The songwriter’s new yuletide compilation is an extensive diary of his decades-long musical quests. It’s also a far-reaching look into Christmas’ greater profundity, a celebration of life in the face of death.
Sufjan Stevens’ dense catalog defies easy explanation. Is he a quirked-up twee musician with orchestral flourishes, as heard on 2005’s Illinois? Maybe he’s an Elliott Smith acolyte with lachrymose lyrics, as we heard a decade later on Carrie & Lowell. Or he could be an adventurous experimentalist, whether that’s in the vein of 2001’s IDM exercise Enjoy Your Rabbit or 2021’s collection of forty-nine ambient pieces, Convocations. The best way to understand someone as eclectic and comprehensive as Stevens is to know that he is both all and none of these things.
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The friends and family of the late Neal Casal have done yeoman’s work in recent years, not just honoring his redoubtable legacy, but expanding it. For instance, No One Above You (The Early Years 1991-1998), a 13-track audio anthology, complements No One Above You: A Love Story in Photographs, a 308-page photo book.
And then there is Highway Butterfly: The Songs of Neal Casal, a massive 41-song, 130-musician tribute album benefiting the Neal Casal Music Foundation (which supports musician mental wellness). Book of Stories (Home Recordings 1998-2003) follows stylishly in the wake of those titles, but is resonant in even greater distinctness: it is a certifiably great album on its own terms.
Compiled by Casal’s long-time manager and…
Mike Kerr and Ben Thatcher floor the accelerator and embark on another collision course of energised and uncompromising riff-rock for album number five.
When Royal Blood broke their year-long social media silence in June with this mouth-watering teaser for ‘Ten Over Ten’, the first single from fifth album Dead Company, they were effectively issuing the sound of an extreme weather warning. After rock fans evacuated and braced for impact, the Brighton duo fulfilled this initial promise of a heavy new direction, as the song descended into a thrashy, rampant Motörhead march. “Everything or nothing / That’s how I roll”, cries vocalist Mike Kerr, who matches the track’s attitude atop “the bed of an earthquake shaking”.
Steve Kilbey and the Church conjure a spectral pop magic on their 28th album, 2026’s Lacuna. Moving away from the concept album storylines that marked both 2023’s The Hypnogogue and 2024’s Eros Zata and the Perfumed Guitars, Kilbey crafts an equally engaging production that retains much of dreamy sonic atmosphere of those previous efforts, but with a more direct psych-pop vibe that sticks with you. Backed by longtime drummer/producer Tim Powles, guitarists Ian Haug and Ashley Naylor, multi-instrumentalist Jeffrey Cain, and drummer Nicholas Meredith, bassist/singer Kilbey delivers on the Church’s classic sound. The spell takes hold from the start on the opening “Lumbini Grove,” a shimmering anthem whose title invokes the birthplace of Siddhartha Gautama…
Releases of new jazz bands or artists can sometimes be maddening. You want, above all else, to hear a complete document of what the band sounds like. Instead, you often get a release choked with guest appearances by whoever happens to be the bigwig players of the day, inevitably changing the group’s personality. The relatively […]
Releases of new jazz bands or artists can sometimes be maddening. You want, above all else, to hear a complete document of what the band sounds like. Instead, you often get a release choked with guest appearances by whoever happens to be the bigwig players of the day, inevitably changing the group’s personality.
The relatively new duo, Zohar & Adam, walk a line in this respect with the release of their…
New Orleans Joys: The Earliest Recordings, 1923- 1926 is a two disc set from the always compelling Tompkins Square. Its 53 tracks chronicles definitive early work by the pianist / composer / arranger Jelly Roll Morton. Though he claimed to have invented jazz in 1902 he was certainly its first arranger and one of its compositional architects with tunes including “King Porter Stomp” “Original Jelly Roll Blues,” “I Thought I Heard Buddy Bolden Say,” “Black Bottom Blues” and enduring masterpieces from early 1900s New Orleans. Morton developed his musical persona as a child by absorbing the sounds all around him, including blues from whorehouses, gospel hymns, Latin sounds and rhythms, brass bands, opera, and ragtime piano players.
Over the course of three previous albums, a documentary film and brief but influential performance on hit cable show Ted Lasso, UK one-man band Cam Cole’s music has dug into a gnarly, ragged, combination of tough, unvarnished, gut bucket blues inspired by a combination of the Stooges (if they hadn’t slept for a week) and name-your-favorite-Delta-bluesman here.
But like the color cover on this fourth release (others were stark black and white images and ominous line drawings), Cole has shifted his focus. Perhaps he felt there was nothing more to be said he could in that format, or maybe he was ready to change. Regardless, Lost in Creation, finds the grizzled artist polishing his roaring, aggressive guitar/drums/vocals musicality…
This week, states that most people never imagined could ever turn blue did just that, as part of a massive Democratic sweep in the midterm elections. Most people, that is, except for the residents actually living in them. Texas, Kansas, Iowa, possibly even Mississippi. No place is a monolith, and our country is a rich, vibrant, and diverse place in every corner, where real people rarely line up with the stereotypes we thrust upon them. They may not all be Instagram-glamorous, but they believe in meaningful work, family (chosen, born or both), and a good joke. They love hard, they struggle, and they get shit done.
That’s who Willi Carlisle, the Kansas-born and Arkansas-residing country songwriter, is singing about on his new Tyler Childers-produced…
The Streets Like Beds Still Warm (2025) marked a change in direction for Wilder Maker. It was the first in a planned trilogy of concept albums rooted in improvisation but also involving later manipulation and editing of song and sound fragments by the project’s leader, Gabriel Birnbaum — with often gritty and blurry-eyed results. Heavily inspired by film noir as well as certain literary figures, and musicians such as Eiko Ishibashi and Mark Hollis, it included the participation of not only the band (Birnbaum, guitarist Adam Brisbin, bassist Nick Jost, drummer Sean Mullins) but a handful of guests, using a deliberately restricted instrument palette (guitar, effects pedals, bass, synthesizer, keyboards, percussion, saxophone). They slightly expand instrumentation on…
Even by the standards of an age in which artists are encouraged to maintain a constant stream of new releases to ensure that they maintain a continual presence in an attention-deficit economy, there’s something pretty startling about Bassvictim’s work rate. Peace + War is the London-based duo’s fourth project in two years: 19 more tracks to add to the 31 they’ve already released since last January. It’s a lot, but then, reading Bassvictim’s interviews you wonder if they’re simply splurging out material in the knowledge that their time is limited. The duo – Polish singer Maria Manow and Brooklyn-born producer Ike Clateman – really don’t give the impression of a band built for longevity. They have already announced their split on at least two separate…
Alanis Morissette’s first holiday album, Good Weather for Immaculate Conception, is a mix of recognizable favorites (like “O Holy Night” and “Happy Xmas (War is Over)”) and original material (such as the standout “To an Empath at Christmas Time” and the rollicking “Christmas on the Dancefloor”). Her faithfully tender cover of Joni Mitchell’s “River” is a beautiful moment tucked amongst the celebratory festivities.
Along for the sleigh ride is a packed roster of guests: Brandi Carlile and Steve Martin join Morissette on “Beautiful Star of Bethlehem,” while Amythyst Kiah duets on “Momma Mary” and Joy Oladokun teams up for “Silent Night.”
Elsewhere, the Trans Voices choir elevates the powerful “O Tannenbaum” and…
On their fourth studio album, Abalone, New York-based Upstate confront the realities of growing older without allowing life’s harsh experiences to harden them. It’s potentially weighty subject matter, but the band approaches it with warmth, optimism and an often irresistibly upbeat blend of pop, jazz, Americana and folk.
Even the album title, Abalone, is a nod to this idea. The title track uses the abalone shell as a metaphor for how a lifetime of experiences form a rough, hard outer shell, but inside is beautifully smooth, iridescent material that reflects light in shifting shades of color. The concept of time comes up repeatedly throughout the record, starting with the opening track, “Corner,” a beautiful exercise in three-part harmonies and…
The Bamboos’ 12th studio album Sugar on Top arrives beneath a cover depicting a ripped sugar packet spilling sugar on an otherwise empty white backdrop, and the music inside is equally straightforward: warm, sweet and immediately accessible. Across ten tracks, the Melbourne soul veterans deliver uncomplicated, midtempo music that asks little of the listener beyond settling into its groove.
That is, broadly speaking, what the group intend. The Bamboos have been making soul and funk for more than 20 years, and the promos are describing Sugar on Top as “feel-good sweet soul”. The sizzling drumbeats and spacious basslines are consistently solid rather than showy, driving the songs forward in comfortable 4/4 grooves.
…features the original album alongside rarities, instrumentals, previously unheard songwriting demos, rehearsals, and live sessions.
October 1972: with Roxy Music’s first 45 ‘Virginia Plain’ still airborne, Bryan Ferry, wearing gold-trimmed black silk pyjamas, was convalescing from a tonsillectomy. “I may never sing again,” he said, drily. “But I can’t promise anything.”
Ferry’s voice was musical Marmite, shivering and trembling like a lounge singer from Mars. Expressive to the point of caricature, it stretched the bounds of believability to such an extent that some questioned its sincerity. There were similar misgivings over Roxy’s trailblazing, wildly eclectic music. “Style over substance,” grumbled rock TV host Bob Harris earlier that year.
…contains 51 newly-mixed audio tracks, including 27 unreleased, live, extended, and previously unheard tracks.
“Welcome to one of the best origin stories in rock’n’roll: the long march from genesis to liftoff of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers,” trumpets MOJO writer David Fricke’s essay in the beautifully illustrated and informative ‘zine-style guide that accompanies Origins’ 50-plus tracks and Blu-ray of the band’s BBC Old Grey Whistle Test performance. But the actual story is less a glory-bound forward march than a stop-start of slow-downs, double-backs and dead ends before a serendipitous reset. Save for the first two Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers albums not just in toto but with several tracks re-edited to run precious…
In “Reevaluating You”, the seventh track on Ane Brun’s I Thought We Were the Same, the singer asks, “What is the opposite of trust?” She answers, “It’s not doubt… the opposite of trust is anxiety… the fear that closes us off from others, even from ourselves.” She goes on to elaborate, “In anxiety, we seek certainty before we commit ourselves. But in trust, we commit ourselves without certainty… trust won’t appear until we find ourselves defenseless”. This theme, of course, runs through literature, psychology, and religion: the idea that there’s no substitute for the “Kierkegaardian leap”, a psycho-spiritual movement beyond rational and/or logical thinking. In Brun’s new work, the above-quoted lyrics serve as a mid-project explication as she explores matters of love, loss, and identity.
Whisper it quietly, but there’s something stirring on the banks of the River Trent. Whether it be the excellent Divorce (who released one of the best albums of last year in Drive to Goldenhammer), post-grungers Kagoule or the dreamy indie-pop of Vona Vella, it can’t be denied that the Nottingham music scene is in rude health right now.
It could well be that Do Nothing end up being the biggest draw of the lot. When their debut album, Snake Sideways, was released in 2023, they set themselves apart from the usual gaggle of post-punk bands with a certain anxious elegance – it was an album with bags of promise. Now, three years later, Friend World delivers on that promise and more with a collection of tracks that feel looser, bolder and strikingly confident.
We’re some way past the peak of the neo-kosmische eruption, but there’s hardly a shortage of bands in 2026 who swear by Neu!, Can, and their less widely celebrated brethren, bundled together under the questionable banner of Krautrock. It’s fair to say, then, that Yoo Doo Right aren’t lacking for contemporaries, but this fourth LP is the Montréal experimental rock group’s most decisive action in this arena yet. True to their band name, which doubles as the title of an epic inner-space flight from Can’s 1969 debut Monster Movie, Yoo Doo Right’s allegiance is made clear from the outset. Fans of the propulsive, future-forward aesthetic that defined the most fruitfully freaky scenes of 1970s Germany will find a lot to love here on Build and Rest by…