Daily Newsletter, May 6, 2024

CAMERA OBSCURA LOOK TO THE EAST, LOOK TO THE WEST MERGE RECORDS Camera Obscura is back after a hiatus of quite a few years and you might not say that they are back with a vengeance, but you may with the usual melodic detail and sophistication, some great lyrics and everything that goes along with […]

JESSICA PRATT HERE IN THE PITCH MEXICAN SUMMER Those familiar with Jessica Pratt  might be mainly accustomed to her excellent songwriting usually based on her no less incredible vocals and acoustic guitar. Her songwriting was always that good that it could be se in any musical setting or genre and show Pratt’s full potential. In […]

Do cult albums always coincide with cult musicians? Often, that depends on how you define things, but, cult albums, the ones that get a staunch following (invol

BIRDFEEDER WOODSTOCK SOUL SELECTS You don’t get any socials for seemingly anonymous Birdfeeder. Frankly, you don’t really need them as this is a sort of a left-field supergroup playing some laid-back (well, not all the time), brilliant stuff recorded in the cabin you see on the cover, located, as the album title says in Woodstock. […]

JED AND THE VALENTINE AWAKE! INDEPENDENT It is time for Edmonton, AB duo Jed and the Valentine (Jonah Morris and Maria Khaner) to reach a much-deserved wider audience with their debut album Awake! Not that both didn’t have previous experience as solo singer-songwriters before they started working together for some two years now. Yet whatever […]

In our examination of rock bands whose careers ended too soon, we have worked our way all the back to the 1960s.

In the classic rock era, some of the greatest artists expanded the limits of what was being released on vinyl. We look back at some of the best 3-LP sets

On Jefferson Airplane's 1967 sophomore album, 'Surrealistic Pillow,' the psych-band etched their legacy in stone.

Every new Taylor Swift album, since, at least, 'folklore,' has been dissected with the tiniest microscope by two kinds of people: the ones who have the capacity to critique without an agenda, and everyone else. On 'The Tortured Poets Department,' the most prolific pop star of the modern era shuts out the noise and, with a collection of 31 songs that range from outstanding to derivative to recycled to competent, continues to do what she does best: tell stories.

When choosing her all-time favourite songs, Laurie Anderson, the artist and wife of the late Lou Reed, included a pertinent classic by Mose Allison.

On the May 3 episode of New Music Friday, NPR Music's Hazel Cills and WRTI's Nate Chinen discuss the week's essential new albums, including Radical Optimism, from the dance-pop superstar Dua Lipa. The songs on Radical Optimism are mostly in the vein of Dua Lipa's earlier work, but that itself might be reason to keep a militantly sunny attitude: A parade of hits from her last album, Future Nostalgia, proved to have incredible staying power — "Levitating" hung around in the top 10 of Billboard's Hot 100 chart for nearly a year — and she contributed to last year's cultural juggernaut Barbie with "Dance the Night." Still, Hazel and Nate say the new album offers hints of a few surprising artistic developments in her sound.Radical Optimism isn't the only album out this week that demands attention. New records by the inimitable folk songwriter Jessica Pratt and the always ambitious jazz maestro and saxophonist Kamasi Washington focus their own sounds in new and highly rewarding ways. Featured Albums:• Dua Lipa, 'Radical Optimism'• Jessica Pratt, 'Here in the Pitch'• Kamasi Washington, 'Fearless Movement'Other notable albums out May 3:• Willow, 'empathogen'• Mdou Moctar, 'Funeral for Justice'• Steph Richards, 'Power Vibe'• Charlotte Day Wilson, 'Cyan Blue'• Luke Stewart's Silt Trio, 'Unknown Rivers'• 4batz, 'u made me a st4r'