the best of the year.
Four Tet's 10th album, Sixteen Oceans, begins on the dancefloor, travels to the woods, and ends becalmed, invoking, and bestowing peace and tranquility.
On his first album in five years, Adam Lambert finds his groove by moving in the right direction. Velvet feels effortless and natural, from the funk and disco beats to the synth and soft rock influences.
Early Day Miners' moody, ethereal gem Placer Found turns 20 and is ripe for reappraisal. This is warm, intimate, bracing music with no expiration date.
Neo-folk/black metal artist Myrkur bolsters her impressive discography with yet another distinctive and enthralling album that draws on other music while remaining uniquely her own.
If Bobby Conn's Recovery were the kind of queer red disco deconstruction that it almost is, it would be excellent, but that's not even half the record's runtime.
Film music composer Ryan Rumery kicks off a new Bandcamp-only Friday release series with At, Apart, which is devastating in emotional scope and careful sense of arrangement and place.
Mute Duo's second full-length album, Lapse in Passage, is dark, multilayered, and uncommonly beautiful. It's like David Lynch baked in the Texas heat. It's the soundtrack to a Cormac McCarthy-inspired fever dream.
Jazz guitar virtuoso Wolfgang Muthspiel scales back to a trio for Angular Blues, trimming the fat while leaving plenty of space for inventive and exciting improvisation.
Brooklyn-based duo Quarterly combine elements of folk and classical on the intimate, calm, and unique Pomegranate.
Brian and Roger Eno's Deutsche Grammophon debut, Mixing Colours, represents a refreshing antithesis of today's harsh and accelerated times.
Six Organs of Admittance's Companion Rises begins and ends in a pre-dawn haze, shadowed by an inky sky that stretches out toward the cosmos before landing softly back on Earth.
Recorded in France, by musicians resident in Berlin, Spinning Coin's Hyacinth still sounds like it was made in Glasgow. In 1981.
Doctor Fluorescent's debut album is a chill piece of songcraft steeped in vintage synths and other retro electronic sounds.
False Heads' It's All There But You're Dreaming is the sound of a modern rock band expertly knitting chaos, beauty, and noise together.
Though called "The First Lady of Song", Ella Fitzgerald is more lauded for her spectacular vocal sound than for her interpretations of lyrics, but a new reissue should help correct that understanding of her art.
Canadian musician, composer, and instrument maker, JOYFULTALK produces his third LP, A Separation of Being, which overflows with cohesion and light.
After listening to the Boomtown Rats' Citizens of Boomtown, you can't help but wonder if another vanity project is the kind of activism we need to combat the injustices of the world.
London-based Afrofuturist band, ONIPA frame discussions of humanity within a pan-African sonic context on their brilliant debut, We No Be Machine.
Yumi Zouma, a once-New Zealand-based band whose members scattered to four different cities around the world, return with a sparkling new pop album about distance, Truth or Consequences.
Former Lemon Jelly frontman Fred Deakin uses Kickstarter to fund a pop-rock passion project, but for all its good faith efforts, it ends up an unfocused mess.
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