experimental pop

Julia Holter Goes Underwater to Find Room to Move

Julia Holter Goes Underwater to Find Room to Move

Julia Holter drips her semi-conscious thoughts on the musical canvas to access her artistic sensibility, but she seems a bit unsure of the process.

‘Fire Escape’ Is Alena Spanger’s Thorny, Soaring Solo Debut

‘Fire Escape’ Is Alena Spanger’s Thorny, Soaring Solo Debut

Alena Spanger’s music is full of odd twists and unconventional choices, but that’s what makes Fire Escape so enjoyable and undeniably beautiful.

Helado Negro Enables Paths to Grow on ‘Phasor’

Helado Negro Enables Paths to Grow on ‘Phasor’

There is an openness to Helado Negro’s world. His new album Phasor is a dream(y) wake-up call you want to snooze your way back into.

Vanishing Twin Balance Grooves, Ambience, and Psychedelia

Vanishing Twin Balance Grooves, Ambience, and Psychedelia

Vanishing Twin’s Afternoon X is a worthwhile musical journey through a wealth of different ambient, psychedelic, and groove-based sounds.

Animal Collective Do What They Do on ‘Isn’t It Now?’

Animal Collective Do What They Do on ‘Isn’t It Now?’

Animal Collective’s Isn’t It Now? suggests both urgency and passivity, displaying some of their best attributes but also their self-circumscribed limits.

JOBS Return with the Tense and Multilayered ‘Soft Sounds’

JOBS Return with the Tense and Multilayered ‘Soft Sounds’

With Soft Sounds, Brooklyn quartet JOBS continue to guide us out of predictability and into previously unknown musical avenues, lush with possibilities.

Colleen Delivers Micro-Focused Version of Her Sound Sculptures

Colleen Delivers Micro-Focused Version of Her Sound Sculptures

Le Jour et la Nuit du Ré​el is a departure for Colleen and a natural progression. She delivers a micro-focused version of her sound sculptures.

Panda Bear and Sonic Boom Re-interpret ‘Reset’ with ‘Reset in Dub’

Panda Bear and Sonic Boom Re-interpret ‘Reset’ with ‘Reset in Dub’

Reset in Dub marks another attempt by Panda Bear and Sonic Boom to arrive at a new alchemy between past and present musical traditions.

Ben Gunning Creates Gorgeous Electropop From Another Planet

Ben Gunning Creates Gorgeous Electropop From Another Planet

Prolific, Toronto musician Ben Gunning makes weird but oddly pleasant experimental music on an album that’s a “solo” work in every sense of the word.

Youth Lagoon Uncovers the Numinous on ‘Heaven Is a Junkyard’

Youth Lagoon Uncovers the Numinous on ‘Heaven Is a Junkyard’

Youth Lagoon reaches a new level of accomplishment with Heaven Is a Junkyard. The downbeat topics underscore a fallen world but also one that can be redeemed.

Water From Your Eyes Glance at Stardom with ‘Everyone’s Crushed’

Water From Your Eyes Glance at Stardom with ‘Everyone’s Crushed’

Water From Your Eyes traffic between experimental music of the krautrock period of the late 1960s and early 1970s and today’s feminine pop sensibility.

Joe Meek and the Blue Men See the Future on Essential Outtake Compilation

Joe Meek and the Blue Men See the Future on Essential Outtake Compilation

Joe Meek and the Blue Men’s I Hear a New World Sessions delves into Meek’s famed archive and delivers on the promise of an “Alternative Outer Space Fantasy”.

Publish with PopMatters

Call for Papers: All Things Reconsidered [MUSIC] May-August 2024

PopMatters Seeks Book Critics and Essayists

Call for Papers: All Things Reconsidered – FILM Winter 2023-24

Submit an Essay, Review, Interview, or List to PopMatters

PopMatters Seeks Music Writers