Wanted/Needed/Loved: Jill Sobule’s Favorite Spy Cars
I wasn’t into girl stuff, but I loved James Bond!
...more
Music
Sweet Bird
Every story needs to begin in a place of stasis, a comfortable zero.
...more
Wanted/Needed/Loved: Josephine Wiggs’s Memory Machines
Even though it’s all backed up, I worry about losing it all.
...more
Swinging Modern Sounds #90: Haikus for Pets
If you like Owen’s haikus, and even if you don’t, you’ll really love his album.
...more
Khalid Sings and I Wonder Where Home Is in the First Place
Does America like me? Do I like her? What is America actually like?
...more
Wanted/Needed/Loved: Black Belt Eagle Scout’s Self-Determination
When I was growing up, I was surrounded by art and music.
...more
Twenty Years of Miseducation: Joan Morgan’s She Begat This
Morgan has a lot of gaps to fill—and a lot of traps to potentially fall into.
...more
Blind Hunger, Black Bodies, and Radiohead’s In Rainbows
I’ve seen it coming. This is where it passes through.
...more
Swinging Modern Sounds #89: In Praise of Tom Petty
Because Petty was so prolific and so popular, the intense craftsmanship of his body of work has been hiding in plain sight.
...more
Swinging Modern Sounds #88: Music for the Masses
The interview, like the project Iso Omena, is both funny and revealing.
...more
Late Summer Soundtracks
New album releases to enjoy these last few weeks of summer!
...more
Wanted/Needed/Loved: Taylor Mulitz’s Social Media Mentors
I’ve always had a voyeuristic relationship with social media.
...more
Songs of Our Lives: “Off to War”
This is fault-line music, dangerous in an unassuming way.
...more
Wanted/Needed/Loved: Carlos Arévalo’s Lost & Found Hendrix
It felt like someone had taken my memories from me.
...more
Picking the Green Path: A Conversation with Ansley Simpson
“The green path takes far more work to even recognize—it takes bushwhacking.”
...more
The Rumpus Mini-Interview Project #143: Saul Austerlitz
“I felt that Meredith Hunter was the invisible figure at the center of the story.”
...more
Swinging Modern Sounds #87: The Low and Dishonest Years
[T]hese are albums to distract you from the horrors taking place daily in the theater of American political life.
...more
Wanted/Needed/Loved: Viv Albertine’s Emotional Investigation
I’ve worked through the pain, and made something useful and creative out of it.
...more
Swinging Modern Sounds #86: Transcendentalism!
The point is not to control the medium, the point is to interact with the medium, to find out what’s natural to it and what’s native to it and work with that, respond to that.
...more
Wanted/Needed/Loved: Ira Kaplan’s Favorite Pit Stops
To pull into a rest area and get a bag of KFC or McDonald’s or whatever is kind of soul crushing, or at least it is for us.
...more
A Truer, More Holistic Understanding of Ourselves
What myths or distortions have you been told about your own family?
...more
The Rumpus Mini-Interview Project #133: Jake Shears
“I wrote this book. I worked really, really hard on it, and I was a little scared by it.”
...more
The Rumpus Mini-Interview Project #132: Juliana Hatfield
“These songs are not just sweet confections. They’re talking about real things, like pain, and not being able to connect.”
...more
Wanted/Needed/Loved: Sadie Dupuis’s Preloved Farfisa Organ
[I]t’s taken me back to those memories of recording at my dad’s, and the stuff that took him back into his past, and ultimately into my future.
...moreAlbum of the Week: Vessel by Frankie Cosmos
A great step forward in Kline’s approach to songwriting, VESSEL is a true indie pop gem.
...more
The Intersection of Hope and Despair: Talking with Julien Baker
Julien Baker discusses her latest album, Turn Out the Lights, the ways in which she approaches writing about difficult subjects, and the redemptive power in being open about sadness.
...more
Sound & Vision Is
Aside from his endless capacity for self-invention, Bowie changed the way we experience our own sense of identity.
...moreAlbum of the Week: Alice Bag’s Blueprint
“The songs often find their inspiration in real-life moments that caused Bag to take stock and assess her own blueprint—to take a stand or fix a problem: personal, political, or both.”
...more
Wanted/Needed/Loved: Victoria Ruiz’s Grandma’s Grocery Board
I’m not a trained musician, but my grandma helped me to become fearless…
...moreAlbum of the Week: Soccer Mommy’s Clean
“I’d always wanted my music to sound this way, I just didn’t have the means before.”
...more