Pop Culture

The latest album from Tucson, Arizona-based rock group XIXA (each “x” sounds like a “ch”) is an intentionally dramatic outing. Over nine tracks, XOLO tells the tale of Arcoiris, a young girl guided by Xolo, a hairless Xoloitzcuintli dog, through the nine levels of Mictlān, the nine-level underworld of Aztec cosmology. It’s a perfect story

A Blade Because a Blade Is Whole Alabaster Deplume International Anthem 7 March 2025 Leading up to his seventh studio album, Angus Fairbairn, better known as Alabaster Deplume, recorded an EP in Palestine with two local musicians: pianist Sami El Enani and Qanoun player Laith Albandak. The EP was created in solidarity with the Palestinian

Michael Mann’s films have become almost legendary for their authenticity, attention to detail, and realism. This mystique began with his first film, The Jericho Mile, a TV movie released in 1979. Although perhaps Mann’s least remembered film, it illuminates how a movie production can shoot for authenticity and challenge what authenticity means, especially for the

Momma have been one of indie rock’s brightest stars for a while now, and this seems like their moment to capitalize on the relentless touring in support of 2022’s Household Name. That record didn’t quite get them to the titular status, but they won over audiences all over with their fresh take on 1990s-inspired grunge

Mike White, the writer-director of the hit HBO series The White Lotus, doesn’t want you to think it’s formulaic. In an April 2025 interview with Lacey Rose andMikey O’Connell, The Hollywood Reporter wrote that he “bristl[ed] at the notion of any formula.” As the show’s creator, he has an incentive to distract viewers from its

Warfare Ray Mendoza, Alex Garland A24 April 2025 A tight and terrifying docudrama combat procedural, Ray Mendoza and Alex Garland’s Warfare tracks just one engagement in the Iraq War. The firefight was unremarkable enough to have almost certainly been forgotten by anybody not there. For the soldiers and civilians involved, however, it was likely a

Simon Reynolds wrote in his 2010 book of pop culture criticism, Retromania, “Nostalgia gets a bad rap….The past can be used to critique what’s absent in the present.” The Lemon Twigs get a bad rap, too, asterisked by critics who find their music too beholden to their primary influences: the Beach Boys and the Beatles.

Always Will Be Amy Irving Queen of the Castle / Missing Piece 25 April 2025 There’s a long history of popular actors using their celebrity status to make records. Some have been earnest attempts to present the artist as simply a talented figure who happens to be famous from film or television. Others are more

I Keep My Diamond Necklace in a Pond of Sparkling Water Gryphon Rue Independent 18 April 2025 “I became interested in the idea that recording is a bottomless medium,” explains multi-instrumentalist Gryphon Rue in the press notes of his new album. “You have a bag that can fit any sound; the room in the bag

Five years ago, duo Thaba emerged onto the global stage with cool electrosoul on Eyes Rest Their Feet. It was a bittersweet moment. Mere months before this debut, lead vocalist Khusi Seremane–half of Thaba, at the time–passed away after long-term health problems, leaving producer Gabriel Cyr with a host of unfinished pieces beyond the first

Tunde Adebimpe is best known for his work with TV on the Radio, a band he co-founded and serves as co-vocalist and principal songwriter. TV on the Radio are distinguishable from their indie rock peers, not just because the members are mostly Black, but due to the creative energy they bring to the process. Even

If you’ve visited a bookstore recently, chances are you’ll have seen displays filled with healing fiction titles such as Michiko Aoyama’s What You Are Looking For Is in the Library (2023, US) and Hwang Bo-reum’s Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop (2022, US). These are slim volumes with eye-catching covers that evoke the colourful symmetry of

In The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, a political tract from 1852, Karl Marxproposed that “the tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living.” Lately, the same could seemingly be said about the films of John Hughes, perhaps especially Pretty in Pink. Forty or so years after the

In the complex world of 1940s and 1950s film noir, good people can turn out to be bad, bad people can turn out to be good, and things aren’t always as straightforward as they seem. That ambiguity often ensnared the female characters of film noir in another web of complexity. Sometimes these women were innocent

The EVEN MORE Freewheelin’ Jeffrey Lewis Jeffrey Lewis Don Giovanni / Blang 21 March 2025 Jeffrey Lewis records arrive at an alarming rate. Since the late 1990s, it feels like never more than a few months have passed without a new release coming out. Given his penchant for words, Lewis has undertaken an overwhelming writing

To understand Thank You Kirin Kiri, the ambitious and stunning debut album from jazz and ambient multi-instrumentalist Rindert Lammers, it’s essential to get the proper context. In Hirokazu Kore-eda’s 2018 film Shoplifters, Japanese actress Kirin Kiki plays the grandmother of a family who have all fled or lost their own families. In one of her

Rarely is “beautiful” the most accurate or informative descriptor for anything, especially music. Even so, something is striking about In Between, the latest work from singer and composer Elana Sasson, that is hard to describe any other way. Sound, sentiment, and intent all work in exquisite aesthetic and affective concert here, the layering of these

Album of the Year #1 Funkateer Bootsy Collins Bootzilla / Roc Nation 11 April 2025 The word “legend” gets overused, but make no mistake, BootsyCollins is a legend. He cut his teeth playing bass for James Brown as a teenager. You know the bass riff on “Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine”?

Nora Schjelderup is one of Norway’s leading DJs, and is also the creative force behind Ora the Molecule, who have just releasedDance Therapy, which might be the most accessible avant-garde disco pop concept album you’ll hear this year. Ora the Molecule has existed since around 2015, releasing a series of singles that were compiled onHuman

The way the press materials talk about I Heard That Noise, one would expect an album consisting entirely of folk music rudely interrupted by screeching distortion and other harsh sounds. While Quickly Quickly absolutely traffics in the noisier end of music, bandleader Graham Jonson is more interested in melodies and catchy songs. To that end,

Aging and becoming old are inevitable; cynicism about “the youth of today” is not. When it comes to music, negativity becomes a way of bonding with others of one’s generation who either gave up active listening decades ago or who need to explain why the latest mutations don’t capture the alchemical magic they possessed in

In its first season, Daredevil: Born Again (major spoilers included) reunites some characters and introduces others to the lawyer-by-day and vigilante-by-night Matt Murdock/Daredevil (Charlie Cox). Taking place about seven years after the events of Season 3 of the Netflix series Daredevil, the season follows Matt as he tries to adjust to a new status quo.

A Reason to Feel Cheerful You’d need to have a tough heart not to appreciate doo-wop. If you have such a calcified ticker, no argument can convince you to hear the late 1950s doo-wop group the Cadets. Still, these talented, versatile singers deserve your attention, their small body of work being a reason to feel

In the aftermath of Gatsby’s death in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s famous 1925 novel, The Great Gatsby, an eerie silence soon envelopes West Egg as the world collectively turns away from the tragedy. The enormous mansion, once alive with music, laughter, and the endless murmur of guests, stands as a hollow monument to a life snuffed

At nearly an hour runtime, Beirut’s A Study of Losses is Zach Condon‘s most extended release to date. Condon was approached by Viktoria Dalborg, director of the Swedish circus Kompani Giraff, and asked if he would create music for their next project, based on the novel (translated as) An Inventory of Losses by the German

Sunday morning in Sacramento, an eclectic crowd chills at Forgotten Bakery while Levitation Room vibes on the speakers. Locals sit with their dogs, eat empanadas, and sip iced coffee. The atmosphere is hip, relaxed, and far from the Sacramento portrayed in Michael Angarano’s film, Sacramento, which debuted this April at our beautiful Tower Theater. In

Modular synthesist and composer JakoJako’s new album Tết 41 begins looking outward. Opening track “Xin chào” (Vietnamese for “hello”) is a compilation of field recordings that convey a gently jubilant feeling: an ensemble of lively percussion plays in the distance, bamboo flute and zither sway to a much slower rhythm somewhere to the right, and

Viagra Boys crack open their new self-titled album with a howl and a stomp, hurling us right back into the gaping maw of their signature cartoon hellscape—a world as grotesque as it is musically precise, as absurd as it is emotionally intelligent. “Man Made of Meat” sets the tone: part Hieronymus Bosch, part Ren &

Wild Women Don’t Have the Blues Nancy Harrow Candid 18 April 2025 Jazz critic and historian Nat Hentoff served as head of A&R for the short-lived, but legendary Candid Records during the early 1960s. The story goes that one day he heard singer Nancy Harrow perform, signed her up, and produced her first album, Wild

Vinyl has made a comeback, but the mores of record collecting have evolved. For example, it wasn’t long ago that DJs, committed to safeguarding the precious sonic treasures discovered through hours of crate-digging, defaced the center labels on their own records. Masking tape, pen scribbles, and even bleach were used to prevent other tastemakers from