Sound Fix | Music

Music

1. 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, all contained i...read more
2. M.I.A.: Maya
Being the Western world's go-to future-pop artist must be stressful. M.I.A. responds to both that pressure as well as a world in perpetual crisis with Maya, a typically untamed collection of post-e...read more
3. Interpol: s/t
And they're back -- all four of them for the recording of their self-titled fourth album, although anyone with even a passing interest knows that famous-around-town bassist Carlos D. left Interpol ...read more
4. Suuns: Zeroes QC
These Suuns shine brightly but darkly. This Montreal quartet does that thing where they kinda sound like a different band on each track -- but, a different GOOD band. There is a signature sound on ...read more
5. Stereolab: Not Music
Despite the fact that Not Music is purportedly the leftover stuff from their last album sessions, the baker's-dozen tracks here range from that classic 'Lab sound -- creamy, groovy stuff like "Lele...read more
6. Smith Westerns: Dye It Blonde
The first big blog record of 2011 is here: Chicago's young (but growing up fast) Smith Westerns have finally delivered album number two, and it proves that this band will be relevant on the indie s...read more
7. Nicolas Jaar: Space Is Only Noise
Nicolas Jaar is a young electronic-music producer based in New York—so young, in fact, that he may not be able to get into the sort of clubs that would play his esoteric but sexy quasi-house tracks...read more
8. Moritz von Oswald Trio: Horizontal Structures
Moritz von Oswald -- you haven't heard of him? Well, perhaps not; von Oswald is a megastar of '90s German minimal techno, when identity was clouded or just plain neglected as a routine course of ac...read more
9. The Kills: Blood Pressures
The Kills are easy stars: They are in that rare and sweet place as a band where (album title aside) there must be few, if any, pressures to do this, that or the other thing. Hence Blood Pressures u...read more
10. The Feelies: Here Before
The proud sons and daughter of Haledon, NJ, reconvene 19 years after their last album to deliver a great record that makes it seem as if no time has passed for the Feelies. Here Before is not the b...read more
11. Brian Eno: Drums Between the Bells
Brian Eno is the sort of artist who can do anything he wants, and one of the very few who should be allowed to do anything he wants. His latest project has been years in the making, or at least in ...read more
12. Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoto: Summvs
They've done it before but not at this level of sophistication: two veterans, post-techno technician Alva Noto and pianist-composer (and Yellow Magic Orchestra cofounder) Ryuichi Sakamoto, explorin...read more
13. Colin Stetson: New History Warfare Vol 2: Judges
Around here we're kind of experts in the usage of saxophone in less than traditional environments. But few have developed the instrument's language as much as Colin Stetson, a frequent touring memb...read more
14. The Necks: Mindset
Here's one from the bottom of the deck, by which we mean Australia: The Necks are a more or less perpetually stunning trio of versatile inside/outside players, meaning they are as comfy with compos...read more
15. The Last Poets: This Is Madness
A legendary set featuring a group of extremely controversial street poets. The Last Poets used offensive language brilliantly, talked in graphic detail about America's social and racial failure...read more
16. Lee Morgan: City Lights
Benny Golson's writing for this date uplifts it beyond most of the jam session sets of the period. Trumpeter Lee Morgan (then 19) is in excellent form, holding his own with his impressive sidemen (...read more
17. Leonard Cohen: Old Ideas
Perhaps music's most commanding presence, Leonard Cohen drifts back into the foreground of our consciousness with his twelfth album, Old Ideas, and proves that not only is his magic undiminished, i...read more
18. Mark Lanegan Band: Blues Funeral
On his first album in eight years (save for collaborations with Isobel Campbell), Mark Lanegan shows that the more things stay the same, the more they change: Nothing ever written about this guy wo...read more
19. David Axelrod: Songs of Experience
After the modicum of success he'd experienced with his debut, Song of Innocence, set to William Blake's epic suite of poems, composer, arranger, and producer David Axelrod turned to the British ...read more
20. Grimes: Visions
Welcome to witch house, kids…whatever that means. Commonly used to describe the spooky, ethereal technopop of bands like Salem and Pictureplane, the term could apply just as well to Visions, the ne...read more
21. Andrew Bird: Break It Yourself
It's possible to think that they multitalented Andrew Bird could have played every song on Break It Yourself by himself -- he's done it in the past -- but at the risk of slighting what he can do on...read more