Ian Fenton + Mixlr
Today, a transmission from Ian Fenton of the frozen reeds label. Take it away, Ian.Way back on lockdown day five, I suffered a huge shock to the system. My...
tea + coffee
(Loose Earl Grey, above.)It induces a peculiar blend of narcissistic hurt and relief, getting rejected by a crisis text line. Like, if they know what they’re...
John Prine + Gabriel Birnbaum
(Photos by Liam Wong)Try this excellent new pay-what-you-want Bandcamp release by Gabriel Birnbaum. Also try the official Spotify playlist for John Prine,...
Twitch + Erykah Badu
May a newfound splendor appear in my streaming face! — RM Rilke, The Tenth ElegyExperimental Sound Studio is presenting The Quarantine Concerts on Twitch,...
Bill Withers + Frank Ocean + Eleanor Penny
Bill Withers has died at the age of 81. I wrote this Withers column for The New Yorker ten years ago.Frank Ocean released two more songs and they feel just...
Calvinist + Robin C. Jones
My dad would have been 87 today. He died, suddenly, in 1997. Presenting this information suggests a response. He’s sad and we should feel sad now. I’m not. I...
Arthur Russell + Janet Baker + Deleuze
New York performance space Roulette has created “Roulette At Home,” which they describe as “a way for us to stay connected through special digital content in...
DJ Harvey + Sameed
Oh hell no with this rain. We need to light it up. For one dollar, you can get a three-hour DJ Harvey mix recorded at Rumors in LA. If you don’t know Harvey,...
Charlton Heston + Echo + Andy Zax
A sign on the FDR was blinking this sequence today:STAY HOMESAVE LIVES#FLATTEN THE CURVEIt was Variable Message Sign 6 on the FDR at Jackson Street. (If you...
John Ashbery + Stephen Trask
I don’t own a VR setup and the whole idea kinda creeps me out. That said, here we are trapped indoors and so, yes, Yale University, I would like to take a...
Phil Donahue + Albert Speer
The urges circle each other—to run through the streets, to never get up from this chair, to figure out exactly which corrupt official to blame, to remember...
Bandcamp + Spiritual Jazz
Today, Bandcamp is waiving its cut of all sales:To raise even more awareness around the pandemic’s impact on musicians everywhere, we’re waiving our revenue...
Rob Doyle + Maintenance
A piece on Rob Doyle’s new novel, Threshold, is up at Bookforum now. More importantly, here are three ways to take care of yourself.Via Bob Christgau’s...
Charmaine Lee + Twitch
Charmaine Lee is streaming a show from happylucky no. 1 with John Wiese tonight at 8 PM on Twitch. (You can’t go physically—it’s only streaming.) From the...
the Dan Snaithstival continues
From Dan Snaith:the daphni caribou thing is this way in my head:daphni stuff is very much functional club music - it lives in that specific musical world, at...
Dan Snaith + Caribou
We were sitting here, trying to figure out what to post, and Heidi said, “If something feels uplifting to you, pass it on.” That’s the new Caribou album,...
Kiera Mulhern
(Photograph by Leigh Ann Josephine.)Kiera Mulhern’s Silt was an album I leaned on last year. It doesn’t make any obvious or insincere moves, and it remains...
Herbie Hancock + Robert Ashley
Because people (including me) are tired and scared and freaking, I’m focusing on music that can both soothe and elevate. The third piece here is also...
Andrew Weatherall + Sorry + Dan Snaith
Andrew Weatherall was one of the greats. He was mostly great at being Andy Weatherall, one of the few people who could hear the dance music in everything,...
Andy Gill + TikTok
Andy Gill, the guitarist and co-founder of Gang of Four, died on February 1. I wrote this about him for The New Yorker. Also, Greil Marcus sent me this...