ICECOLDBISHOP: Generational Curse

Halfway through Generational Curse, the debut album by the South Central L.A.-born rapper ICECOLDBISHOP, somebody shoots up a house party. Like so many other things in Bishop’s writing—the deaths of parents and friends, the drugs that rot relatives’ lives and stink… Read More

Yaya Bey: Exodus the North Star EP

On her remarkable 2022 album Remember Your North Star, Yaya Bey unearthed grief and heartache amid a slow-burning patchwork of hip-hop, neo-soul, and Afrobeats. The Brooklyn-based singer’s new EP, Exodus the North Star, is a sparkling addendum and a joyous new extension of… Read More

Punter: Punter

Nathan Burns’ furious howl is the sound of someone who’s been screaming relentlessly for days in an otherwise empty room. His home city of Melbourne, Australia holds the record for world’s longest COVID-19 lockdown, totaling almost nine months. In a manifesto… Read More

A Certain Ratio: 1982

A Certain Ratio took to slap bass like Petrarch did to the sonnet. At the dawn of the 1980s, while many white UK artists emulated the endorphin rush of disco, the Manchester combo sounded more like lower Manhattan acts like… Read More

Navy Blue: Ways of Knowing

Family runs deep in the life and music of Sage Elsesser. In the eight years since he first began sharing songs on SoundCloud as Navy Blue, his relatives have maintained a constant presence: glimmers of light amid his sparse, brooding compositions.… Read More

Caroline Rose: The Art of Forgetting

Caroline Rose has a penchant for reinvention. They turned from their Americana origins to nervy indie pop on 2018’s LONER, then slipped into hyper-stylized digital pop on 2020’s Superstar. Released just days before COVID-19 sent America into lockdown, that album went largely… Read More