Listening to the Heartless Bastards’ newest, The Restless Ones, is a frustrating experience. You get to hear a ton of talent and even more chops put to work

Jason Chung, a.k.a. Nosaj Thing, has a knack for confounding listeners by stacking up a handful of straightforward sounds, then giving them the

This is something I would not have thought possible. My Morning Jacket has very skillfully combined the merits of its influences with the energy of its masterful

On Eclipse, our hero, George Lewis, Jr, is wounded and weak, overwhelmed by an attraction so forceful it blocks out the sun. He adheres pretty closely

This winter, I was expanding my knowledge of The Beatles. I watched the Anthology DVDs again, read a book about their post-fab solo output, picked up a

Top 10 of 2014

10. Ought, More Than Any Other Day (Constellation)
Ought’s wheelhouse was built by David Byrne, Television, Jerry Seinfeld, Naomi Klein, and the editors of Adbusters. It’s a place I love to visit, full of epigrammatic lyrics, jagged guitar riffs, slogans that defy deep thinking, and simple songs about the stupidly complex nature of modern life. These are glorious songs about …

If some desert island curse forced you to pick only one artist to listen to for the rest of eternity, you’d do well to choose David Bowie. His career-long sequence

On RTJ2, El-P and Killer Mike, a.k.a. Run the Jewels, show that just because your tracks are bouncin’ doesn’t mean your rhymes can’t be heavy and hard. It’s

I played the crap out of Oozing Wound’s debut, Retrash, after events that forced me to wear a tie and act like an adult. It helped me to let go of the bullshit

Amazingly, Lucinda Williams’ rambling, 20-track double-dose of Southern discomfort, Down Where the Sprit Meets the Bone, is