Cultural Technology Transfer
When I first heard Park Hye Jin’s I Don’t Care, I was intrigued. I’d been listening distractedly on my new Bluetooth headphones as I performed household chores. I like sampling new music that way. Most...
View ArticleGrowing Old With Sonic Youth
When I saw that my favourite place in Tucson, The Loft Cinema, would be celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of Sonic Youth’s Daydream Nation, with the band’s drummer Steve Shelley, its archivist...
View ArticleBaring the Burden
The Weight, the latest album by Dutch duo Weval, is a surprising record. Although released on Kompakt, a label famous for interesting elaborations on the microhouse and minimal techno dance genres, it...
View ArticleNo Words Needed
MAGAM’s new album, Another, is a tour-de-force of eccentricity. The companion to the band’s 2017 debut, One, conceptually linked by a play written by a band member who goes by the mysterious name of...
View ArticleTrump-Era Agitprop
Even viewed from a distance, the underground scene in Boston and eastern Massachusetts in the late 1970s and early 1980s was one of the most vibrant in the country. The city and its environs produced...
View ArticleApocalypse Rock
I wrote somewhere, maybe here, that I always get nervous when I hear that Martyrdöd are about to release a record. I can still remember when I first heard their classic In Extremis (2005), a record...
View ArticleMore Info, Please
Like millions of people around the world, I follow troves of bands online and frequently purchase music from Bandcamp, mostly punk and hardcore records. I’ve also played in punk bands that sell records...
View ArticleOut of This World
Vancouver B.C.’s Alien Boys have put out a punk rock record that is pretty close to flawless. If you don’t want to read any further, feel free to head over to their Bandcamp page and see if I’m right....
View ArticleCall the Doctor
The expectations for Sleater-Kinney’s new album The Center Won’t Hold are remarkable. They released their first album in 1995, 24 years ago. Their first classic, Call the Doctor, came out in 1996. It...
View ArticleHearts and Vultures
Pop-punk often gets a bad rap, and for good reason. In wake of the ’90s punk explosion lead by platinum-selling bands like Green Day, The Offspring, and Rancid, ‘pop-punk’ became a household term as...
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