The Mojave is a rain-shadow desert, which means that the mountains block rain weather systems, casting a “shadow” behind them. In the arid heat, one can find the kind of solitude needed to write music, sheltered from the sun...
Global warming, nationalism, consumerism, addiction… the human race is having to address its own greed head on. Brothers Wade and Robin Divver formed The Endangered Species as an act of activism, the music becoming a pathway to speak their...
Experimental pop artist Fay Kueen enjoys blurring the lines between classical music and indie rock. The video for her latest song “Atmospheric Zebra” bends space and time, following Kueen around New York City as the city morphs and twists...
Parental expectations can be fraught with peril. Some parents expect their kids to take over the family business, some envision their children as doctors or lawyers, and in some circles dwell Alex P. Keaton types whose hippie parents...
Patti Smith’s voice is a hammer striking an anvil, her songs often come across as poetry set to a tune. In the era of fake news, Smith’s work has come into the spotlight: she has been nominated for induction...
Something’s brewing in the water over in Marshfield, Wisconsin. It’s the home town of David Gungor and John Arndt, aka The Brilliance, a liturgical (read: Christian) band who has taken a turn for the secular, with political anthems that...
Time and distance often having a cooling effect on the memory, but in Sondra Sun-Odeon’s case, they gave her the tools she needed to sharpen the knife. It’s been seven years since her debut album Ætherea, and with her newest...
Portuguese alt-folk-rock artist Filipa Marinho, who performs eponymously under her last name, was raised on American cartoons and the sap-fest that was ’90s rom-coms. Against this colorful backdrop, her delicate brand of snark was born. Marinho’s new single “I...
Los Angeles isn’t the never-ending traffic slog that people may imagine when they visualize the City of Angels. It’s a breathtaking metropolis surrounded by mountains, hugged by the ocean on one side and the desert on the other. Originally...
Colleen D’Agostino has been in the game for a few years now, first as the lead singer of The Material, then as a collaborator with deadmau5, a relationship that spawned the platinum-certified single, “Seeya.” On her second solo EP...
Austin-based singer-songwriter Kae Astra isn’t pulling any punches with her latest video “Medicate,” which features soaring vocals, trippy synths, overreaching plants, and a farmer from a different time. Its verses describe the quest to heal inner pain, and the...
In Fritz Lang’s classic film Metropolis, the main character is jolted out of his privileged life and given a glimpse of the underbelly of the city, its workers struggling to survive while the bourgeois eat on plates of gold....
In the era of #MeToo, a variety of voices have risen up to tell their stories of abuse. Seattle-based singer-songwriter Nora Rothman featured 26 womxn from around the world in the new video for her single “dear / david.”...
Life can change in the blink of an eye. It’s a trope used often in ABC family dramas, yet we all know the skin-tingling realities of romance, illness, or freak accidents. Elle and Avery O’Brien were living on opposite...
Every city has its own unique brand of loneliness. In New York, loneliness is embodied by long subway rides surrounded by strangers listening to sad music, avoiding eye contact. In Los Angeles, you don’t have to brush shoulders with...
Everyone remembers the melodrama of their first breakup: tear-stained diary pages, long walks listening to Alanis Morissette, hours spent curled up under a girlfriend’s duvet moaning. But with maturity comes perspective, and sometimes letting go of baggage too heavy...
In the modern world, women are often pitted against one another for a few spots on the proverbial hamster wheel. Ume’s latest video for “The Center” explores the relationship women have to each other, how they can reject the...
San Francisco’s The Y Axes latest album No Waves addresses anxiety – both personal and existential – with humor, nostalgic synths, and the kind of emo spirit any ’90s kid can respect. The band has a strong a visual...
In classic films, the setting is often established with a chorus in the background, a camera moving through the scene with care before landing on the ingénue. Singer-songwriter Jamie Drake utilizes many of the old Hollywood musical tropes on...
Bringing a one-year-old baby to Bonnaroo never seemed like an easy idea – an interesting one, but not an easy one. The average weather at Bonnaroo varies from an intense dust-bowl heat to a chilly, rain-infused swamp mess. Your...
Kym Register’s voice is familiar, the kind of husky twang you traditionally hear on old country records. While the medium of folk music is timeworn, the stories Register spins have a modern slant, as they speak from the perspective...
Fay Ray is not a defunct new wave band. Okay, Fay Ray IS a defunct new wave band, but it’s also a very active eight-person funk-tastic soul-pop band out of Chicago. The band’s latest double single, “Restless Sleeper /Up...
Setting a mood takes more than wine, moonlight and the smell of jasmine in the air. The right music can inspire love, or, in the case of Drum & Lace’s latest single, fear. “Outsider Complex Part 1” starts off...
Border crossings are headline news nowadays, with stark images of children and adults being processed as they cross imaginary lines in the sand. Portland-based singer-songwriter Anna Tivel’s song “Fenceline” paints a picture of what that crossing looks like and...
