The music of Singaporean artist and producer yeule often sounds like it was made from turn-of-the-century home electronics — dial up modems, simple keypad tones or a broken VCR. But, in deceptively disarming moments, it’s also warm and beautifully organic, just before erupting in thunderous sheets of guitar noise and primal screaming. As we discuss on this week’s show, their …
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 …
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 …
The Sunset of Sonic Youth | An oral history of the band’s final U.S. show
No one knew Sonic Youth was making its last stand — not even Sonic Youth itself. “It was a period of regrouping. But in spite of some personal problems, it was still business as normal: ‘We’re going out to do a summer show in our hometown,’ ” admits co-founder Lee Ranaldo from his New York apartment. This cycle was not …
Trumpet was Too Loud, Clarinet was Too soft — Here’s ‘The Story of the Saxophone’
Lesa Cline-Ransome and James Ransome met at a “Purple Rain” party when they were 19 — sophomores at Pratt Institute. “I asked her to dance, and we’ve been dancing together ever since,” says James Ransome. Cline-Ransome was in the fashion department. Ransome was an illustration student. They began dating. “I think we knew we were a match because he would …
Brandee Younger | Tiny Desk Concert
NPR Music is celebrating Black Music Month with an array of brand new Tiny Desk concerts. Together, these artists represent the past, present and future of Black music. This month of carefully curated shows is a celebration of Black artists expressing themselves in ways we’ve never seen before, and of the Tiny Desk’s unique way of showcasing that talent. On …
MUNA | Tiny Desk Concert
“It’s very cool to see that everyone who works for NPR is gay,” MUNA singer-guitarist Katie Gavin deadpanned by way of introduction at the band’s Tiny Desk concert. For a band whose latest album is currently soundtracking its second straight Pride Month, MUNA has found a deep kinship with queer audiences — a fact Gavin noted during the lead-in to …
Paul McCartney’s Photos of Early Beatlemania are in a Book and on Display in London
Updated June 13, 2023 at 10:38 AM ET This famous moment in music history is now visible from a different angle. Any capsule history of rock music, or pop music, or the 1960’s will include the Beatles’ arrival in the United States in early 1964. The images are all familiar — young men with bowl haircuts (that they’d later grow …
Shawny Binladen and the Rise of Sample Drill
After Pop Smoke’s tragic death in 2020, many wondered what would become of New York drill, and many naysayers claimed it died with him. Over the next year, several booming voices would knock at that door, but the man who broke it down was one who raps in whispers. 27-year-old Queens rapper Shawny Binladen’s reimagination of drill music opened up …
Yves Tumor’s disruptive pop-cultural synthesis
The latest Yves Tumor album begins with a scream and ends with a call to lock eyes. A project with the koan-like title Praise A Lord Who Chews But Which Does Not Consume; (Or Simply, Hot Between Worlds) might seem like it’s obscuring or even deliberately thumbing its nose at meaning, but the carnal bookending of a scream and a …
The Beths | Tiny Desk Concert
If you squint hard enough at the paper in front of Elizabeth Stokes, you’ll find an encouraging note she wrote to herself: Breathe. Relax. Smile. (followed by a hand-drawn smiley face, of course). We get it: The Tiny Desk is filmed in broad daylight, at eye level, in front of NPR employees and, eventually, is released to “the inside of …
Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s Ruban Nielson on the family-inspired new album ‘V’
Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s sound is something of a mystery. While it’s bathed in a lo-fi aesthetic, it has managed to evolve and grow through genres such a psychedelic, punk and even disco through the band’s decade-plus making music. UMO is back now with its latest album, V, bathing this time in the pools of Palm Springs and oceans of Hawaii …
Join us at SXSW as Thee Sacred Souls, DEBBY FRIDAY, Hermanos Gutiérrez Perform on Public Radio Stage
SXSW, the week-long music industry (et al) gathering in Austin, Texas is in full-swing. And the Jacksonville Music Experience is there, too… kind of. As a Public Media organization and member station of NPR Music’s Live Sessions, we’re helping to welcome four emerging artists to the Public Radio Day Stage at SXSW. On Friday, March 17, San Diego soul trio …
Charley Crockett | Tiny Desk Concert
Charley Crockett knew what he was doing when he stood behind the Tiny Desk and introduced himself by smoothly dropping three names: Charley Pride, Davy Crockett and Freddy Fender. With those references, the Texas troubadour framed his concert as a shrewd conversation with sturdy, old ways of singing, spinning yarns of folk heroism and drawing freely from the cultural melting …
Lee Fields | Tiny Desk Concert
This year’s Black History Month celebration at the Tiny Desk features a carefully crafted lineup spanning many genres, generations and walks of life. Each artist represents the best in their class and will be performing at the Tiny Desk for the first time. You can’t see it on the screen, but there’s a piece of paper taped to the Desk …
Tom Verlaine, guitarist and singer of influential rock band Television, dies at 73
Tom Verlaine, a founding father of American punk and a fixture of the 1970s New York rock scene, died Saturday in Manhattan as the result of a brief illness. He was 73. His death was confirmed to NPR in a press release from Jesse Paris Smith, the daughter of Verlaine collaborator Patti Smith, who also once dated the artist. “I …
Jake Blount | Tiny Desk Concert
Jake Blount has an astonishing imagination. While a concert of folk tunes could simply be a singer and perhaps a fiddle or banjo, the young proponent of traditional music brought eight bandmates and told the NPR crowd that they were here to play “Black folk music from the future.” Most of the songs are from Jake Blount’s late-2022 release, The …
Fleetwood Mac singer-songwriter Christine McVie dies at 79
Updated November 30, 2022 at 3:58 PM ET NEW YORK — Christine McVie, the British-born Fleetwood Mac vocalist, songwriter and keyboard player whose cool, soulful contralto helped define such classics as “You Make Loving Fun,” “Everywhere” and “Don’t Stop,” died Wednesday at age 79. Her death was announced on the band’s social media accounts. No cause of death or other …
How The 1975’s Matty Healy Became the Bad Boy you Love to Roll your Eyes at
This piece contains language that some readers may find offensive. When Matty Healy told an interviewer recently that he’s obsessed with the duality of having a dick, was he joking? It’s hard to tell. A little context: In that conversation, as throughout The 1975’s new album, the singer was commenting on the curses and blessings of his gendered existence. The …
The gripping ‘Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues’ confronts the artist’s complexities
Louis Armstrong made his first transatlantic voyage in July of 1932, sailing from New York City to Plymouth, England, aboard the ocean liner RMS Majestic. This was a triumphant visit for Armstrong, whose bravura feats as a trumpeter and rugged ebullience as a singer had already made him a sensation on both sides of the pond. But while the British …
On ‘Blue Rev,’ Alvvays finds euphoria in noise
It takes just six seconds into the first song on its latest album for Alvvays to pull a new trick out of its sleeve. For a moment, “Pharmacist” feels like what it is: a long-awaited reunion with these Canadian noise pop purveyors on their small-town home turf, a few muted synth notes and a preset drum machine tick-tocking while Molly …
Katie Crutchfield and Jess Williamson Tell Their Truth Plainly
The duo embraces classic country sounds on 'I Walked With You A Ways'
At the heart of I Walked With You A Ways, the debut album from Plains, there’s a sense of freedom. It’s the freedom of driving fast down an enormous, dusty road: “tak[ing] the quickest route on this 4-lane highway,” but also “crying on the highway with my windows down.” It’s the kind of liberation that comes from finding your own …
Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ ‘Cool It Down’ is an Exhilarating Yet Unhurried Return
The audacity, to be an artist who waits nearly a decade to release a project — to sit out the conversation that long. The news cycles that whirr by, the social feeds left to rot on the vine. The refusal to chase the currency of constant, insistent relevance. It’s jarring nowadays. And when that artist is, say, a beloved rock …
Pharoah Sanders, Giant of Spirit-Driven Jazz, Dies at 81
Pharoah Sanders, the revered and influential tenor saxophonist who explored and extended the boundaries of his instrument, notably alongside John Coltrane in the 1960s, died on Saturday morning in Los Angeles. His death was announced in a post on social media by the record label Luaka Bop, which had released his celebrated 2021 album Promises and confirmed by a publicist …
How Charley Crockett Makes New Music Sound Old (and Old Music Sound Brand New)
Charley Crockett knows his story seems far-fetched. “People always tell me, ‘Man, you didn’t ride trains — that’s not possible, no one does that anymore,’” he says, sitting at his tour bus’s small table. Crockett is clearly frustrated – the fact that he’s traded train cars for tour buses and street corners for venerable stages that he shares with even …
Sudan Archives’ vibrant music of exploration
Sudan Archives’ music celebrates digging. With infectious curiosity, her oddball collages of hip-hop, electronic and globally sourced folk bridge worlds and tramp through them, encouraging you to forge your own routes as well. Across two EPs and an album, the self-taught violinist, producer, and songwriter has honed a distinct blend of layered vocals and instrumentation that both pleases the ear …
Local Spotlight | 4 Great New Tracks from Jax Artists Out Now
Bad Madonna, Bedford Cords, Jacob Hudson and a Kate Bush cover
We’re always keeping our ear to the ground in order to shine the high beams of our Local Spotlight series on Jacksonville regional artists. This week, Jacksonville Music Experience contributors share four new songs by local artists that we think you’ll dig. Let’s dive in. “Jaded” by Bad Madonna As artists attempt to crack the mysterious (arbitrary?) code of streaming-service …
Local Spotlight | 4 Great New Tracks by Jax Artists Out Now
Introducing The Jax, plus three more local tunes
We’re always keeping our ear to the ground in order to shine the high beams of our Local Spotlight series on Jacksonville regional artists. This week, Jacksonville Music Experience contributors share four new songs by local artists that we think you’ll dig. Let’s dive in. “The Seven” by The Jax What does one do when a Jacksonville super-group forms a …
On ‘No Rules Sandy,’ Sylvan Esso finds freedom outside the formula
Sylvan Esso‘s fourth album ends in a manner almost antithetical to the duo’s original musical impulses, putting the band’s early-days and present versions on opposite shores. As they’ve recounted, it all started when folk singer Amelia Meath — then best known as a member of the choral-forward group Mountain Man — conscripted electronic music producer Nick Sanborn to remix her …
Pigeon Pit | Tiny Desk Concert
A song by Pigeon Pit has gotten me through this year. Chugging a punk twang with the sun at its back, “milk crates” recognizes the relentless churn of life, but still seeks freedom from tyranny, exhaustion and the everyday nonsense that drags us down. The first time I heard the song performed live was at the band’s Tiny Desk sound …
Big Thief: Tiny Desk (Home) Concert
Popular indie band performs songs from its new album and an unreleased track
I love seeing friends playing comfortably at home, especially when those friends are members of my favorite band. What we see in this Tiny Desk (home) concert is playfulness substituting for the intensity that I normally find in Big Thief on a big stage. This band has made many of my best-loved albums in the past few years, beginning with …
MUNA’s New Album Features Growth and An ‘Astral Projection Anthem’
A new album by MUNA, out today, has it all: personal growth, influences from pop prophet Robyn and a song the band calls an “astral projection anthem.” Singer-songwriter Katie Gavin and bandmates Josette Maskin and Naomi McPherson met in college, and have been making music together for nearly a decade. But it hasn’t been easy lately – after releasing their …
Local Spotlight | 3 New Songs by Jax Artists Out Now
Dean Winter and The Heat, Mecca thA Marvelous and Pilar
We’re always keeping our ear to the ground in order to put the spotlight on the beautiful noise emerging from Northeast Florida. This week, Jacksonville Music Experience contributors share three new songs by local artists that we think you’ll dig. Let’s dive in. “3AM in Wynwood” by Mecca thA Marvelous Jax producer and rapper Mecca thA Marvelous’ “3AM in Wynwood” …
Like The Linda Lindas, this teen girl band in Benin makes you dance — and think
The first time that Star Feminine Band – a group of 7 girl musicians from the ages of 12 to 19 – played a show in their West African nation of Benin, many in the crowd broke out in both applause and tears. While the country has seen its share of successful female musicians – singer Angélique Kidjo, for example, …
Here’s What to Expect from The Independent 89.9 HD4, Our New Music Discovery Station
Today, WJCT Public Media and the Jacksonville Music Experience officially unveiled The Independent 89.9 HD4, our new music discovery radio station. Folks of a certain age may be wondering: What’s a radio station? Well, long before subscription music services (Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal) made available the entirety of recorded music for a flat monthly fee, radio stations provided the connective …
Local Spotlight | 3 new tracks by Jax artists out now
New music from L.O.V.E Culture and Ebony-Payne English feat. Ulysses Owens Jr, plus Jawberry’s debut
We’re always keeping our ear to the ground in order to put the spotlight on the beautiful noise emerging from Northeast Florida. This week, Jacksonville Music Experience contributors share three new songs by local artists that we think you’ll really dig. Let’s dive in. “Growth” by L.O.V.E. Culture Duval hip-hop ensemble L.O.V.E. Culture stay prolific with their latest, a single …
