Review: M83's "Junk"

Arthur Andrew

If the last decade in pop music has taught us anything, it’s that nostalgia can be a double-edged sword. When it goes wrong, it’s about as satisfying as swallowing a mouthful of processed spray cheese. When done right, revisiting the tropes and aesthetics of decades past can go down nicely. M83’s 2011 double album, Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming, fell into the latter camp and—bolstered by its ubiquitous single “Midnight City”—transformed Anthony Gonzalez’s curious 15-year-old project into a soundtrack for Victoria’s Secret commercials and Tom Cruise sci-fi flicks. Surely this shift explains something about the new M83 album, the fascinating and somewhat flummoxing Junk.

By Being Sincere, Parquet Courts Made Their Best Album Yet

Photo:  Ben Rayner

A talk with singer and guitarist Andrew Savage about Human Performance and what it means to be a functioning, feeling person who also plays in a rock band.

Review: MONEY's "Suicide Songs"

I wrote about the excellent new record from MONEY, Suicide Songs, for Pitchfork. 

Deerhunter's Bradford Cox Talks About His Lifelong Love of "Beautiful," "Christ-Like" David Bowie

Photo by Matt Lief Anderson

Late in the day yesterday, I spoke with Deerhunter and Atlas Sound’s Bradford Cox aboutthe death of David Bowie. Bowie has been an enormous influence on Cox’s life. He expounded on the legacy the man left him personally and to the world at large.

Tortoise On The Catastrophist & The Process Of Making Music Without Limitations

photo by Andew Painter

For those of us who came of age in the early ’90s, Tortoise — Chicago’s iconic post-rock granddaddies — were a kind of gateway drug for what could be ostensibly deemed “experimental” music. The band’s landmark 1996 release, Millions Now Living Will Never Die, provided, for me at least, essential first contact with what was essentially genre-less instrumental music — a discovery that would eventually lead me to seeking out things like Can, Neu!, and Sonny Sharrock. And even though Tortoise have always been generally slotted under the vague banner of “post-rock” their back catalog — now seven albums deep — is pretty singular. Jazz-inflected and imbued with elements of rock, dub, and ambient electronica, their music has, for the better part of 25 years, remained wonderfully inscrutable. The same is true of the band’s forthcoming full-length, The Catastrophist, which might actually be their most weirdly adventurous to date. The LP includes funk-appropriate basslines, feather-light interplaying guitars, and a variety of otherworldly synthed-out instrumentals. Perhaps weirdest of all, the album includes a cover of David Essex’s 1973 pop hit “Rock On,” which the band manages to make sound oddly ominous. Elsewhere, Yo La Tengo’s Georgia Hubley shows up to add vocals to “Yonder Blue,” which is perhaps one of the loveliest songs the band has ever recorded. In other hands, so many disparate elements and influences might sound like a crazy mess, but The Catastrophist has the same kind of measured, sanguine quality that has been the hallmark of almost every Tortoise album. None of this should make sense, but for some reason all of it does. I talked to Tortoise drummer John McEntire and guitarist Jeff Parker about The Catastrophist and how they got here. And before you get to that, you can listen to “Rock On.”

Remembering David Bowie

AS PLANET EARTH TURNS BLUE AT THE LOSS OF ONE OF THE GREATEST ARTISTS WHO EVER LIVED, V REMEMBERS OUR VERY FIRST CONTRIBUTING EDITOR, LOVINGLY REFERRED TO OVER THE YEARS AS THE "GODFATHER OF V," DAVID BOWIE. OUR LOVE AND THOUGHTS ARE WITH V'S GODMOTHER, IMAN. HERE, CONTRIBUTING MUSIC EDITOR T. COLE RACHEL SHARES HIS OWN PERSONAL REMEMBRANCE OF THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH AND CHANGED IT SO MUCH FOR THE BETTER

Pitchfork's 100 Best Tracks of 2015

I wrote about Sufjan Steven's "Fourth of July" and Björk's "Lionsong" for Pitchfork's 100 Best Tracks of 2015.

Age Ain't Nothing But a Bummer For Adele on '25'

Photo: Kevin Winter / Getty Images

In her first proper interview in over four years, the now 27-year-old Adele Adkins recently told a journalist from i-D, “Life is so much easier when you don’t hoard your past.” It’s a fairly potent statement coming from someone who has essentially built her stadium-sized career out of doing that very thing. Over the course of three albums Adele, the gazillion-selling British phenomenon, has proven herself to be the queen of romantic rumination — dissecting, articulating, and gloriously amplifying her own heartbreak in ways that, quite literally, make the whole world weep. At the time of the interview, the suggestion that her new album, the just-released 25, might shake off some of her melancholy and melodrama was an intriguing one. No longer heartbroken and now happily familied, what might a forward-looking and seemingly content Adele sing about?

Le1f On The Life Lessons That Led To His Debut Album, 'Riot Boi'

Photo by Eric Johnson

Anyone trying to discover what New York City sounds like circa right this very minute need look no further than Le1f, the N.Y.C.-based rapper, producer, and dancer who has spent the past few years transmuting the city’s energy into his own specific blend of queer hip-pop. The musical nom-de-plume of twenty-six year-old Khalif Diouf, Le1f has been releasing singles and remixes intermittently for the better part of a decade now. His debut mixtape, Dark York, garnered raves back when it was released back in 2012, setting the stage for what would a long and arduous journey towards his first studio album. Given the breadth of Le1f’s vision on Riot Boi, out today on Terrible Records/XL Recordings—a sonic palette that includes futuristic rap, deconstructed R&B, and nods to industrial grime and vogue-appropriate house—the past three years has clearly been time well spent.

Tori Amos's Musical Memories

Photo courtesy of Amarpaul Kalirai.

It seems totally logical—if not actually inevitable—that Tori Amos would eventually write a musical. Over the last two decades, the singer and composer has created work that exists in its own rarefied universe. Her music is often character-driven, populated by winding narratives in which Amos herself serves as both muse and guide. It is these talents that Amos brings to her musical The Light Princess, which made its debut at London's National Theatre in 2013 to great acclaim. Based on the 19th-century fairy tale by George Macdonald, the musical tells the story of a prince and a princess, who each lost their mother at a young age. The young prince becomes so forlorn that he is unable to ever smile, while in another kingdom a young princess becomes so light with her own grief that she floats into the air. Balancing the whimsy of a floating heroine with heavier themes regarding grief and rebellion, The Light Princess feels both remarkably contemporary and incredibly prescient. Though it remains to be seen when a full-scale production of the musical will arrive stateside (Amos hints that plans are afoot), the original cast recording was released earlier last month—a beautifully-packaged disc that includes two songs from the musical performed by Amos herself.