RiYL

Few albums warrant their own YouTube explainer direct from the band. It's not exactly necessary for Deck -- particularly in the wake of compilations produced from the project's 54 songs -- but it's part of the fun. The entire four-album set is a testament to Hallelujah the Hill's ability to keep things fresh 20 years on from their debut. The Boston band is producing some of the best work of its career and enjoying every minute of it.

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It takes light 4.2 years from Proxima Centauri, the nearest non-sun star, to reach Earth. It took the songs of 2025’s Stargazer EP nearly five times that to see the light of day.

That’s nothing in cosmic terms, of course. But as musicians go, the 20+ years that have elapsed since the songs were written in preparation for KT Tunstall’s debut, Eye to the Telescope, amounts to several lifetimes. The Edinburgh-born singer-songwriter has showcased remarkable staying power, navigating the landmines of life, health, and the music business. At 50, Tunstall resides in the American Southwest and radiates the content...

It takes a unique talent to find one's work thumbtacked above desks at libraries across the world. But Tom Gauld wasn't content to simply rest on the literary laurels that come with his frequently shared Guardian strips. The Scottish cartoonist has carved out yet another uniquely wide niche for himself in the pages of New Scientist. Gauld's latest collection, Physics for Cats, showcases why is work is just as comfortably at home among the laboratory set as the literati.

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How often do we truly afford ourselves a fresh start? Sean Mason went all after his first record.

The Southern Suite put the pianist on the map, there was a disconnect. Mason left New York, stopped drinking, and cut off most communication with the outside world.

A Breath of Fresh Air is, as the name suggests, a portrait of where the celebrated Grammy nominee lives now.

It’s clear in speaking with him, however, that the journey of self-discovery will prove a lifelong pursuit.

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At 17, Michael Hampton blasted off from Earth in the Mothership. More than half a century later, the Funkadelic guitarist has never looked back.

He does, however, make the occasional pitstop home for interviews, chatting poolside in between shows during a Southern California stint.

Hampton’s latest EP, Into the Public Domain, does what it says on the box. The blistering guitar instrumentals now belong to the world.

They can be accessed by way of physical trading cards acquired at one of the guitarist’s live shows. Even royalty-free musicians need a way to feed...

Happiness wasn’t too far from home. After stints in larger cities, following more traditional music routes, Morgxn settled just outside of Nashville – it doesn’t hurt, of course, when home is Music City USA. When not on tour or in the in the studio, you can generally find him at Fruity Farm, a plot of land he and his husband share.

The joy is contagious, and something the songwriter is happy to spread, along with whatever produce made it through the growing season. It’s a message of inclusion, regardless of gender, orientation, or any of the othe...

A few months after celebrating the 30th anniversary of his debut, Ledbetter Heights, Kenny Wayne Shepherd returns to the show to reflect on three decades in music. Upon release, much of the album's coverage focused on the fact that the guitarist was still in his teens. Writing or co-writing every track on the album, Shepherd was quick to silence critics looking to write him off as a novelty. All these years later, the musician still has a deep connection to those tracks, having recently re-recorded the album in full, ahead of a 2026 tour in its honor.

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A brute force approach helped Drew Stroik land a record deal. The unknown musician sent demo after demo to his favorite musicians, until one -- Andy Chase – responded positively. Chase pulled in frequent collaborator (and current Ivy bandmate) Bruce Driscoll to produce an album full of Stroik’s off-kilter bedroom pop. 65th and York finally saw the light of day last month – 15 years after its initial recording and three years after the musician’s life was tragically cut short. Driscoll and Chase join us to discuss the album’s creation, the intervening decade and a half, and why you can finally he...

They didn’t go into the forest to create a record. One evening of music and words surrounded by nature was plenty enough reason to gather.

Still, Saul Williams meets Carlos Niño & Friends at TreePeople emerged, as the first official document of the two long-time friends collaborating.

More than 30 years into his career, Williams doesn’t have anything in particular to prove. The mid-90s saw him quickly rise the ranks of New York’s slam poetry community, and he’s since proved himself as a musician, book author, science fiction writer, actor, and more.

On 2022's I Don’t Know My Words, Anand Wilder embraced DIY in a different way, performing each song entirely by himself. Three years after Yeasayer's non-amicable split, the musician clearly had something to prove. Three years later, however, collaboration is back on the table with Psychic Lessons, a celebration of music making, genre, and just about anything else that popped into Wilder's head.

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Nothing throughout the Descendents' long history can be taken for granted, started with I Don't Want to Grow Up. The band's second record, which celebrated its 40th anniversary this May, arrived after a two-year hiatus, which found singer Milo Aukerman at college (as the debut album helpfully noted) and drummer Bill Stevenson joining Black Flag. Certainly no one could anticipate, in spite of a few recent health scares, that the pioneering punk would be around to celebrate the album's reissue. Aukerman and Stevenson join us to to discuss the group's legacy and what keeps them running after all these years.<...

Bursting with the vitality of NYC's outer-boroughs, Laveda returned in September with Love, Darla. The Brooklyn by way of Albany harkens back to the heyday of noisy indie, while forging its own playful path.

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A radical departure in a music career defined by them, Jamie Lidell's first full length in nearly a decade finds the artist exploring a new instrument, genre, tones, and collaborators. Born of the pandemic, Places of Unknowing is a work of ambient neoclassical piano music with no clear common sonic connections to the electronic-turned-soul musician's earlier work, beyond pervasive and deep emotional resonance.

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Debi Derryberry's fifth album, Go to Sleep, combines longstanding loves of music making and animation into a single YouTube project, pulling together nine tracks aimed at lulling kids to bed. The work is a labor of love for a voice actress with somewhere in the neighborhood of 400 IMDB credits to her name. Along with playing the title character in the long running Jimmy Neutron franchise, the actress has voiced iconic roles ranging from the Toy Story aliens to the animated Wednesday Addams. We also dig into some fascinating early work with Jim Varney and a roller skating seal on the...

Note: The interview was cut short and kind of sputters out at the end for weather related reasons I won’t go into here. We’ll have to get the band back on for a followup.

Periscope at Midnight finds doubleVee plumbing familiar depths, as Barbara and Allan Vest revisit the latter’s previous band, The Starlight Mints, to put a spin on a pair of old tracks. Notes of the earlier baroque indie-pop act can be heard throughout, but the duo has forged its own oblique path to the genre after more than a decade of pla...

Earlier songs were political, but never as overtly so. There isn’t much value left to wring from subtlety these days.

Battlewear is, fittingly, angry. It’s the product of navigating an unpredictable – and increasingly bleak – landscape. An hour before we hop on the call, a right wing reactionary is murdered in broad daylight.

Kadhja Bonet believes in the power of art and community. And while they’ve never been particularly fond of performing live, busking holds a certain appeal, in its immediate and unfiltered connection between artist and audience.

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Ahead of their upcoming Image series, Death to Pachuco, artist Rachel Merrill and author Henry Barajas discuss the process of bringing the historical fiction to life. Set against the backdrop of the Sleepy Lagoon Case and Zoot Suit Riots, the book explores themes of racial tension through a lens of hard boiled detective fiction. The pair also talk about picking up the mantle for long running newspaper strip, Gil Thorp.

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SunYears felt like starting over, in a very real sense. Peter Bjorn and John were on the backburner, and Peter Morén earlier solo work was decidedly more self-selecting, with Swedish lyrics touching on more experimental soundscapes. There was also a global pandemic to contend with. The Song Forlorn finds Moren happily reembracing his love of pop rock songwriting, with help from stalwarts like Ron Sexsmith, Jess Williamson and Eric D. Johnson

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Celebrating its 40th birthday exactly one month ago, Rum Sodomy & the Lash requires no introduction. As epilogues go, however, one could do far worse than the alternately raucous and sublime tour pieced together by surviving members, Spider Stacy, Jem Finer, and James Fearnley. Stacy joins us to discuss the anniversary, the recent loss of frontman, Shane MacGowan, and his own fascinating musical history.

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He may have had something to prove early on, leaving the relative comfort of a rocket ship success like Nine Inch Nails, but it didn’t take Richard Patrick long. Filter’s first album went platinum on the strength of its first single, and the band was off to the proverbial races. Its follow up was slow to surface, courtesy of inner turmoil, but it eventually emerged five years later, with an even bigger hit, putting some of Patrick’s own personal demons on display. Thirty years after Filter’s debut, Patrick has mellowed considerably – partially out of necessity for a family m...

Thirty-three years, 10+ members, and a dozen albums later, Comet Gain hasn’t lost its step. Released in June, Letters to Ordinary Outsiders maintains the magic, once again. The group’s work is perpetually tied to the pop sensibilities of David Christian (née Feck), who joins us on a questionable WiFi connection from rural France.

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Jenni Rose announced herself in style, with a Rolling Stone interview, back in April. The article dropped a few months The Vandoliers’ fifth album, Life Behind Bars.

With a record full of deeply personal songs dealing with – among other topics – her transition – she chose the celebrated music magazine to help tell her story.

It’s a courageous move in an age when simply being yourself can be a defiant act, let alone the singer in a Dallas-based alt-country band.

It helps, of course, when long-time band members like trumpeter Cory Graves have your back along...

In the end, New Radiations could only be a multimedia affair. Marissa Nadler seems to have her hands in nearly every medium these days, from music, to filmmaking, painting, photography, and even stop-motion. The Nashville-based artist seems to have her hand in every aspect of the process, from songwriting to production. The resulting 11 tracks comprise what may well be her most honest and personal work to date.

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What began as a poetry cycle quickly evolved into a dozen of Ketch Secor’s most personal songs. Story the Crow Told Me makes little effort to mask its autobiography, with stories of hitch hiking, busking, charting the earliest days of Old Crow Medicine Show. The singer joins us to reflect on the songs about the moments that made him.  

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There’s prolific and then there’s the Vitamin String Quartet. In its roughly quarter-century of existence, the outfit has produced more than 400 albums. It helps, of course, that VSQ is more concept than band – a stable of musicians that rotate between tours and records. With a focus on classical covers of pop hits -- including recent tributes to Frank Ocean and BTS -- the group has become a kind of institution unto itself.

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Sixteen years is a long time between solo albums, but Ben Nichols’ role fronting Lucero has kept him plenty busy. In that time, the Memphis-based punk-country band has released a half-dozen albums, three live records, and a pair of EPs. In the Heart of the Mountain finds the musician delving into the deeply personal, expanding his approach to songwriting and releasing what he calls, “the closest I’ve come to making an album completely on my own terms,”

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Books, World War I pigeons, queer dating, bygone New York City haunts – Checked Out has a bit of something for everyone. Katie Fricas’ first book is a kind of, sort of memoir about a young cartoonist navigating her way through life in the big city. It’s a delightful and delightfully idiosyncratic take on lengths we go to make our art.

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Siouxie And The Banshees, The Psychedelic Furs, R.E.M., Cyndi Lauper -- Knox Chandler's resume reads like a who's who of late-20th century pop music. These days, however, the Kentucky-born musician is taking a decidedly more experimental and meditative approach to music making. His latest, The Sound, build on Chandler's unique "sound ribbon" approach to song construction.

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There are two distinct phases during the writing of Hue Mirror: before and after. Course’s third album is a product of pain, uncertainty and eventual diagnosis. The latter arrived in the form of ankylosing spondylitis, an autoimmune disease resulting in body-wide inflammation. Despite the initial uncertainty, however, Jess Robbins never shies away from the truth.

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Holy Lacrimony is a book about turning sadness into art. Also aliens, interpretive dancing and – in an unexpected way – the Scream franchise. Each component has a special meaning to Michael DeForge, not the least of which is Ghostface, the iconic antagonist from the latter. Released by Drawn & Quarterly in March, the book is surreal, funny – and much like DeForge’s art – more complex than it appears at first glance.

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In the bifurcated world of comics, Paul Pope has never pledge allegiance to the superheroes of indies. The New York-based cartoonist’s move between storylines and mediums is every bit as fluid as his immediately recognizable linework. On June 19th, Manhattan’s Philippe Labaune Gallery will do its best to encapsulate that career, with a retrospective on Pope’s decades-long body of work, ranging from the John Spencer Blue Explosion to Batman.

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Time has a way of getting away from you. You tour with a couple of legendary indie bands (Stars, Broken Social Scene), start a family, and next thing you know, it’s been 15 years since your last solo record. I Went To Find You finds Amy Millian collaborating with new musical soul mate, Jay McCarrol. The work brought the singer back to some of her earliest musical memories of singing with her dad at bedtime. The resulting LP is a meditation on loss and celebration of the future

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Well into his fourth decade as a professional musician, David J Haskins refers to The Mother Tree as, "my most personal work yet.” With such an expansive catalog, including the works discographies of Bauhaus and Love & Rockets, it's quite a claim. It is, however, a difficult one to refute, given its subject matter. A tribute to his late mother, the five-track album is centered on Haskins' poetry, set to a musical backdrop. Fittingly, it finds Haskins adding his surname, after a career of simply being "David J."

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In 2017, Save Ferris released the Checkered Past EP , the band’s first collection of new music in nearly two decades. Plenty had changed over the years, resulting in frontwoman, Monique Powell, retaining sole rights to the Orange Country ska band’s name. The revived Save Ferris has continued to release new music and tour under Powell’s leadership. The musician joined us to discuss 30 years in the music business.  

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The worst thing about discovering Swamp Dogg is kicking yourself for not having done so sooner. The good news is that you’re about to have your mind blown by an 82-year-old soul musician currently experiencing his third – or maybe fourth – career renaissance. This latest round kicked off with 2018’s Love, Loss, and Auto-Tune. Since then, the singer has released another three albums and served as the subject of a new documentary. Swamp Dogg Gets His Pool Painted a portrait of an immensely talented songwriter and an effortlessly funny raconteur holding court at his long time L.A. home.

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Gumshoe is a record about connections in a world where being alone is increasingly becoming the default. It’s the latest from Oklahoma-based singer songwriter, Samantha Crain. For 15 years, the Choctaw musician has shared stages with some of indie music’s biggest names. More recently, she’s found herself scoring films, including 2023’s Fancy Dance, starring Lily Gladstone. But first we obviously have to discuss her childhood championship power lifting career.

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With Ginseng Roots, Craig Thompson returns to his childhood -- subject matter that already proved a rich vein for his beloved 2003 book, Blankets. While his latest once again explores the family dynamics of a religious upbringing, the work casts a much wider net. His family's economic dependence on ginseng is a starting point for exploring the root, which has been a staple of Chinese and Korean medicine for centuries.

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About 40 minutes into the conversation, Nickelodeon calls. They need her in the studio post haste. It’s a fitting spot to end things for an artist as in demand as Grey Delisle. While she’s known as voice artist with hundreds of credits – including The Simpsons and Scooby-Doo – we’re here for something else altogether. Delisle also has a vintage country singing voice that would have earned her a permanent spot at the Grand Ole Opry in another life.  

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When Willie Nelson suggests you record an album of his songs, you do it. Amy Irving and the country legend met on the set of 1980’s Honeysuckle Rose and remained close ever since. Irving features on the album’s soundtrack, despite a latter turn as Jessica Rabbit’s singing voice, a music career was never on her radar. Her solo debut, Born In a Trunk,, arrived 43 years after her musical debut, laying to rest any doubt that the Carrie star was simply acting as a singer. As she’s opted to slow down on the acting front, Irving is experiencing a succes...

Abyss is a dark, heavy album for a dark, heavy time. A journalist in a former life, Anika never shies away from the bleakness. The Berlin-based singer made a point of recording her third solo record with minimal overdubs, in a bid to capture the immediacy these the songs require.

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At age 11, his fate was sealed when Benmont Tench met Tom Petty at a Gainesville music store. Fueled by the recent British invasion, the pair made music together for the first time at The Sundowners. A decade later, Petty recruited the keyboardist for Mudcrutch, the Southern rock band that soon evolved into the Heartbreakers. For the past six decades, Tench has never strayed far from that path, playing keys on records by Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, and U2. This March saw the release of Tench’s second solo album, The Melancholy Season.

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Vladimir Nabokov's 1951 memoir, Speak, Memory, opens with a quote describing life as the content between two dark eternities -- the before and the after. Though teaming with potential existential dread, the quote is a hopeful one for Luke Lalonde. The sentiment inspired "Mean Time," the first single from Born Ruffians' forthcoming LP, Beauty's Pride. It's a celebration of the moments that happen between the voids, a hopeful outlook the singer attributes to the recent birth of his son.

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Polar is as much an exercise in world building as it is a classical album. Icelandic pianist Gabríel Ólafs describes a lifelong desire to score films. In the meantime, he’s making his own. The new record combines worlds defined by his compositions, narrated by work from science-fiction author, Rebecca Roanhorse. It’s fascinating latest chapter from one of the most exciting new voices in classical.

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Since its debut at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival, Paying For It has garnered rave reviews from critics, drawing comparisons to fellow comic adaptation, Ghost World. Based on Chester Brown’s beloved 2011 work of the same name, the film centers around Brown and a fictionalized version of Sook-Yin Lee, the director who also happens to be his real life ex. Brown joins us to discuss the memoir, drawn from his own experiences with sex workers. We also discuss 2016’s Mary Wept Over the Feet of Jesus and the recent loss of his longtime friend, cartoonist Joe Matt.  

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One thing you should know about Lloyd Kaufman is that he isn’t dead. The introduction to Mathew Klickstein’s new interview collection is very adamant about this. The Troma founder was certainly well enough to engage in an hour-long conversation about the early days of indie filmmaking, Michael Bay and making transgressive art amid a second Trump administration. Besides, at very least, the man needs to make to the end of August to see the Toxic Avenger’s triumphant return to the big screen.

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At 17, Duke Amayo moved from Nigeria to U.S. for a football scholarship at Howard University. Despite his study, a career in medical illustration wasn’t in the cards. After making his way to Brooklyn, he landed a role as the frontman of beloved Afrobeat band, Antibalas. Amayo set out on his own, after nearly a quarter-century with the band. The musician released Lion Awakes in January, an eclectic solo album dedicated to his "shamanic medicine woman” grandmother.

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Recorded over the course of two years, Anything At All is, fittingly, about slowing down. Denison Witmer finds beauty in domesticity. It’s a meditation on mindfulness, fatherhood and even banal. Witmer’s 11th album is also a collaboration, birthed from a songwriting session with long-time friend, Sufjan Stevens, who also came on as producer.

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Seventy years since kicking off his music career in his hometown of Nashville, Charles “Wigg” Walker is still madly in love with music. This Love is Gonna Last is the soul singer’s first album in more than a decade, and a testament to surviving all that life throws at you. Dedicated to his late-wife, who passed in 2024, the album is a joyful celebration of life from an artist who has performed with the a Mt. Rushmore of musicians, including James Brown, Jackie Wilson, Etta James, Otis, Redding and Sam Cooke. While his own work never released the heights of popula...

After 35 years, Tsunami returned with a bang. The Virginia-based band capped off 2024 by reuniting to deliver a massive, career-spanning boxset, Loud As. During their time away from the band, however, Jenny Toomey and Kristin Thomson were never too far apart. The roommates, turned bandmates, turned cofounders of indie label, Simple Machines never started too far from activistic – and musical -- roots. In 2000, the pair formed the Future of Music Coalition, a non-profit focused on music education and advocacy.

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“I am edging away from apathy,” Chuck Ragan bellows, “I am drifting away from the dark. The rain has got my mind in motion.” The stanzas that open Love & Lore, the latest from the Hot Water Music frontman, feel strangely appropriate as we speak. Ragan is a few days out from dealing with a flooded basement, courtesy of torrential rains. It’s a consequence, perhaps, of living in a land of rivers near the California/Nevada border. There is, however, no place he’d rather be. When he’s not touring, the musician works as an in-demand river guide, spending days off nearb...

Music is, at once, a vector for connection and escape. Chuck Prophet found both, as at a bar in San Francisco’s Mission District. Cumbia, a popular dance genre born in Columbia, pulsates through Wake the Dead. Forty years into his professional and on the other side of a battle with stage four lymphoma, the album finds the Bay Area musician with a new musical lease on life.

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Following the release of Tank and the Bangas' Grammy nominated The Heart, The Mind, The Soul, singer Tarriona “Tank” Ball returns to the show. The three-part collection presents a new side of Ball for those only familiar with the Bangas' joyful New Orleans funk. Prior to her time as a music star, Ball sharpened her lyrics as a rising star in the world of poetry. The album follows the 2021 release of her first poetry collection, Vulnerable AF.

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Fe finds Rafael Cohen returning to his roots on multiple fronts. The latest from the !!! multi-instrumentalist's Las Palabras finds the musician returning to his native Spanish, while pulling the thread of his family's Jewish faith.

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What does “maturity” mean for a rock band? The answer is, perhaps, a bit easier to answer when you’ve been together since age 18. For Naked Giants, it means grown up things – getting jobs, starting families. It’s not necessarily fodder for a band’s young punk days, depth of subject is in an important part of growing up as a band – and having a fanbase that grows along with you.

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Last month, Mileage scored Sun Records’ first-ever Grammy nomination. It’s hard to believe for a 72-year-old label that was once home to Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison and Johnny Cash. The album, Ruthie Foster’s latest, finds the musician reflecting on the ups and downs of a long career. It’s a journey that found Foster serving in the Navy, moving to New York and getting signed by a major label in the 90s, only to quit music to care for her mother back in Texas. It’s been a long road, but the singer won’t be slowing down any time soo...

Mighty Vertebrate hits different. In a world of sound a likes and slow burns, Anna Butterss' latest solo record makes itself known from immediately out of the gate. The album is as eclectic as it is fresh -- unsurprising, given the musician varied career, performing as the bassist for Jason Isbell's group, performing along side Phoebe Bridgers and Jenny Lewis, and serving as one fifth of improvisational group, SML.

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During our conversation, FIDLAR frontman Zac Carper reminds me of band’s acronym, Fuck It Dawg, Life's a Risk. Spontaneity has been a driving force throughout the band’s 15-year existence, but time comes experience and – hopefully – a bit of reflection. Surviving The Dream -- the band’s first record in five years – offers up that introspection, into work. Life and Carper’s recent bipolar diagnosis.

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Released in September, Dirt On My Diamonds Vol.2 finds Kenny Wayne Shepherd doing what he was put on Earth to do. With eight tracks spanning a collective hour, it's a tight set that packs a punch, while expanding the songwriting depth that has been a fixture at this stage of his career. Thirty-four years after signing to a major label at age 13, the guitarist has delivered staying power matched by few others in the industry.

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Few who have walked the Earth can write a pop song like John Davis. That prowess catapulted his group, Superdrag to massive success on the back of its 1996 single, "Sucked Out." The group's trajectory from there isn't wholly dissimilar from other groups who released a hit during the decade. The music business took an aggressive turn, culminating in the muddy horror show that was Woodstock 99, all while Superdrag was releasing its best and most mature work on indie labels. His latest record, Jinx recaptures the Superdrag magic, while taking things in a different, more stripped down direction, owing to the...

Plenty of musicians talk about 'leaving it all on the stage,' but few have offered as demonstrable an example as Samuel Herring. His live performance is a conduit for unbridled emotion, capturing mainstream attention as the frontman for Future Islands. As Hemlock Ernst, Herring's lyrics offer insight into life experiences, no better exemplified than on the hip-hop group's latest, Studying Absence. Transcript available here.

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Released in October, It's Only Rock n Roll is a celebration that has formed the backbone of Michael Des Barres' life. The album's one dozen tracks find the singer paying homage to the biggest names of the glam era, from T. Rex to Roxy Music. Des Barres' own musical career spans more than half a century, including an appearance at Live Aid as the head of The Power Station. As an actor, Des Barres has appeared in more than 100 TV shows, including a notable turn as MacGyver villain, Murdoc.

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Tom Petty's unexpected death in October 2017 effectively marked the end of the Heartbreakers. The band reunited a handful of times to pay tribute to the late singer, but its members have otherwise used the unfortunate opportunity to explore life beyond its confines. For Mike Campbell, the event marked the beginnings of a second career. His guitar playing and songwriter were foundational to the Heartbreakers' massive success, and he'd cowritten with Don Henley and Stevie Nicks, including the Billboard topping "Boys of Summer." But now it's his name on the band, performing as Mike Campbell and the Dirty Knobs. This June...

Released at the end of August, Kantos is a “party album about the possible end of humanity as we know it.” A few months later, that possibility seems ever more probable. A one-time resident of both New York City and Athens, GA, Kaoru Dill-Ishibashi now spends his days in the Santa Cruz Mountains of Central California, heading over Highway 17 to surf when not making music. The singer and multi-instrumentalist is an industry veteran, fronting Brooklyn indie band Jupiter One and spending time as a member of Elephant 6 offshoot, Of Montreal. The Berklee grad has also performed with a wide range of f...

When I Get Through follows Breymer's (Sarah Walk) journey up to the day of their top surgery. It's a candid account of the conversations and emotions that precede such a life alternating moment. The musician joins us to discuss the journey and the decision recount the events on their new LP.

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Halloween comes early this year, as Matt Wagner and Kelley Jones join us to discuss the final days of their Kickstarter campaign for Dracula Book II: The Brides. The comics veterans talk about their planned four volume series and the lasting legacy of Bram Stoker's monster.

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New Yorker cartoonist Shannon Wheeler returns to the show. The artist recently launched a Kickstarter campaign to release a new book collecting minicomics and other appearances by his best-known creation, Too Much Coffee Man.

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Band People is part music writing and part business book, rounded out by academic research and a host of footnotes. It's a pragmatic look at the life of road warriors in an increasingly untenable industry. More than anything, however, it's a labor of love from lifelong touring musician, Franz Nicolay. Transcript available here.

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He's quick to laugh with a twang that betrays his Southern Missouri origin. Steve Cropper discusses his accomplishments with modesty, rarely offering a glimpse into a career that profoundly impacted the course of 20th century popular music. As a core, founding member of Booker T & the MGs, the guitars helped form the backbone of the Stax Record sound. Cropper cowrote some of the era's most iconic songs, including "Knock on Wood," "In the Midnight Hour" and "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay, the latter of which he almost mixed following Otis Redding's untimely passing. The MGs made their own...

In November, Tokyo Police Club will play its final show. Saying goodbye is never easy, but the Ontario-based band's members seem surprisingly okay with the whole thing. At the end of the day, very few of us manage to eke out a 20-year career playing with high school friends. Graham Wright acknowledges that, perhaps, the reality of the situation hasn't entirely set in, but for now, the band is enjoying what's left of the ride.

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Comics and animation can both be grueling -- especially drawing a 400 page comic or animated a hand-drawn, feature length film. As such, one must be discriminating in choosing such projects. For Dash Shaw, the choice comes down to two principles: 1. It has to seem like he's the only one who can create it and 2. It needs to contain an element of "why would anyone do that." Both can be seen in his most recent, deeply idiosyncratic works in comics ("Blurry") and film ("Cryptozoo").

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While their music owes debts to the towering giants of rock, soul and the Mexican and Brazilian music before them, no one sounds like Chicano Batman. Formed in Los Angeles in 2008, the group released its self-titled debut two years later. But it was 2020's Invisible People and its infectious lead track, "Color My Life" that cemented the group's place in the indie universe. Released at the end of March, Notebook Fantasy sees the band continuing to grow, exploring new sounds while staying loyal to the elements that have helped the group stand out from the pack.

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In 2020, Joe Gatto struck out on his own. It was surprising turn, as the Impractical Joker left a beloved and lucrative TV series that found him performing alongside a trio of lifelong friends. The move, Gatto says, was about prioritizing what matter -- namely, his wife and children. Of course, a resume like his means starting over doesn't require a clean slate. Gatto has since launched a successful standup career with multiple tours culminating in his first special, September's "Messing With People."

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Jet lag is a drag, leaving Sean "Grasshopper" Mackowiak at a decided disadvantage during our conversation. Mercury Rev just got back from Australia, but the veteran guitarist happily powers through. It's just one of those annoying things that one grapples with, being one of two consistent members of a globe trotting band for the last 35 years. Grasshopper's answers are thoughtful and engaged, as we wade through Mercury Rev's celebrated history.

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Her coauthor and husband, Scott Marvel Cassidy, is at the dentist for an emergency root canal, so Maria Bamford and I push ahead. Decades after establishing herself as one of standup's sharpest -- and funniest minds -- she's trying her hand at yet another medium. In June, Fantagraphics released Hogbook and Laser Eyes, a collaboration between Bamford and Marvel Cassidy that recounts their meeting, marriage and lives through the eyes of their beloved elderly rescue pugs. Transcript available here.

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A-Side Graffiti includes, among other things, a surprisingly faithful cover of Dr. Frank N. Furter's "Sweet Transvestite." The song finds Jack Grisham dueting with fellow So. Cal. punk legend, Keith Morris. TSOL's career has been surprising, above all. Ever the consummate showman and raconteur, Grisham presided over the group's initial shift from hardcore to gothic rock, before exiting the band in 1983. By the turn of the millennium, he had returned to the fold. Outside the band, Grisham has maintained several other fascinating careers, as a writer, filmmaker and 2003 California gubernatorial candidate. Transcript available here.

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[Apologies for poor audio quality on my end. Technical difficulties suck]

Hate returns. So, too, does Peter Bagge. The cartoonist has joined us several times over the years. This time he's back to talk Hate Revisited, a return to form that reunites him with Buddy Bradley, Lisa and the rest of the crew in the modern day -- save for Stinky, that is. Poor, poor Stinky. Transcript available here.

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A new album on a new label, The Well I Fell Into is a chance to consider and process the old and – hopefully – move on. A breakup album of sorts, Why’s eighth finds frontman Yoni Wolf processing the end of a years-long relationship. As relationships go, however, Why has been remarkably long lived and fruitful. After beginning life as a solo act in the mid-90s, Why became a full-fledged group in 2004, whose core remains 20 years later. Transcript available here.

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Magick Show bills itself as a “masterclass in modern occultism.” It’s hard to argue with the tagline. Richard Metzger is in his element interviewing dozens of experts on different aspects of the occult, in a bid to contextualize the centuries-old phenomenon for the modern moment. Metzger is the man for the job. At the turn of the century, he served as the host of UK interview show, Disinformation. The series gave rise to his first book, Disinformation: The Interviews, followed soon after by The Book of Lies: The Disinformation Guide to Magick and the Occult. For the past decade-and-a-half, Metzge...

Dreamers On The Run marks BMX Bandits' 12th LP since the group was founded in the mid-80s. The record finds Duglas Stewart expanding his musical ambitions a 10 years after he began work on the project. The intervening decade was difficult on both Stewart and the world at large, making this latest release a true triumph for one of Scotland's most enduring indie pop acts.

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During our conversation, Brendan Canty makes it clear that he has no interest in revisiting the past. It's not bad blood. If anything, it's his continued relationship with his former Fugazi bandmates that keeps the band from doing the reunion thing. They simply like each other too much. Case in point, the The Messthetics, which reunites the drummer with bassist Joe Lally. The group's latest finds the trio joining forces with saxophonist James Brandon Lewis for a fantastic new LP that wholly embraces jazz.

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What's a dozen or so years between friends? 2012's Tarnished Gold found Beachwood Sparks in fine form. Eleven years had passed since the band's first two records were released within a year of each other. It was a reunion of sorts, though this time 12 years would pass before the Los Angeles group reunited. Released earlier this month, Across the River of Stars marks another dreamy return to the band's alt-country ways.

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At 12, Joe Bonamassa was opening for the BB King. Twelve years later, his career was a at a crossroads. He's been through a pair of major label deals and suddenly found himself tasked with releasing his third album on his own. "There was no plan B," the guitarist says. Blues Deluxe, which celebrated its 20th anniversary last year, was precisely the shot to the arm his career needed.

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Like many of us, Tracy Bonham's been through it over the last couple of years. Her latest single, “Damn The Sky (For Being Too Wide)," processes some of those feelings of isolation and disconnect. It's also her first studio release since 2017's Modern Burdens, which found the musician reconnecting with the debut album that put her on the map back in the mid-90s. Throughout it all, she's managed to reconnect with the people and things that matter most.

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The Ukulele was a gimmick, as Dent May is the first to admit. It did the trick on the Mississippi-born musician's second album, The Good Feeling Music of Dent May & His Magnificent Ukulele. The LP -- his first for the Animal Collective-run Paw Tracks -- established May as a musical force. These days he continues his hunt for the perfect pop song. Nowhere has he come closer than on this year's What's for Breakfast? Transcript available here.

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Prior to Beat the Champ, Leela Corman hadn’t drawn much wrestling. The 2015 record would be the first two Mountain Goats covers drawn by the cartoonist. Corman’s passion for bodies in motion would resurface in this April’s Victory Parade, as wrestling plays a key role in the World War II era graphic novel. The book tells the story of personal and societal trauma of the era. It’s an important reminder of lessons our world is doomed to relearn. Transcript available here.

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It’s not easy being a pioneer, but Jim Skafish came out of the gate swinging. In the late-70s, the Chicago musician became the first American signed to Miles Copeland’s hugely influential IRS records. His band’s first LP, 1980’s self-titled Skafish, failed to catch fire, owing to delays and poor production. Three years later, Conversations, was met with its own pushback, as it marked a major sonic departure. Skafish, a classically trained pianist whose current work is more easily classified as jazz, is long overdue for a reexamination and a pioneering force in musical, political and non-conforming.  

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This year, Drawn & Quarterly is reissuing Curses. Now 20 years old, the book represents Kevin Huizenga at his finest. The book features a collection of stories united by the cartoonist's long time lead, Glenn Ganges, exploring history, fiction, folk tales and more, backdropped against a seemingly mundane suburban midwestern backdrop. It presents a true master at work. Transcript available here.

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Over the decades, Collective Soul has managed to avoid many of the pitfalls that torpedoed their contemporaries. The Georgia-based band saw a quick rise in the early 90s, on the backs of hits like "Shine" and "December." More than 30 years on, the band remains as solid a unit as ever, have maintained an extraordinarily consistent lineup. Longtime bassist Will Turpin joins us to discuss the band's rise and what keeps the group together all these years later. Transcript available here.

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The most recent stage of Bruce Sudano’s career began in earnest just over a decade ago. His wife and long-time creative partner, the legendary Donna Summer, passed in 2012. With their children now grown, Sudano restarted his solo career. The move, he notes, felt like nearly restarting a decades-long musical journey from scratch.

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It's been a hard few years for most of us, but Pearl Harbour has managed to stay positive throughout. It's no small feat, given struggles with lung cancer that have indefinitely sidelined her singing career. The musician recently penned linear notes for the re-issue of her great unsung 1980 rockabilly LP, Don't Follow Me, Im Lost Too. The album features an all-star cast of musicians from The Clash and Ian Dury and the Blockheads, Habour's friends and tourmates at the time. And while she's not one to get hung up in the past, she happily recounts some terrific stories from the...

In Summer 2022, Jon Batiste left his longtime role as band leader for Stephen Colbert's Late Show. Longtime bandmate and sometime replacement Louis Cato stepped into the role, breathing new virtuosic role As Colbert noted at the time, "Give him an afternoon, he'll learn how to play Mozart on a shoehorn." Cato joins us to discuss his journey, music school, becoming a parent at 19 and his soul new record, Reflections, for which he played every instrument.

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The term "love letter" is criminally overused in this industry, but you'd be hard pressed to find a more appropriate phrase for Fall Through. The book finds cartoonist Nate Powell reconnecting with the punk rock touring days of the 90s. Before his career as a cartoonist, Powell played in bands, including his time as one of the longest tenured members of Little Rock's Soophie Nun Squad.The artist joins us to relive those times and discuss his friendship with civil rights pioneer, Congressman John Lewis. Transcript available here.

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The Workbench is an ode to the power of objects. The EP is the celebration of the titular possession Brian Harnetty inherited when his father passed. It's an tribute to a man who could seemingly "fix anything," a trait the musician admits he did not inherit. The younger Harnetty is, however, a whiz at creating songs with his hands, incorporating a wealth of found sounds for a richer portrait of his late father. Transcript available here.

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September marks 25 years since the release of 69 Love Songs. The landmark triple-album cemented frontman Stephin Merritt's states as one of the finest songwriters of his generation. A quarter-century later, the songs don't always come as easily to Merritt. At his most prolific, however, the musician wrote more than enough to carry him through the rest of his career. "No one would ever know if I never wrote a song again in my life," he explains, "because I could just use the ones I already have that I haven't found an album for yet." Transcript here.

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Ten years is forever in the rock world. There were times it seemed Camera Obscura might never return. The 2015 death of longtime keyboard player Carey Lander put the group’s future in limbo. For the first time since the mid-90s, the band went on indefinite hiatus. An invitation to perform at the Belle & Sebastian curated Boaty Weekender cruise brought the band back together in 2018. Plans to record an album two years later were themselves put on hiatus, courtesy of a global pandemic. On May 3, the band returns to form with Look to the East, Look to West. Transcript available he...

For our conversation, Emel Mathlouthi popped into a Brooklyn coffee shop. It’s a little cacophonous, but also a fitting microcosm of the city she now calls home. The musician moved to the States after a stint in Paris, but a part of her home country of Tunisia always remains close. As she broadens her cultural and musical horizons, the North African country continues to inform both. Her latest album, MRA, pushes Mathlouthi’s explorations further still, courtesy of songs performed and produced entirely by women. Transcript here.

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Fifteen years is forever in the world of popular music. But the number doesn't tell the whole story. While it's been a decade-and-a-half since Mary Timony released her last solo record, the low-key guitar god has been plenty busy. She's released a pair of albums as part of Ex Hex, a record with indie rock supergroup Ex Hex with members of Sleater Kinney and cofounded Hammered Hulls with childhood DC punk friend Alec MacKaye. Timony joins us to discusses her latest, Untame The Tiger.

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Few individuals have left as an indelible a mark on late-20th century American popular culture as Don Was. As a producer, he work includes some of music’s biggest names, including Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones and Iggy Pop. In the 80s, he found success on the other side of the microphone as one-half of the Was (Not Was). In 2012, he became the president of legendary jazz label Blue Note Records and six years later began performing regularly alongside Bob Weir in The Wolf Brothers. His latest project, Don Was and The Pan-Detroit Ensemble, finds the musician reconnecting was ja...

Fun bonus episode this week, as we're joined by James "Murr" Muray and Brian "Q" Quinn of "Impractical Jokers. The pair discuss their upcoming tour and keeping the show fresh after 10 seasons.

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Health scares have a way of prioritizing things. For Lauren Denitzio, undergoing heart surgery at the young age of 25 brought one key priority into sharp focus: music. Since then, the musician has approached their creative venue Worriers as a form of pure expression, both musically and emotion. The band's earnest, joyful music has earned it a place in the world of punk, including an upcoming tour opening for Alkaline Trio. Transcript available here.

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