The Providence-based musician Ted Bradley plays in former Cymbals Eat Guitars frontman Joseph D’Agostino’s band Empty Country, and he also makes his own music as Strange Pains. D’Agostino produced, engineered, and mixed Strange Pains’ upcoming LP The Diamond District, Volume 1, the first part of a planned two-LP set, which was originally supposed to come out today. It’ll instead arrive …

Over the summer, the National frontman Matt Berninger released the magnificently titled new solo track “Martini Me Fatso.” Though arriving in the long tail of last year’s excellent Get Sunk, it seemed to exist outside of the frame of the album cycle, and now we know it was part of a new EP that seems like it will stand as …

London grime giant Skepta has taken his career to some unexpected places lately. He released an extremely cool collaborative EP with the superstar DJ Fred again.. last year, and then he took steps to become a superstar DJ himself. Earlier this year Skepta started up spinning house records at Más Tiempo, his DJ residency at Hï Ibiza’s Club Room, and …

The South Central Los Angeles rapper AZ Chike has been making reckless, energized underground music for many years, and now he’s taking his shot at the mainstream. He got his biggest-ever look a couple of years ago when he traded bars with Kendrick Lamar on Kendrick’s song “Peekaboo.” Those two had an intriguing chocolate-and-peanut-butter chemistry. I’m already seeing people lamenting …

Eric Slick is the longtime drummer of the Philadelphia band Dr. Dog, and he’s also got an extensive history of backing up other artists on record and onstage — Taylor Swift on her 2021 Maren Morris collab “You All Over Me,” Waxahatchee and MJ Lenderman and Wilco’s Sky Blue Sky fest earlier this year. Slick (what a cool name) also …

When I was talking to Bill Callahan early this year, he slipped me a little scoop: The veteran indie singer-songwriter had recorded a collaboration with Meshell Ndegeocello. Here’s the backstory he provided: The post Meshell Ndegeocello, Bill Callahan, & Chris Thile – “With God On Our Side” (Bob Dylan Cover) appeared first on Stereogum.

New York duo Straw Man Army make an extremely cool form of psychedelic post-punk, investing their records with krautrock dynamics and vast concepts. Two years ago, Straw Man Army released Earthworks, the final album in a trilogy that began with their 2020 debut Age Of Exile. Today, they announce True North, a different kind of concept album. This time around, …

Duncan Sheik has died. The New Jersey-born singer-songwriter, best known for the pop-rock hit “Barely Breathing” and the musical Spring Awakening, passed away last night from organ failure. “Duncan was a father, husband, son, brother, and friend,” reads a statement shared on his social media. “He will be remembered for his sensitivity, wit, inteligence, and depth of spirit he brought …

Colin Moulding is not the frontman of the UK psychedelic new wave cult heroes XTC; that’s Andy Partridge. But Moulding has played bass, and sometimes sung lead and written songs, for the band since they first formed in 1972, and he’s responsible for some of their best-known songs, including “Generals And Majors” and “Making Plans For Nigel.” Moulding has also …

First-off: Great video. Incredible video. Troye Sivan’s clip for his new single “Party” opens on a muddy medieval battlefield, with narration from the wizened and immediately recognizable tones of Sir Ian McKellen. (Sivan has known McKellen for more than half of his life; the two were in a stage production of Waiting For Godot together when Sivan was 14.) The …