Tag Archives: song-to-know

There’s something about the way Lainey Wilson sings that brings to mind the great, weepy country queens of yore. In particular, there’s a trace of Tammy Wynette, whose intimate and wounded delivery could depict a steely façade hiding an unsatisfied interior life or say it all out loud for complete …

“Madretierra,” a skipping track from the long-running Afro-Peruvian group Novalima, is transformed into crunchy house by TolinchiLove, Vitu Valera, and Vazdra, who released a hard-headed remix of the song earlier this month. The single is being put out by Nervous Records, which is famous for its connection to seminal Nineties …

It’s no great observation, but often the best thing a so-called “bedroom” artist can do is, well, leave the bedroom. Last year, Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter Deb Never — who’s garnered attention and acclaim for intimate songs that thread the gaps between alt-rock, grunge, and the lo-fi ends of pop and …

Solange‘s “Cranes in the Sky” was a triumph of melancholia, but Big Joanie‘s heavy, fuzzy rendition of the tune makes the original sound positively upbeat by comparison. Solange’s single was so good — Rolling Stone dubbed it one of the 50 Best Songs of 2016 when it came out and, …

Cass McCombs gets listeners drunk on ceremonial wine with his new standalone track, “The Wine of Lebanon.” The song is a drunken pagan rumination on endings and beginnings, birth and death — using only his hushed voice and a modest collection of instruments, McCombs conjures an otherworldly in-between realm teetering …

Arriving the day after Donald Trump told us all we’d all feel better if we just went and shot some bleach into our bodies, here’s a little anti-Trump invective we definitely need right now. Roots-rock icon Lucinda Williams just released Good Souls Better Angels, arguably her best album since her …

Starcrawler sound like they’re caught between two worlds on “Hollywood Ending,” a glittery L.A. interzone between Seventies riff-rockers like Cheap Trick and the rougher, ponderous melodies of Dinosaur Jr. It’s an unusual pairing — not nearly as natural as the way grunge artists blended Aerosmith with Black Flag — but …

Here’s the thing about year-end lists: They’re inherently imperfect. As editors, writers and critics, we take in as much as we can, assess what’s in view and try to come up with rankings that make sense. But inevitably we miss titles that could have ended up in the running if …

Psychic Temple is another name for Chris Schlarb, a self-styled cult leader from Long Beach, California, who’s really just a wickedly skilled producer, songwriter and musician. His Bandcamp page is full of sweet, strange sounds on the outskirts of folk-rock, jazz and psychedelia, and even further out than that — …

Wilco recently announced that they will be going on hiatus. The reason: Drummer Glenn Kotche’s wife, Miiri, got a Fulbright Scholarship to study medical device design in Finland. “It just seemed like a good reason to honor her and honor his commitment to the band: kind of allow them to …