Pick of the Week:

Joanna Newsom: Have One on Me

After 2006’s astonishing concept album Ys, there was some question of how Joanna Newsom could ever gracefully follow it up. But the girl is nothing if not fearless, and rather than easing meekly back into standard folk releases, she’s offered up this 18-song triple album (!) of lushly arranged, suitably protracted new songs. The material her...read more

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  Shearwater: Golden Archipelago

  Is it as good as 2008’s Rook? Don’t be greedy – albums as good as Rook just don’t come along that often. But it’s a tad better than Palo Santo, the first Jo...read more

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  v/a: Stroke: Songs for Chris Knox

  Absolute highest recommendation possible on this one, folks. It’s impossible to fully capture what Chris Knox means to the music and arts scene in New Zealand — a ‘...read more

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  Jack Rose: Luck in the Valley

  This is our last earthly transmission from Jack Rose, a master of the guitar who’d been granted access to the instrument’s ancient book of secrets, only to be taken from ...read more

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  Amanaz: Africa

  To quote Donnell Rawlings from The Chappelle Show: “AFRICA Africa?!” Yes friends, the continent that begat a whole lot of everything also had some pretty happening rock b...read more

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  Shout Out Louds: Work

  Sweden’s Shout Out Louds may never change — like, ever; I mean, when you look up “indie rock” in the dictionary, there’s a picture of their Chuck Taylor...read more

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  Eluvium: Similes

  Matthew Cooper‘s musical adventures as Eluvium (a geological term) have always differed slightly from album to album, but who ever thought that on the first Eluvium full-length...read more

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  Tindersticks: Falling Down a Mountain

  Tindersticks’ eighth album in their 17-year existence opens with its title track, a fantastically cool, horns snare-rim and echo number, six and a half minutes of spirit jazz r...read more

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  Phantogram: Eyelid Movies

  Keyboardist Sarah Barthel and guitarist Joshua Carter of Phantogram (formerly called Charlie Everywhere) may live in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., but they’ve got none of the Americana t...read more

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  Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra: Kollaps Tradixionales

  This ever-changing Montreal collective hits all its avant-maximal-rock high points on album No. 6, the threateningly titled (and vaguely Neubauten-sounding) Kollaps Tradixionales. Si...read more

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  Electric President: The Violent Blue

  Even though they’ve had two songs featured on the OC, it isn’t easy to find out a lot about Jacksonville duo Electric President. Not that they’re reclusive or anything, it just...read more

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  Field Music: Measure

  Brothers David and Peter Brewis have expended some effort tweaking the definition of “indie band” since forming Field Music in 2004 — they announced they’d st...read more

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  Malachai: The Ugly Side of Love

  Bristol, UK, duo Malachai can lean into a stomp and crunch to match the heaviest psych-era blues, but they aren’t content to just layer it on like some old throwback act. Rather, t...read more

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  Toro y Moi: Causers of This

  Call ‘em “Glo-Fi,” or “Chillwave,” or what-have-you, but there’s no question that wistful young whippersnappers with laptops are taking over the dance...read more

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  A Broken Consort: Crow Autumn

  Richard Skelton‘s second album for Tompkins Square under his A Broken Consort guise (and he does have several) is a masterwork of psychogeography. Skelton, who lives in County ...read more

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  Gigi: Maintenant

  Gigi, it bears explaining, is a large collective of musicians and singers (including Owen Pallett, Mirah, Bobby Birdman and Karl Blau, most notably) who found their way into Vancouve...read more

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  The Seven Fields of Aphelion: Periphery

  If the oddly named solo artist The Seven Fields of Aphelion sounds more familiar than it should, it’s because she’s (isn’t it obvious that that’s a lady’...read more

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  Moon Duo: Escape

  Lots of psych-rock heads really flipped for Wooden Shjips, but I always felt there was something a little lacking there. Moon Duo, who include at least one Wooden Shjip, dig a bit de...read more

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  Pantha Du Prince: Black Noise

  The slyly named Pantha Du Prince is German techno producer Hendrick Weber, who in his eight or so years of action (mostly confined to the Eurocentric electronic-music world) has drop...read more

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  Gil Scott-Heron: I'm New Here

  Well, this is rather unexpected. And while it may not be televised, Gil Scott-Heron‘s powerful new album — his first in more than a decade, and after just as long a perio...read more

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  Massive Attack: Heligoland

  How nice to have Massive Attack back after seven years, which was bad, and 100th Window, which was worse. The pioneering trip-hop outfit put out the groundbreaking, genre-defining Me...read more

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  Yeasayer: Odd Blood

  Yeasayer is the rare band these days that can take more than two years to follow-up a much-loved debut and find their fans waiting and hungry (as opposed to finding them moved on to ...read more

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  Lightspeed Champion: Life Is Sweet! Nice to Meet You.

  Devonté Hynes, who is Lightspeed Champion, is only on album No. 2, but he’s already proved himself to be the sort of hyper-active artist who’ll never be confined by genr...read more

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  The Soft Pack: s/t

  What a rush! Completely aware that there just ain’t no reinventing left to do for some wheels, the Soft Pack — who you may have known as the Muslims in a past life —...read more

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  v/a: Casual Victim Pile

  For anyone wondering why NYC-based Matador Records is doing a sprawling compilation of local talent from Austin, Texas, label co-president Gerard Cosloy has made his home there for s...read more

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  Midlake: The Courage of Others

  Seventies revivalism is nothing new, but last time out Midlake struck the motherlode with The Trials of Van Occupanther by reviving the moody dark side of soft rock while banishing a...read more

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  v/a: The Minimal Wave Tapes Volume One

  Splanking drum-machine beats, straight-out-of-the-box synthesizer timbres, the occasional disco move, minimal structures and production – the Minimal Wave genre is early-’80s...read more

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  Beach House: Teen Dream

  Despite the title, Teen Dream finds Baltimore duo Beach House crafting a more mature brand of its signature dream pop, resulting in a breezy yet affecting batch of championship-calib...read more

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  v/a: Pop Ambient 2010

  In a long-running, much-lauded series like Pop Ambient, there’s really only one thing you can do to keep things fresh on a new installment: Line up your best ambient travelers ...read more

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  Charlotte Gainsbourg: IRM

  Ah, la belle Charlotte. Given everything we know about her — the impeccable pedigree, the great films, the outright personification of roughly 50 years of cool French culture, ...read more

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  Magnetic Fields: Realism

  This is the concluding volume in the band’s “no synth” trilogy, and mostly (there is electric guitar on one track, “The Dada Polka”) harks back to the acoustic form...read more

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  Clipd Beaks: To Realize

  Clipd Beaks first caught my eye, to be honest, with their font — a prehistoric, angular scrawl that recalled (kind of exactly) that of the earliest, shadowiest Dead Can Dance r...read more

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  Four Tet: There Is Love In You

  Kieran Hebden’s been so busy with mixes and his many collaborations with Steve Reid that it’s been five years since we last got a long-player from Four Tet. It’s front-loaded w...read more

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  AFCGT: s/t

  This confounding acronym means that the dark forces behind this imposing vinyl-only release are two of Seattle’s best rock-related acts, the crushing geometrists of A-Frames an...read more

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  Retribution Gospel Choir: 2

  Even though Low has allowed volume and heft onto its records, it’s with Retribution Gospel Choir that singer-guitarist Alan Sparhawk really opens up and rocks. For this band...read more

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  Los Campesinos!: Romance Is Boring

  Album number three from this Wales-based septet (on the Canadian label known for its many large bands) delivers exactly what fans — and there are many — want: 15 songs of...read more

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  Citay: Dream Get Together

  There is no other band I can think of in all of indie rock – indeed all of rock and roll – quite like Citay. First, their sound: beautiful harmonies, a ferocious twin-gui...read more

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  Mellodrama: The Mellotron Movie

  Ah, the Mellotron. Few instruments in recent history have inspired such passionate feelings. To its detractors, it represents the bloated excesses of the worst of prog rock, while it...read more

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  v/a: Good God! Born Again Funk

  Numero’s third compilation in its Good God series rounds up obscure gospel 45s from the ’70s, mostly from Chicago. Don’t take “funk” in the title too seriously, because...read more

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  Major Stars: Return to Form

  Good news for fans of the rock! There’s a new Major Stars record. Return to Form — a comical title unless read as a directive — is the Boston-area band’s eigh...read more

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  Fucked Up: Couple Tracks

  Fucked Up fans who’ve been there since the beginning: Will you be our friend? And, oh yeah, you know those piles of singles the band’s been releasing since the early side...read more

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  Cold War Kids: Behave Yourself EP

  The SoCal indie stars Cold War Kids check in with four new songs (plus one short and goofy “hidden” jam) of the sort of sweetly melodic tunes that have kept them on the t...read more

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  Surfer Blood: Astro Coast

  The latest blog-rock band to be served up to you, the soon-to-be-adoring indie-public, is deserving of the attention: Astro Coast, the debut full-length from South Floridians Surfer ...read more

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  Vampire Weekend: Contra

  Fans of Vampire Weekend’s debut will find a lot to like in their sophomore effort—the same clipped and catchy melodies, WASP-Life subject matter and African influences (though he...read more

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  RJD2: The Colossus

  Before scoring the Mad Men theme, RJD2 rose to fame in Columbus, Ohio, in the late-‘90s making beats for local hip-hop artists. Since then, through several albums on Definitive...read more

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  Owen Pallett: Heartland

  Don’t be confused — what was until very recently Owen Pallett’s solo project Final Fantasy is now and forevermore just…Owen Pallett. What hasn’t changed...read more

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  Ninca Leece: There Is No One Else When I Lay Down and Dream

  French by birth and Berliner by residence, Ninca Leece has a sound that’ll be familiar to anyone who’s followed her adopted city’s electronic-pop scene this decade:...read more

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  William Basinski: Vivian & Ondine

  Veteran producer of deep-ambient electronic music William Basinski turns out another gorgeous, enveloping piece. Vivian & Ondine, named for two baby girls born into his family on...read more

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  Irmin Schmidt: Kamasutra

  The long-overdue reissue treatment finally comes to this drop-dead classic soundtrack, composed and performed by Irmin Schmidt and The Inner Space (which, less than a year later, wou...read more

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  Blockhead: The Music Scene

  Instrumental hip-hop record: Why does the notion seem tired and played-out? It’s probably a result of our (okay, my) laziness and the massive over-everythingedness of the music...read more

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  William Nowik: Pan Symphony in E Minor

  This is a 14-movement suite (not a symphony), a wonderful bit of eccentricity from a very multi-talented guy. Nowik is heard on guitars (acoustic, electric, and electric 12-string, H...read more