Faye Webster’s fifth album marks the point of full immersion when it comes to the Atlanta songwriting prodigy’s sly, shifting aesthetic. The tones are richer and deeper; the arrangements expand and breathe like massive lungs; her voice layers over itself and ripples, decadent and deeply felt. Webster’s genre-blending approach may have been slightly overstated in the past—a result of her early association with Atlanta’s rascally, defunct hip-hop crew Awful Records—but her sonic playfulness has never been more fully realized than it is on on *Underdressed at the Symphony*. Slinky, flute-dotted R&B is situated up against sumptuous country pop and grungy flips on ’50s sock-hop rock music; longtime friend and rap chameleon Lil Yachty pops up on “Lego Ring” as the pair switch off from a Weezer-esque chug to spacey, astral psych-rock. Lyrically, *Underdressed at the Symphony*—which was written and recorded coming off of a breakup—carries Webster’s now-trademarked mixture of emotional intimacy and straightforward humor. She finds potency in simple sentiments (“Thinking About You,” “He Loves Me Yeah!”), and on the sparse hyperpop “Feeling Good Today,” she details the small pleasures that come with moving through one’s daily existence. “I used to be self-conscious/Well, really, I still am/I’m just better at figuring out why,” Webster ruminates over the lush guitars of “Wanna Quit All the Time,” one of several songs that feature Wilco guitarist Nels Cline. This is music that’s as mesmerizing as it is disarmingly personal, and *Underdressed at the Symphony* represents an artist who, similar to cosmic kin Cass McCombs, seems increasingly intent on proving she really can do anything.
“It feels like a new beginning for us,” Real Estate singer-songwriter Martin Courtney tells Apple Music of the indie rock veterans\' sixth album, after 15 years together as a band. “I’ve learned a lot about how to write songs and my own process through the first five records we made. This album is me taking stock of that and being like, ‘What if I tried something totally different?’” Less concerned about how *Daniel* would fit in with the rest of their catalog, Courtney wanted to simplify his songwriting by writing bright pop music that felt warm and welcoming. The final result is opposite to their last release, 2020’s *The Main Thing*, which had an intentionally dense and murky sound. “We made this messy album that was full of ideas,” Courtney adds, “but this was more about precision and stripping things away—keeping things to the point and concise.” Recorded in nine days at RCA Studio A in Nashville, famously known for hosting legendary artists such as The Beach Boys and Dolly Parton, *Daniel* benefits from the band trying a series of firsts, whether by enlisting a new producer outside of their usual circles (Daniel Tashian, co-writer/co-producer on Kacey Musgraves’ *Golden Hour*) or having a group of session musicians at their disposal if needed. These songs—which expand on their sound with a wide array of instruments like pedal steel guitar, organ, and piano—navigate themes of existential rumination (“Interior”), overcoming uncertain times (“Haunted World”), and the music they grew up listening to (“Water Underground”). One landmark ’90s record inspired Courtney more than most. “I\'m really obsessed with the R.E.M. album *Automatic for the People*,” says Courtney. “I wanted to use an acoustic and sonic palette similar to that album, just use a lot of instruments that felt very organic but without it feeling country or Americana.” Read on as Courtney walks us through the album, one song at a time. **“Somebody New”** “It feels good as an opener. It thematically sets up this vibe, which runs throughout the record, about coming to terms with the fact that I\'m a different person now than I was before, trying to figure out who that person is and being okay with that. It has this looping thing, which I kind of ripped off of my bloody valentine—they do that a lot where the timing is just a little off, but not in a way that is overt. It gives it this kind of propulsion where it feels like it never ends.” **“Haunted World”** “We were in Nashville recording with people that work a lot on country music, and we were like, ‘I think pedal steel would sound really good on this track.’ We had access to this amazing world-class pedal steel player, a Nashville session guy named Justin Schipper. He adds this element that you can\'t really put your finger on, more like sound effects using these ethereal-sounding chords, which is kind of magical.” **“Water Underground”** “Initially, I just came up with the phrase ‘water underground.’ I thought it sounded good for a chorus, but then I had to figure out what it meant. I wrote the whole song without really understanding what I was writing about, but I thought about it later and it came to me: ‘Oh, it\'s like your subconscious.’ People always refer to water as it being associated with your subconscious, so to me it\'s the creative flow of your brain in getting an idea and then trying to hold on to it and not forget it. You\'re just living your everyday life, and then you find some kind of inspiration and try to turn that into something.” **“Flowers”** “I wrote this song in three hours, which is funny since it usually takes me at least a couple of days. I wrote the guitar part thinking it was cool, but then I had to drive two hours to play a solo show in New Jersey and I wrote the rest of the song on the way there. I played it at the show that night, which was pretty fun. It feels very different for me for this band—it kind of sounds like Tom Petty or Sheryl Crow, like this radio-rock vibe. There\'s this one part where the drums are just hitting the kick drum. Our bass player Alex Bleeker would keep jokingly making this ‘Come on, boys!’ Bruce Springsteen impression during this vamp. I was like, ‘You’re making me hate this song right now. Please stop. It\'s too much.’” **“Interior”** “I wrote it and then thought it sounded like Big Star, but I couldn’t figure out which song. It took me a long time to realize it’s ‘September Gurls,’ the little guitar turnaround that starts the song. When we recorded it, it was way more straight. It had the same general shape: the build and the parts added throughout the song with the drums gradually coming in with this big guitar solo in the middle. But after recording it that way, Daniel Tashian thought it would be cool if there was a super funky drumbeat happening the whole time, with the bass just grooving with the drums.” **“Freeze Brain”** “If you heard the demo, it sounds nothing like what\'s on the record. What I recorded was like, again, a my bloody valentine song in that it’s very fast and very distorted and heavy. We were about to record it that way, and as we were setting up in the studio getting ready to record this song, Sammi \[Niss\] started playing this groove to test her drums and get some levels. We started playing the song along to the groove, just joking around, and thought it sounded really cool. We recorded it like that with the intention of doing it like this first and then doing the other version that we had practiced, but then we were just moving so fast. We forgot and moved on to the next song, and this is the version we ended up with.” **“Say No More”** “Throughout our career, our band has come up with working titles that are some other band\'s name. We\'ve probably had five songs called \'The Feelies,\' and this is one of them in that it\'s got that sort of soft intensity. I\'ve had multiple people tell me that it feels like a standout track to them, which is great. Because honestly, this album has 11 songs, and I would\'ve been really happy with 10. But I was like, if I was going to cut a song, it probably would\'ve been this one. Right after we finished it, I thought it felt unfinished somehow, or that it just needs something. Which is weird, because it has a pretty well-thought-out arrangement, and there\'s a lot of different parts to it. But anyway, now I feel better about it. I’m glad we didn\'t cut it.” **“Airdrop”** “I got this little Mellotron keyboard, and I was just having fun with brass sounds. I wrote the little riff that opens the song on that keyboard, thinking it sounded sort of classical and Baroque. It was the trickiest one to nail down on the album, because I wasn\'t really happy with it, so we kept cutting and moving things around. I don\'t think you can tell in the final recording. I actually am really happy with it now, but I was really ready to just abandon it, since it was a nightmare to make.” **“Victoria”** “We all switched instruments on this one. I’m not even sure how we\'re going to do it live, honestly. Everyone in the band is more than welcome to contribute songs, but a lot of times I\'m the only one, or I write the most. On the last record, Bleeker wrote a song, but when he wasn\'t happy with it, he wouldn’t end up finishing it. He didn\'t end up having a song on the record last time, but Julian \[Lynch, guitarist\] did. And then the opposite happened this time: Julian wrote a song for this one, and I was really into it, but once we were in the studio, he felt it wasn’t ready.” **“Market Street”** “It’s one of the early ones that I wrote for this record. It Informed a lot of what I wanted in terms of the style of songwriting. More simple verse-chorus form, but the parts are catchy. I remember Julian was attempting to record a solo, and I kept telling him that it’s got to be bigger. It has to be a stupid guitar solo, dumb but powerful. And he was like, ‘Do you want to try?’ I gave it a try and I\'m happy with my solo. The only thing is I do this vibrato wiggle at the end that I kind of wish I hadn\'t done. It\'s almost too over the top. Still, I really like that song in that it has a Neil Young driving kind of vibe. It ended up being the only time I play electric guitar on the album.” **“You Are Here”** “It\'s the only song on the record that strays from this concise pop thing that we were trying to do, with this long extended outro. I play piano on this one, which I think is the first time. It’s another one I wrote on guitar where the original demo almost sounds like a garage rock song. We were messing around with it when we were rehearsing before we went to the studio, but it didn’t feel like it fit with the rest of the songs. We came up with this baggy beat where it was organ-driven, sort of like Yo Tengo’s \'Autumn Sweater\'—that was one of the inspirations for the arrangement. It\'s built around a drum loop, which is also new for us. Sammi was playing that beat the whole time, so we thought of looping it with an almost hip-hop thing to it. It does get a little psychedelic, but it felt right to do it like that.”
“I wanted the album to feel really fun,” Amyl and The Sniffers vocalist Amy Taylor tells Apple Music of *Cartoon Darkness*, the Australian quartet’s third full-length. That goal does, however, come with a caveat: “I wanted it to feel fun without putting up the blinkers and being like, everything’s sweet, all good. Things are really weird and things are pretty bad and there’s a lot of things to be stressed about, but there’s the balance of it. Not to encourage people to ignore the bad, but to try and find more of a balance.” So while *Cartoon Darkness* finds Taylor confronting issues such as body positivity, the ills of social media, the climate crisis, and capitalism’s impact on society and people’s wellbeing, she does so with an unrelenting lust for life and an indefatigable spirit that, on songs such as “Jerkin’” and “Motorbike Song,” adheres to the adage that life is for the living. Recorded with Nick Launay (Midnight Oil, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds) at Dave Grohl’s Studio 606, which boasts the same mixing desk on which Nirvana recorded *Nevermind* and Fleetwood Mac did *Rumours* (“I really didn’t want to spill anything on it,” laughs Taylor), the band approached *Cartoon Darkness* with a specific sonic goal in mind. “Bryce \[Wilson, drums\] and Declan \[Martens, guitar\] were really keen to try and explore different sounds and make it feel a bit more like a studio album,” says Taylor. Adds Martens: “In the past we’ve tried to see how everything would relate to when we perform it live. And even though a lot of these songs will be included in the set, I think we just wanted to make sure the focus was on making the best listening experience at home rather than making the best songs to be taken live.” A typically fiery slice of raw punk rock, albeit one that takes a breather on the gentler “Big Dreams” and “Bailing on Me,” the end result is what Taylor calls “the first album we feel really proud of from the get go.” Here, Taylor and Martens walk Apple Music through *Cartoon Darkness*, track by track. **“Jerkin’”** Amy Taylor: “It’s a tongue-in-cheek poke at keyboard warriors, at the haters in general. It’s just a fuck you to anyone who’s down to accept it.” Declan Martens: “This was conceived earlier than the intense writing period. We came up with it in the early half of 2023. It has a good intensity. Despite this being our attempt at a studio album it does replicate what we do live, which is straightaway energy.” AT: “I really wanted to write a song that big-upped yourself while bringing down the haters. I wanted it to be like, ‘I’m sick, you’re shit.’” **“Chewing Gum”** AT: “So much of life is just a carrot dangled in front of your head, like you’re just around the corner from being able to take a break, or the goodness is always just around the corner. And it’s so much hard work. Under capitalism you’re just constantly working for goals you can never seem to hit. I feel that robs people of themselves and robs people of happiness and joy. Something else that robs people of those things is criticism and judgment. I think with social media, a lot of people are constantly bombarded with how they should be and what they could do and what they might be and how bad they are. I feel that robs people of the joy of making mistakes, and making mistakes is so important for growing up. I want to make the wrong decision sometimes, and I want to have fun and I want to feel love even if that’s a wrong decision, even if that’s a dumb decision, because what else is the point?” **“Tiny Bikini”** AT: “I always try and consciously surround myself with women, but sometimes it doesn’t work out. Even in the studio I was the only lady of maybe eight dudes in the room. So I was just channeling that energy going, ‘Yeah it’s technically my space, but I’m the only one here in a bikini.’ I think a lot of my experience in life is being the only lady, and I feel like, for me, I love expressing myself in slutty ways. The world is a boring place, and to dress up or to be scantily clad or just be interesting is something I value, so that song is going, ‘That’s what I like.’” **“Big Dreams”** DM: “I write a whole scope of heavy and soft songs, and finding the softer songs’ place in Amyl and The Sniffers has always been a challenge; I’ve had a fear of doing it. So I showed it to Amy and she really enjoyed it and encouraged it. I think a lot of the misconception is that it’s experimenting, but I feel like these sorts of songs have always been in us. I prefer to refer to it as exploring rather than experimenting.” AT: “A lot of people in my life have really big dreams and they are really talented, and they are trying to make something of themselves. The world is a harsh place, and even if they’re super talented, it’s really difficult because of the cost of living and the oversaturation of everything. And it’s like we’re all getting older and a lot of people’s dreams may not happen, but that internal energy, it’s still swirling inside you.” **“It’s Mine”** DM: “The guitar \[has\] a really odd tuning that I’d never used before. Me and Nick \[Launay\] had worked to get this really direct, harsh, aggressive guitar sound, and that’s what makes it unique—it makes it sound like you’ve just stuck your head in a bucket of bees swarming.” AT: “Lyrically, it’s a subconscious dump trying to explore lots of different themes—the pressures of bodies to be perfect, and it’s saying it might not be perfect but it’s mine. And dipping into the confusion of consumerism and getting swept up and wanting to buy stuff. It’s a big mix of that.” **“Motorbike Song”** AT: “It’s a yearning for freedom. Life can be so stuffy, especially with screens and technology, so much of it is sitting still and looking at a screen for hours. I just saw a motorbike driving along and I wanted to embody the motorbike. I don’t want to ride it, I want to be the motorbike.” DM: “When we were working it out it felt like a So-Cal, ’80s punk song and it developed into more of a Motörhead-type thing. It’s fun, it’s got my most guitar solos on one song ever.” **“Doing in Me Head”** DM: “I was trying to write a disco song. I wanted it to be like The Gap Band. But I guess when you bring it to some Australian punks it comes out as ‘Doing in Me Head.’” AT: “This song kind of embodies the whole of *Cartoon Darkness*. Like it touches on the fact we all use our phones and social media, and they favor outrage, and subconsciously the system floods us with negative emotions and then it profits off that. It kind of dictates our life, not the other way around. You have to favor the algorithm, it won’t favor you. And talking about how spoon-fed our generation especially is and the lack of critical thinking.” **“Pigs”** AT: “Sometimes people are like, I know more so, therefore, I’m better than you and you’re an idiot. I don’t agree with that, because I’ve been on both sides of knowing stuff and not knowing stuff, and being an idiot and being a legend. So this song is saying, ‘We’re all pigs, you’re not better than me, we’re all just pigs in the mud.’” DM: “I’m really fond of the chorus. It’s a recycled riff that I wrote before our self-titled album that we jammed on but never became a song. Now, with my new knowledge in music, five or six years on, I found a way to make it interesting. I remember seeing that excitement in Amy’s face when I first started playing it differently.” **“Bailing on Me”** AT: “I was really struggling to write lyrics to it and figure out what to say and Declan was like, ‘I think it’s a sexy song, try and make it horny.’ I was trying to do that but was like, ‘I really don’t get that vibe from this song.’ So I ended up making it a heartbreak song.” DM: “I think it’s interesting that my intention was horny and Amy interprets heartbreak. I think that’s a funny way of looking at it.” **“U Should Not Be Doing That”** AT: “So much of my experience in the music world has been people trying to hold me back with their negativity and their limitations. Because they’ve made limitations for themselves that I don’t subscribe to. They might be saying you shouldn’t be doing that and I can’t believe you’re doing that, but I am doing it, and you’re not. I’m over here experiencing this with the choices that I’ve made, and you’re down in Melbourne having a bitch while you’re doing lines at 4am with other 50-year-olds, bitching about a 24-year-old. There are Facebook groups with old rockers being like, ‘I don’t like that band, she’s crap.’ Kiss my arse!” **“Do It Do It”** AT: “For some reason I always imagine some random athlete trying to listen to this to gee up, so that’s what it’s about. Someone being like, ‘Yeah I’ll fuckin’ get up and run.’” DM: “This was the last riff I came up with before moving to the US. The working title for it was ‘Pornhub Awards’ because, the night before, I found a free ticket to the Pornhub Awards. I didn’t win anything.” **“Going Somewhere”** AT: “Anyone can find dirt, but it takes hard work to find gold. It’s the easiest thing in the world to criticize. People are just lazy, and they’re not trying hard enough to find the good in stuff. There’s no perfect world and there’s not going to be utopia, because utopia would be dystopia anyway. It’s just saying I’m going to go somewhere, hopefully you can come there too.” **“Me and The Girls”** DM: “Amy sent me this hip-hop song that had like an Eddie Van Halen sort of guitar sample in it, and I was like, ‘I’ve got a riff that’s super repetitive, almost like a sample, a loop, and I wrote it when I was 21. It’s called ‘Fry Pan Fingers,’ because I used to stick my fingers on the frying pan to callous them before gigs when I was young.’ So I was like, ‘All right, Amy, here’s this repetitive \[riff\], like a hip-hop loop that I’ve got.’” AT: “I needed a lyric for the chorus, so I was like, ‘Declan, now’s your chance, do you want to do a duet?’ I said, ‘Me and the girls are drunk at the airport,’ and he’s like, ‘I can’t believe that it’s an open bar,’ and I loved it, but everyone else was like, this is a bit weird. We’d been listening to a lot of Beastie Boys so we were like, let’s add in the vocoder \[on his voice\] and make it sound like that.”
The Black Keys have spent the past two decades carrying the banner of blues-rock revivalism into the present. The duo have sold more records than most pop stars and have proven, time and time again, that rock has always been here—if you were willing to look. The band, made up of Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney, emerged from Akron, Ohio, in the early aughts as a welcome counterbalance to what was monopolizing record shelf space at the time. The New York City alternative scene was thriving, with bands including The Strokes, LCD Soundsystem, and Interpol dictating the sound coming out of venues, warehouses, and loft spaces up and down the East Coast. Auerbach and Carney, meanwhile, were crafting a sound that was more Mississippi Delta than Mercury Lounge. The duo’s shared love of Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Thin Lizzy, and T. Rex formed the foundation of their lo-fi sound, and they spent the next two decades expanding their range, introducing elements of psychedelia and big-chorus anthems that made them festival-headlining mainstays. Now, The Black Keys are returning with album number 12, the aptly titled *Ohio Players*, a project that bubbles over with the energy of two dudes just here for a good time. “I think once we experienced success, it was like, ‘Let’s try to keep it going and not make the same record again,’” Carney tells ALT CTRL Radio’s Hanuman Welch. “But what happened during this process was the pandemic hits, and after a year of not seeing each other, we walk in the studio to start working on our next record, and something had just changed between us. It was like we finally became best friends; everything was enjoyable. Creatively, we were starting to kind of push things a little bit, but as soon as we finished \[2022 album\] *Dropout Boogie*, before it was even released, we started working on this record. The intention was to call our friends to come in and work with us.” Past collaborations have netted The Black Keys the sort of accolades other bands work their entire careers hoping to achieve. The duo’s *El Camino*, co-produced by Danger Mouse, won Grammys for Best Rock Album and Best Rock Performance in 2013. But *Ohio Players* is the first time the band has truly collaborated in the sense of sharing writing and performing duties. And then they brought on some friends. The album’s first single, “Beautiful People (Stay High),” was co-written by Beck and Dan the Automator, and is the result of supporting Beck on tour 20 years ago after meeting him at a 2003 *SNL* after-party. “I just busted out this promo CD,” Carney remembers. “And I was like, ‘This is my band.’ And two weeks later, Beck reached out and took us on tour. So, this track is a result of this relationship and fandom that I have for Beck. We’ve been talking about making music off and on for years, and right when we finished our last record, we’re like, ‘Get down, it’s time.’” The Black Keys managed to enlist another generational talent for the project: Oasis’ Noel Gallagher. “\[Collaboration\] can always fall flat on its face,” says Carney. “And so, we basically spent 80 grand running the gamble of, ‘This could not work,’ because we didn\'t have a song. So, we booked the smallest, tiniest studio in London, really, Toe Rag—it’s where The White Stripes did *Elephant*. It was, like, zero frills. We showed up, and Noel was there—a guy we’ve briefly met a couple of times, and a legend—and we’re now going to write a song from scratch. Within two hours, we had it, and within another two hours, we had the take. Noel was like, ‘I’ve never actually done this before.’” Two decades in, the novelty of working with people whose music they love still hasn’t worn off. “The thing I’m most proud of, as a fan of music, is to have gotten in the studio with people who I’m a fan of and make something I’m proud of and that they’re proud of,” adds Carney. “It just is a really amazing feeling.”
In dance music, few boundaries are as powerful as the wall between the mainstream and the underground. Four Tet is the rare artist who has managed to knock it down. The endlessly curious English producer Kieran Hebden—who has been bridging gaps between far-apart sounds like spiritual jazz, indie rock, R&B, and techno since the late ’90s—surprised fans in 2023 when he teamed up with main-stage party boys Skrillex and Fred again.., transforming Coachella and Madison Square Garden into pop-up raves. What had become of their underground darling? But Hebden isn’t one to unpack. Here, on his 12th full-length, he veers back into the cerebral sounds he’s known for: lush, patient, radiant soundscapes that verge on meditations. “Daydream Repeat,” a clear standout, is twinkling and weightless, the sort of flow-state reverie that can lift you outside of yourself. “31 Bloom” has similarly club-friendly grooves but feels fully rooted, with synths and drums that rub together like sneakers across a dance floor. But no track stretches quite like the mystical, New Age-y “Three Drums,” an eight-minute panorama of birdsong flutes, rainfall textures, and pulsing synths that echo Moby’s 1999 hit “Porcelain.” As the song unfolds into an ambient canvas of sound waves and sighs, it begins to feel less like music and more like breath—a blissful sanctuary to slip into and get lost in. As a destination, it isn’t too far from that of his big-tent contemporaries; dance music, in essence, is about freedom and release. In that way, *Three* finds Hebden doing what he does best: finding clever, unexpected ways to bring disparate listeners into the same space.
Pond’s natural penchant for bombast made the Perth quintet perennial candidates for turning in a double album, and this 10th LP finally makes it happen. *Stung!* plays like a robust showreel of everything the band does so well, from the glam flourishes of “(I’m) Stung” and Day-Glo bluster of “Neon River” to the tight, Prince-ly funk of “So Lo” and Beach Boys-esque harmonies and hues of “Last Elvis.” Sudden scene changes are always a given with Pond: Observe how the dank drum-fills and Sabbath-style vocal effects of “Black Lung” lead right to the understated quietude of “Sunrise for the Lonely.” Through it all, singer/guitarist Nick Allbrook leads the chameleonic efforts of multi-instrumentalists Jay Watson, Jamie Terry, Joe Ryan, and James Ireland on an extended roller coaster of contrasts. Packing the most disparate elements into a single sitting is “Edge of the World Pt. 3,” an eight-minute odyssey featuring dreamy flute and sax from guest Thea Woodward and a monster guitar solo by Dungen’s Reine Fiske. And yet Allbrook’s coolly charismatic stewardship keeps the album feeling more coherent than chaotic, right up until the well-earned comedown of the closing ballad, “Fell From Grace With the Sea.”
Kelly Lee Owens’ musical journey has been a fascinating one. After spending time as the bassist of the noisy British indie-pop outfit The History of Apple Pie, she took an abrupt left turn into electronic territory with 2017’s self-titled debut album, which melded brainy production with melodic pop gewgaws delivered straight from the Welsh singer-songwriter’s pipes. 2020’s *Inner Song* and the 2022 follow-up *LP.8* ventured further into strange territory, the former featuring a cover of Radiohead’s “Arpeggi” and a feature from art-pop luminary John Cale—but nothing she’s done previously can prepare you for the total rush of her fourth album *Dreamstate*. Owens’ music has always been body-moving even at its most abstract, but on her inaugural bow for the 1975 production impresario George Daniel’s dh2 imprint, she heads full-on into big-room territory—think miles of pulsing synths, dewy rhythmic stretches lovingly ripped from trance’s fabric, and a distinct psychedelic flavor. *Dreamstate* is, in its essence, a capital-B big-sounding record, with guest turns from the type of folks—The Chemical Brothers, Bicep, and Daniel himself all pitch in on programming and production—who know how to play to massive crowds looking to feel something. But the sound of this record retains the trademark wispy intimacy that Owens has proven so good at, launching her to the forefront of electronic pop alongside fellow sneaky-smart dance-pop alchemists like Jamie xx, Caribou, Floating Points, and HAAi. The lush, soaring build of “Higher” dissolves into the type of pulsing synth line that you can practically feel in your bloodstream, while “Air” packs a four-to-the-floor punch as her vocals aerate the neon house-music surroundings. Owens’ pop sensibilities, which she’s cloaked in mysterious left-field sonic shapes in the past, are more present than ever before: Witness the arpeggiated ascent of “Rise,” which features a lovely vocal sigh reminiscent of Kate Bush’s “This Woman’s Work,” or the bell-clear sincerity of “Ballad (In the End),” the most straightforwardly vocal pop cut of the bunch.
Few genres feel as inherently collaborative as jazz, and even fewer contemporary artists embody that spirit quite like Kamasi Washington. After bringing a whole new generation of listeners to jazz through his albums *The Epic* and *Heaven and Earth*, as well as his collaborations with Kendrick Lamar, the Los Angeles native and saxophonist amassed an impressively eclectic set of guests to join his forthcoming bandleader project *Fearless Movement*. Among the guests were Los Angeles rapper D Smoke and funk legend George Clinton, who joined him for “Get Lit.” “That was definitely a beautiful moment,” Washington tells Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. “The sessions were magical; it was like being in a studio with just geniuses.” Originally written by Washington’s longtime drummer Ronald Bruner Jr. (also known as the brother of bass virtuoso Thundercat), “Get Lit” sat around for a bit before the divine inspiration struck to invite Clinton and D Smoke to build upon it. After Washington attended the former’s art exhibition and the latter’s Hollywood Bowl concert in Los Angeles, it couldn’t have been clearer to him who the band needed to make the song shine. Washington compares Clinton’s involvement to magic, marveling in the studio at just how the Parliament-Funkadelic icon operates. “It\'s like we\'re listening to it and he\'s living in it,” he says, conveying how natural it felt having him participate. “When he decides to add something to some music, it\'s like water.” As for D Smoke, Washington was so impressed by the two-time Grammy nominee’s sense of musicality. “He plays keys, he understands harmony, and all that other stuff. He just knew exactly what to do.” As implied by “Get Lit,” the contributors on *Fearless Movement* come from varied backgrounds and scenes, from the modern R&B styles of singer BJ the Chicago Kid to the shape-shifting sounds of Washington’s *To Pimp a Butterfly* peer Terrace Martin. Still, the name that will stand out for many listeners is André 3000, who locked in with the band on the improvisational piece “Dream State.” The Outkast rapper turned critically acclaimed flautist arrived with a veritable arsenal of flutes, inspiring all the players present. “André has one of the most powerful creative spirits that I\'ve ever experienced,” Washington says. “We just created that whole song in the moment together without knowing where we was going.” Allowing himself to give in to the uncertainty and promise of that particular moment succinctly encapsulates the wider ethos behind all of *Fearless Movement*. “A lot of times, I feel like you can get stuck holding on to what you have because you\'re unwilling to let it go,” he says. “This album is really speaking on that idea of just being comfortable in what you are and where you want to go.”
With a career spanning four decades, Kim Deal holds the distinction of being part of two indie-rock giants—Pixies and The Breeders—counting among her fans the likes of Kurt Cobain and Olivia Rodrigo, two era-defining talents who invited her on tour three decades apart. But somehow, Deal had never set out to write a proper solo album outside of a 10-song 7-inch vinyl series in 2013. Hunkering down in the Florida Keys during the initial months of the COVID-19 pandemic ignited that initial spark, but the island naturally seeped into her creative psyche for years, having routinely retreated there with her parents before they were too old to travel. As a result, the intersection of memory and family comes across vividly throughout *Nobody Loves You More*. On “Summerland,” written as a loving tribute to the Keys, she reflects on their tradition with a soothing ukulele giving way to grand, whimsical orchestral swells worthy of Harry Nilsson. While on the tender title track, a vintage slow dance leads over majestic horns as she sings with open-hearted grace. It pairs elegantly with the gentle lullaby “Are You Mine?”, a touching ode to her mother, who battled dementia. These songs may sound like timeless tunes of the golden oldies era, but Deal also amps up the guitars, grounding them in reality with her usual humor and insouciance. “A Good Time Pushed,” the closest thing here to a Breeders ripper, suggests the end of a relationship before it’s even started: “We’re having a good time/I’ll see you around.” With songs dating back to the early 2000s, *Nobody Loves You More* varies stylistically, with Deal connecting to her own truth through personal loss, triumph, and failure. The fiercely paced “Disobedience” mirrors her enduring defiance, where she promises to stick around on her own terms: “I know what I want/Till I’m thrown off.”
As important as it is to foreground the Tuareg/Nigerien heritage of Mdou Moctar’s scorching psychedelic rock, it’s just as important to note its connection to the American underground. After all, *Funeral for Justice* isn’t “folk music” in any touristic or anthropological sense, and it’s probably as (if not more) likely to appeal to fans of strictly American weirdos like Ty Segall or Thee Oh Sees as anything out of West Africa. Still, anyone unfamiliar with the stutter-step rhythm of Tuareg music should visit “Imajighen” and the lullaby-like hush of “Modern Slaves” immediately, and it pleases the heart to imagine a borderless future in which moody teenage guitarists might study stuff like “Sousoume Tamacheq” the way Moctar himself studied Eddie Van Halen. As with 2021’s breakthrough *Afrique Victime*, the intensity is astonishing, the sustain hypnotic, and the combination of the two an experience most listeners probably haven’t had before.
On Chaz Bear’s eighth studio album under the Toro y Moi moniker, he returns to his roots. No, not the chillwave roots he became celebrated for in the late 2000s and early 2010s with initial singles and *Causers of This*, but his actual roots as a fan of pop punk, alternative, and rap music. “Hollywood,” which begins with a melodic bassline that wouldn’t sound out of place on an early Green Day record, features Death Cab for Cutie’s Ben Gibbard and finds Bear waxing somewhat nostalgically about his early days as Toro y Moi. “Poor navigation, who am I to blame?/No one even calls me by my real name,” he sings. “Heaven,” which features BROCKHAMPTON alumni Kevin Abstract and Lev, begins with a campfire-worthy acoustic guitar riff and layered vocals from Bear and his guests. The slow-burning alt-R&B jam finds Toro y Moi showcasing the natural beauty of his voice and imploring the song’s subject to find the joy he finds throughout the album: “Baby, let it go/Let it go.”
The Decemberists’ first album in six years feels like a homecoming. After the somber and reflective *What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World* in 2015 and the synth-laden protest songs of 2018’s *I’ll Be Your Girl*, their ninth LP, *As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again*—their first-ever double album—is a freewheeling and deeply pleasurable odyssey through the Portland folk-rockers’ estimable history. No stone in the band’s past is left unturned here: There are echoes of the wistfulness that drew so many listeners in circa 2002’s instant classic *Castaways and Cutouts*, as well as the flamboyant instrumentation and arched-eyebrow storytelling that marked 2005’s star-making *Picaresque*. Even *As It Ever Was*’ stormy and surprisingly bruising closer, the nearly 20-minute “Joan in the Garden,” instantly recalls the band’s 2009 proggy opus *The Hazards of Love* in its “Aqualung”-esque stomp, complete with meaty guitar riffs. At first glance, Colin Meloy and co. are doing a lot across the ample framework of *As It Ever Was*—but their successfully executed sense of ambition is perfectly complemented by the sweet musical simplicity of these 13 songs, some of Meloy’s most straightforwardly gorgeous music put to tape. Accompanied by The Shins’ James Mercer and R.E.M. bassist Mike Mills, the easy jangle of “Burial Ground” is practically The Decemberists’ own take on The Byrds’ classic “Turn! Turn! Turn!” while “America Made Me” leavens Meloy’s acerbic sociopolitical observations with a horn-laden bar-band boisterousness. “Don’t want stunning wordplay/All I want is you,” Meloy nakedly intones on “All I Want Is You,” perhaps a cheeky self-referential moment towards his own penchant for lyrical verbosity. But *As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again* reaffirms that The Decemberists are at their strongest when embracing their most long-held creative tendencies.
In January 2021, news broke that the pioneering pop producer SOPHIE had died, aged only 34, after a tragic fall when she was attempting to glimpse the moon. The outpouring of grief was instantaneous and the tributes heartfelt, as artists including Rihanna, Flying Lotus, Sam Smith, Christine and the Queens, Rina Sawayama, and Nile Rodgers honored a visionary talent who had touched—and forever changed—pop with her restlessly inventive and, eventually, mainstream-conquering sound. As Jack Antonoff put it on social media at the time, “she’s been at the forefront for a long time and we see her influence in every corner of music…an artist who truly had the ideas first and the guts to put it out there.” Almost four years later arrives *SOPHIE*, the follow-up to SOPHIE’s 2017 debut *Oil of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides* and the album the artist had been working on—and almost finished—before her death. Promised as her only posthumous album, it was completed by SOPHIE’s brother and studio engineer Ben Long, who’d been working closely with her on the record, and who intimately understood her vision for it. Despite the artist’s undeniable impact on radio-friendly pop, this being SOPHIE, the record isn’t always an accessible, straightforward listen. *SOPHIE* is split into four sections of four songs, each exploring different moods, and each one arriving like a thrillingly abrupt left turn. The record almost feels like a voyaging DJ set through her musical world. There’s ambient music (“Intro (The Full Horror)”), frenetic, crunchy production and late-night club sounds to raise anxiety levels (there’s a song called “Berlin Nightmare”). But then there’s also ebullient and expertly crafted pop moments that will make you want to turn the volume right up, from the summer-ready “Reason Why” with Kim Petras and BC Kingdom to “Why Lies,” also with BC Kingdom and LIZ. Later come softer, often yearning tracks, the kind of songs that showcase what always made SOPHIE’s music—and the hyperpop sound she helped pioneer—so special: its heart. See “Always and Forever,” which features PC Music talent Hannah Diamond’s wispy vocals against softer, yet still bouncing, production and lyrics about transcending time and moving towards the light. Indeed, unlike on *Oil of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides*, there are guests on every song on *SOPHIE*, including Petras and Diamond, as well as Cecile Believe, Jozzy, Bibi Bourelly, and artist, writer, and DJ Juliana Huxtable. And that roster feels poignant for SOPHIE’s final album: This is an artist who has always been synonymous with community, collaboration, and friendship. Her chosen guests here deliver spoken word (on the racing yet strangely addictive “Plunging Asymptote” and the spacey “The Dome’s Protection”), pitched-up vocals (“Live in My Truth”), and lonely, heartbreak-fueled lyricism, as on the gorgeous, ’80s-referencing “My Forever” with Cecile Believe, one of the album’s standout moments. “I want to go back to forever,” she sings. “You’ll always be my forever.” Listening to *SOPHIE* is often an exhilarating experience, but it’s also a bittersweet one, a reminder of the producer’s extraordinary ambition and boundless experimentation—and of how much she still had to give.
