Even more than its predecessor, Alvvays’ sophomore album, Antisocialites, is defined by its contradictions. The band’s jangly pop isn’t quite as lo-fi as it was before, but that cleaner sound doesn’t always make way for clearer songs. The album bounces between sharp, punchy punk and swooning dream-pop spectacles that…

Back when genres still mattered, Mount Kimbie—a duo hailing from England, where genre names flourish like bizarre slang for snacks—took pains to distance itself from the “post-dubstep” tag it had been saddled with. “Post-dubstep is kind of a shitty name,” Kai Campos and Dominic Maker said in a Red Bull Music Academy…

This week’s question comes from reader Erik Helin:

Two weeks before its official release, Deerhoof’s 14th album, Mountain Moves, debuted on Bandcamp as a pay-what-you-want download, with 100 percent of all proceeds going to The Emergent Fund. While Mountain Moves isn’t a “political” record in sound—there’s no fiery drum rolls or Rage Against The Machine-like…

In tarot, the Hanged Man usually represents suspension or indecision rather than a form of punishment, his painful-looking predicament notwithstanding. Just look at his expression; it’s almost serene. Such a timeout can be one of restoration, reflection, or just plain purgatory, depending on how it’s spent and whether…

Wiki’s got one of the most emotive voices in rap, a thick New York sneer that spouts off like a lit-fuse Joe Pesci, his lyrics equal parts shit talk, unchecked emotion, and bleary-eyed poetry. His old group, Ratking, only put out one full-length, the remarkable So It Goes, and now, after a few years of rambunctious…

In Lizzy Goodman’s recent oral history Meet Me In The Bathroom: Rebirth And Rock And Roll In New York City 2001-2011, The National’s Aaron Dessner reminisces about the band’s first practice space being right next door to Interpol’s, where they would overhear them rehearsing songs that would eventually land on Turn On…

Albums by The National are like your friendly neighborhood lush: In just an hour or so, they’re able to drink you under the table, say something profound enough to make the whole bar weep, then stumble out into the pre-dawn, proud and ashamed in equal measure. They also tend to be sneaky, both lyrically and…

Around the time of her last album, 2014’s Taiga, Zola Jesus told Billboard she dreamed of having a No. 1 hit. A couple things might be holding her back. First, there’s her voice—that gale-force, mascara-black blast of operatically trained magnificence that overpowers industrial beats and string quartets alike. Then…

Across three slim, beautiful albums, Nosaj Thing has carved out a strange corner of the beat scene. They’re quiet, minimal works—check out all those one-word track titles!—that evade easy description, at once conventionally head-nodding and experimentally composed, with human sighs and breaths fitting in neatly…

Russia seems like a country particularly well-suited to producing electronic music. The winters are long and occasionally brutal, ideal weather for just holing up in a studio with a copy of Ableton. The sun disappears for months at a time, creating a cloudy, perpetual twilight that begs for moody washes of synth. The…

Music videos remain as culturally relevant as ever. Kendrick Lamar is putting out visually rich pastiches, Taylor Swift is breaking records, and Beyoncé is making the long-form music video great again. And while the format is not a core part of its programming anymore, every year, MTV brings hundreds of celebrities to…