On her debut studio album, Heaven Knows, the English singer and producer PinkPantheress navigates a heady mix of gothic horror and blissful solitude. It’s a record that reflects on the ways we survive trauma only to exist in a kind of uncertain purgatory — alive, unsure of the future and, ultimately, how it’s OK to not be OK. We open …
All Songs Considered | The best releases out on Nov. 3
After releasing her self-titled debut studio album in 2016, rapper and singer Tkay Maidza felt stuck. She was writing songs that, Maidza says, she didn’t even like. So she walked away from music-making and took half a year to untether herself from the things holding her back. But Maidza eventually hit reset and returned to the studio to make Sweet …
All Songs Considered | The best releases out on Oct. 20
U.K. singer-songwriter Sampha has become a go-to guest vocalist for artists such as Kendrick Lamar, Drake, Alicia Keys, Frank Ocean, Solange and Stormzy. Naturally, he’s got a distinctive, genre-blending style as a solo artist, too: Sampha’s second full-length album, LAHAI, showcases his vulnerability, growth and gorgeous vocals, which can sound both timelessly familiar and futuristic, often simultaneously. We’ve also got …
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard Preview Their Umpteenth New Album With “Theia / The Silver Cord / Set”
Anyone who tells you they know what’s next for Australian experimental-rock sextet King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard is lying, with one exception: The hyper-prolific band is never not announcing a new album. This week, they unveiled The Silver Cord (Oct. 27, KGLW), previewing the synth-driven set with the lead single and video triumvirate of its album openers, “Theia / …
On “Eggman,” West Coast Psych-Rock Gadfly Ty Segall Takes a Crack at More Bad Trips
Ty Segall continues to morph and mop up the competition of current psych-rock-what-have-you. “Eggman” arrives on the heels of his recent doom-dirge single, “Void.” Over a rumbling bed of drums, octaved-electric guitar and strumming acoustic, Segall serves up cryptic lyrics (“Hey / do you hear what I say? / Would you look at your face? Your mouth’s / agape and …
Public Radio’s Favorite New Musicians Of 2023
With autumn upon us, we decided it was time to poll NPR Music’s Member station partners to find out the new musicians who caught their hosts’ ears this year. We had one question: Identify your favorite artist who entered 2023 without a full-length album. We received 13 answers, and the results spanned rock, Americana, soul, jazz and electronic music. Enjoy …
Hip-Hop Legends Little Brother Share Two New Songs, “Wish Me Well and “Glory Glory”
Little Brother, the beloved North Carolina hip-hop duo, have released “Wish Me Well” and “Glory Glory,” their first new music in four years. Phonte and Rapper Big Pooh remain the poster boys of grown-man rap. Seasoned, independent, well-respected; their rhymes serve as references for artists looking to follow suit. “Wish Me Well” finds Phonte and Rapper Big Pooh taking turns …
On “Electric Like An Eel,” The Serfs Offer to Rock and Rule the Dystopian Age
Judging by the music of the Serfs, the band’s hometown of Cincinnati, Ohio is a destroyed, post-industrial wasteland. While they are retro to the point of the antediluvian, the trio of Dylan McCartney (vocals, percussion, guitar, bass, electronics), Dakota Carlyle (electronics, bass, guitar, vocals) and Andie Luman (vocals, synths) enshroud their latest single “Electric Like an Eel” into more of a post-punk …
Wiz Khalifa, Big K.R.I.T., Smoke DZA & Girl Talk “Eurostep” Back Into the Spotlight
After first teaming up for 2022’s Full Court Press, the low-key hip-hop supergroup featuring emcees Wiz Khalifa, Big K.R.I.T. and Smoke DZA, and producer Girl Talk (aka Gregg Gillis) have returned with their first new music of the year, Tuesday’s effortless “Eurostep.” To a casual basketball viewer, the Euro step seems almost unfair, like the ball handler is getting away …
As Eureka Springs, Cory Driscoll Expands His Sonic Vision with New Single, “The Mirage”
Eureka Springs have released their second single, a downtempo, jangly meditation called “The Mirage.” Some housekeeping first: Eureka Springs is the full-band project of Jacksonville singer-songwriter Cory Driscoll, whose 2022 album is also called Eureka Springs. Driscoll also has a song called “Eureka Springs” from the album Eureka Springs which–what with the artist, song and album–approaches The-1975-levels of meta. In …
On “Hits,” Jacksonville’s BlissFund Utilizes a Reductionist Approach to Blend Folk and Rock
Jacksonville’s BlissFund was started in 2018 primarily as a writing project by G.A. Mallinson. “Hits,” the opening track from his new full-length release Revelator, finds Mallinson deploying a plain-spoken, talking-folk-blues approach. Simple chords strummed over abstract guitar swells, a drumbeat that is minimal and tentative, and the song’s narrator dealing out ambiguities in a love story that he considers “lighting …
Animal Collective Are of Two Minds on Hypnotic New Single “Gem & I”
The latest mind-bender from avant-pop veterans Animal Collective is nearly here, and our final preview of their new album Isn’t It Now? (Sept. 29, Domino) arrived last week in the form of “Gem & I,” a track the band has been performing live since 2019. The third single from Isn’t It Now? after this summer’s “Soul Capturer” and “Defeat,” “Gem …
“The Long Journey Home” is a New Kind of Blues for Buffalo Nichols
A cut from his second full-length release, The Fatalist, “The Long Journey Home” finds contemporary alt-blues-agitator Buffalo Nichols continuing his excursions into deconstructing and rebuilding folk forms. Driven by banjo and a minimal Roland TR-808 beat—a machine that is 50 years old, and one which Nichols considers to be a now-folk instrument—the proverbial trouble in mind that he explores is …
Big Thief Are Back Again With the Beautiful “Born For Loving You”
Big Thief got bigger than ever in 2022, raking in acclaim (not to mention a Grammy nomination) with their sprawling double album Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You, and rather than resting on those laurels, the indie-folk four-piece returned Wednesday with “Born For Loving You,” their second new tune of the year. Like this summer’s “Vampire Empire” and …
Steep Canyon Rangers Bring Their Deep Take on Bluegrass to the Florida Theatre
The Steep Canyon Rangers will return to the Florida Theatre on Saturday, November 4. Over the course of two decades, the group has collaborated with banjo-playing comedy legend Steve Martin, singer-songwriter Edie Brickell and a whole host of others on their way to be being heralded as one of the finest bluegrass outfits working today. And while the Rangers have …
Free Jazz Quartet Mendoza Hoff Revels Lures Listeners Into the Music Abyss
There is always room for one more supergroup and we surely have one in Mendoza Hoff Revels. Granted, if you can handle the Scoville burn, the flavor of this particular power-quartet is heavy on the free-jazz-rock seasoning. Taken from their forthcoming album Echolocation, the five-minute slice of “Diablada” assures us that Mendoza Hoff Revels really like the whole-tone scale and …
The Rolling Stones Announce ‘Hackney Diamonds,’ Their First Album in 18 Years
The Rolling Stones are releasing their 24th album, the rock ‘n’ roll band’s first in 18 years. In a live conversation Wednesday with late-night host Jimmy Fallon, the British group — comprised of lead vocalist Mick Jagger, guitarist Ronnie Wood, writer and guitarist Keith Richards and drummer Steve Jordan – announced Hackney Diamonds will come out Oct. 20. Wood said …
On ‘Rabbit Rabbit,’ Speedy Ortiz Returns with the Kind of Rock Record We (and They) Need Right Now
Ten years after Major Arcana, the breakthrough record that made indie-rock darlings out of Sadie Dupuis’ Speedy Ortiz, the band is back with a new record: Rabbit Rabbit. The group’s return has been much-anticipated. The smattering singles released prior to the September 1 drop date earned praise from The New York Times and Pitchfork among others, foreshadowing the kind of …
The Gear That Gave Jax’s Ducats the Grungy Sound They Needed to Record Their Latest Single, “Painless”
“Our songs are pretty pop/melody driven,” says Trent Holton, leader of the Jacksonville-based lo-fi garage act Ducats. “But we like to make noise and sound ugly sometimes in practice. We just drone and wail. The essence of music-making, for me, is represented in those loose moments: creation, destruction, spontaneity, grit, grime, happy, sad, pure energy.” That playful, throw-spaghetti-at-the-wall approach shines …
Unearthed Danger Mouse and Jemini Collab is Firmly Grounded in Soul-Hop Grooves
Originally recorded in 2004, Born Again was created by Danger Mouse and Jemini the Gifted One, following the release of Ghetto Pop Life, their 2003 studio collaboration. Ghetto Pop Life was a critical and fan hit. Danger Mouse and Jemini toured in support of the album and ultimately recorded the tracks now released as Born Again. Their momentum was squashed …
All Songs Considered | The best releases out on Sept. 1
Speedy Ortiz‘s music may sound jagged around the edges, but it comes bundled with glimmers of sunny pop, clever lyrics and smartly deployed lap steel. The band’s new fourth album, Rabbit Rabbit, finds singer-songwriter Sadie Dupuis wrangling with abuse and trauma, learning to let go of anger and writing about the activism that’s fueled her life and career. (She’s a …
New Box Set Collects Early Triumphs of Bon Iver and Megafaun Members
This essay originally appeared in NPR Music’s weekly newsletter. Subscribe to the newsletter here. There’s a scene in an old episode of The Simpsons wherein Lisa laments that no one listens to kids. Grandpa Simpson, embroiled in a B plot of his own, chimes in that no one listens to old people, either — at which point Homer pops by …
Noname’s ‘Sundial’ Pursues a Hip-Hop Revolution
Hip-hop has been effectively deradicalized by middle age, botched love and commercialism, to the extent that so-called “conscious rap” often sounds like a grift to feed a void in the market — the hungry ghost of authenticity. Plenty of the music is no longer a visceral and spirit-driven creative endeavor. It might be realer to just make indifferent music in …
Double Space is the Place | New Compilation Celebrates the Intergalactic Verse of Sun Ra
When tracking the enigmatic creative life of Sun Ra, it truly depends on which orbit you traverse. Over the course of his 79 years on this planet, Sun Ra worked with blues artist Wynonie Harris and big band Fletcher Henderson, later to and rub shoulders with esoteric-roots rockers NRBQ and guitar-throttlers Sonic Youth. Sun Ra released more than 100 albums …
We Now Have Three Sonically-Distinctive Singles from Mitski’s New Record, ‘The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We’
It’s been a little over a year-and-a-half since Mitski’s Laurel Hell took over the Billboard Albums Chart in the kind of indie coup d’état not seen since Frank Ocean’s Blonde. Mainstream breakthrough notwithstanding, the experimentalist singer-songwriter-turned-pop-megastar continues to push forward, announcing a new record, The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We (out September 15th via Dead Oceans), from which the …
All Songs Considered | The best releases out on Aug. 25
Nigerian singer Burna Boy is one of the biggest pop stars in the world, as well as a global superstar by any metric. His seventh album has a title that promises the victory lap for which he’s long-overdue: It’s called I Told Them… The record continues to expand Burna Boy’s Afro-fusion palette, as he draws inspiration from ’90s hip-hop and …
L’Rain Previews New Album ‘I Killed Your Dog’ With the Playful “Pet Rock”
L’Rain — aka Brooklyn-based experimental singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, composer and curator Taja Cheek — has announced her third album, the confrontationally titled I Killed Your Dog (Oct. 13, Mexican Summer). Our second preview of the “anti-break-up” record after June’s standalone single (and, it turns out, I Killed Your Dog’s closer) “New Year’s UnResolution” is the technicolor “Pet Rock,” out now alongside …
Daptone Records Drops a Heady Reggae Collab Between Sugar Minott and Victor Axelrod
For lovers of reggae music, Sugar Minott was a veritable force of nature. When he died at age 54 in 2010, he left behind an impressive body of work. While still in his teens in the late ‘60s, Minott cofounded the African Brothers, a band savvy at blending R&B and soul with a strong Rastafari vibe. In the subsequent decades …
On New Single, Squirrel Flower Is Aglow in the “Alley Light”
Chicago-based singer-songwriter Ella Williams recently announced her third album as Squirrel Flower, and ahead of the fall release of Tomorrow’s Fire (Oct. 13, Polyvinyl Record Co.), she’s shared a new single (and music video) from the LP, the Bruce Springsteen-inspired “Alley Light.” Though the light touch of Squirrel Flower’s 2020 full-length debut I Was Born Swimming earned her the “indie …
Multitalented Duval Artist Jordan Blackburn Steps out of the Digital Cumulus with First Full-Length Release, ‘Abnormal Hues’
Considering the semi-infinite roster of SoundCloud (with a bandwidth-buckling 30 million musicians currently featured on the DIY site), it’s easy for an artist to be lost or overlooked in that digital cumulus. “Shake” is the new single from Duval solo artist Jordan Blackburn and the closing track from his seven-song debut, Abnormal Hues. According to his EPK, Blackburn is a …
Live Session | Jacksonville Indie-Folk Band Bobby Kid Plays Songs from their Beloved New Record, ‘Babyface’
A few weeks back, the Jacksonville Music Experience conducted an in-no-way-scientific poll of our Instagram followers (a small-but-mighty bunch nearing 2K; follow here) based on the following prompt: Fave Local Release of 2023. Of the four-dozen or so respondents, nearly half said they either liked Bobby Kid‘s Babyface or a song from the band’s new full-length album. In some ways …
Posthumous Jazz Is Dead Release Reinforces the Legacy of Influential Drummer, the Late, Great Tony Allen
When drummer Tony Allen passed away in April 2020, he left behind a musical legacy both pronounced and subtle. As the longtime main drummer for Fela Kuti’s Afrobeat ensemble, including a truly searing album where he played stick-to-stick with UK (ex-Cream) drummer Ginger Baker, Allen introduced a jazz-funk style of playing that pointed back to Africa while also directing contemporary …
Watch JME Live Sessions and Support the Jacksonville Music Experience
From the time we launched the Jacksonville Music Experience a couple years back, we’ve been covering the city’s music scene, cranking out hundreds of new-music reviews, interviews with emerging bands and longform features on the history of music in Jacksonville, all while keeping our readers up to speed on the latest music news from around the world. We’ve also been …
Coastal Creature Kick Back and Sip “Lemonade” on Breezy New Single
Duval DIY indie-pop duo Coastal Creature are plotting the fall release of their debut EP, but in the meantime, they’ve shared a new tune to keep you cool through the summer swelter. Lead single “Lemonade” is out as of this week, with a music video to follow in early September. Erica Reese and Parker Dixon, then recent Florida transplants, met …
Under-the-Radar NYC Artist Farrah Hanna’s “TMILTM” is ROYL beabadoobee, Lomelda, Slow Pulp, etc
Brooklyn-based indie singer-songwriter Farrah Hanna serenades listeners with her latest single, “TMILTM,” a heartbreak ballad that asks a former lover the questions left unspoken. Originally from Virginia, Hannah’s making a mark on the Big Apple’s big indie scene, recently performing at the beloved Bushwick art-and-performance hub Rubulad with Jacksonville-bred artist Brianna Maclean (Primary School). “TMILTM,” is the first single released …
Sufjan Stevens Is So Back with ‘Javelin,’ Lead Single “So You Are Tired”
Like a tireless explorer laying new eyes on familiar horizons, the great Sufjan Stevens has announced his first album “in full singer-songwriter mode” since 2015’s acclaimed Carrie & Lowell, detailing Javelin (Oct. 6, Asthmatic Kitty) and releasing its lead single “So You Are Tired” on Monday. After nearly a decade of collaboration and experimentation, with a particular focus on the …
