Glenn Donaldson Moves to the Front in the Reds, Pinks & Purples
Glenn Donaldson discusses his new album as the Reds, Pinks & Purples and how good pop can stop you cold in your parked car waiting for a song to finish.
Jennifer Kelly
The Devil Is in the Details: The Pepe Deluxé Interview
Pepe Deluxé make intricate songs with some of the world’s rarest instruments. James Spectrum says his band’s music is meant to be explored again and again.
Adrian Crowley: “I’m Fascinated with How the Songs Come to Me”
Adrian Crowley works in the shadowy overlap between songwriterly craft and dream narratives. On his ninth full-length, he evokes bright, surreal worlds in his folk-influenced songs.
Ambient Producer Joshua van Tassel Believes We Need More Beautiful Things
Joshua van Tassel plays a modern version of one of the earliest electronic instruments: the Ondes Martenot. He discusses the calm, beautiful album he's written for it, Dance Music Volume II: More Songs for Slow Motion.
Kristin Hersh Discusses Her Gutsy New Throwing Muses Album
Kristin Hersh thinks influences are a crutch, and chops are a barrier between artists and their truest expressions. We talk about life, music, the pandemic, dissociation, and the energy that courses not from her but through her when she's at her best.
Steve McDonald Remembers the Earliest Days of Redd Kross
Steve McDonald talks about the year that produced the first Redd Kross EP, an early eighth-grade graduation show with a then-unknown Black Flag, and a punk scene that welcomed and defined him.
There’s Never Enough Time for Folk Music’s James Elkington
The sometimes Wilco and Richard Thompson sideman, in-demand producer, and songwriter, James Elkington, muses on why it's taking longer than he expects to achieve more in a week than most of us get done in a lifetime.
Music Is All About Limitations: An Interview with Son Little
Son Little finds commonalities across jazz, hip-hop, soul, R&B, and rock. His latest album grew out of a setback, but he created a stronger, simpler, more ruminative set of songs. Here he talks about creativity and obstacles and how they work together.
Leaving Room: Ryley Walker and Charles Rumback on Collaboration and Listening
Little Common Twist, the latest improvisatory album from Ryley Walker and jazz drummer Charles Rumback, sounds like listening. The two musicians are locked in intuitive communion that confines neither guitar nor drums to their pigeonholes. We ask them how they do it and why.
Sonic Youth Founder Thurston Moore Asks Why a Song Can’t Be an Hour Long
Thurston Moore talks about the three instrumental pieces spanning nearly three hours that make up the Spirit Counsel box set, the people who inspired them, and the fact that he doesn't really consider himself a "guitar guy".
Ahead of the Curve: An Interview with Patrice Rushen
Jazz composer and R&B artist Patrice Rushen talks about how she fought for control of her music and her career in the late 1970s at Elektra -- and produced an extraordinary run of jazz-R&B-disco hybrid albums that the industry wasn't quite ready for.
Swiss Grooves: An Interview with L’Eclair
L'Eclair's third album effortlessly touches on funk, prog, dub, disco, ambient, and electronic genres, warming the chilled precision of Krautrock with danceable rhythms. Bass player Elie Ghersinu observes, "It just keeps on evolving every day, every month."