Since releasing his breakout EP, Music For the Uninvited, in 2014, Leon Vynehall’s status within the deep house community has preceded him. The British producer and DJ took the hypnotic disco loops and synthetic textures with symphonic grandness and quirky jazz fusion and expanded the potential of house music beyond…

The band’s sound may bring California beaches to mind, but you may be surprised to find out that pop-punk quintet State Champs hails from Albany, New York. State Champs are also hopeless romantics. A band that has created a lyrical career based off of the boy-meets-girl dynamic should consider the intricacy…

On his third solo album, Call The Comet, The Smiths’ guitar alumnus Johnny Marr creates a futuristic narrative while giving fans the old-school post-punk sound that they have come to expect from the veteran. The 13-track album shows Marr’s instrumental and vocal range as the songs vary from airy rock…

Funk exists on a continuum, from the fuzzed- and spaced-out, low-fidelity, loose booty jams of Funkadelic, to the slickly produced, radio-friendly, disco-infused hits of The Commodores and Earth, Wind, and Fire. Chromeo’s fifth album has all the complexity of a Quincy Jones production but none of the heart of…

Mike Shinoda woke up to a new reality in late July 2017, a few days before his band Linkin Park was set to embark on tour. He had lost his friend and longtime bandmate Chester Bennington to suicide. Just like that, everything changed. The floor fell out from underneath…

When the last Fantastic Negrito album, The Last Days of Oakland, came out in 2016, there was a buzz that Oakland’s Xavier Dphrepaulezz could be the Next Big Thing after he had gone from busking at BART stations to a coveted NPR Tiny Desk concert in just a couple years.…

An indie darling since her debut LP, Youth Novels, Lykke Li has enjoyed commercial success in the U.S. alongside Swedish indie pop contemporaries Robyn and Miike Snow. Like those artists, she built a fanbase at home first. Propelled by single “I Follow Rivers,” Lykke Li began reaching mainstream audiences with…

Under the stage name Serpentwithfeet, Josiah Wise breaks through the surface of his immense potential. With captivating vibrato and range, Wise wields an uncanny ability to immerse his listeners beneath waves of lyrics reflecting deeply pensive love. While his 2016 EP gained recognition by the likes of Bjork, the project…

With ‘80s nostalgia in full effect, the indie rock landscape has become increasingly synthetic. Rather than jumping on the bandwagon, Baltimore’s Snail Mail has doubled down on emotive guitar noodling as the core instrument of the style. The project centers around 19-year-old guitarist-singer Lindsey Jordan, who enhances her demure…

A Brit raised on the outskirts of London with a bigger imagination than he could control, Ben Howard began writing songs in his youth. He took a hefty influence from musically inclined parents, who introduced him to the likes of Van Morrison, Joni Mitchell and Simon & Garfunkel. Noonday Dream…