Babychaos, courtesy. This week we’ve got multiple flavors of rock—the industrial variety from BABYCHAOS, the alt- variety from LEONE and some straight-up uncategorizable rock from Meet Me @ The Altar. There’s also some genre-blending goodness from Chris Pierce, Kendra Morris and James Hersey. BABYCHAOS, “Guilty Hands (I Bleed)” —…

Lola Young, courtesy Charlotte Patmore. This week we explore how country western influences are reflected in pop and rock with entries from Jessika and the Ruen Brothers. We deal with the pain of being a third wheel in a relationship with Lola Young. New wave meshes with EDM in…

Roman Gokhman writes about some of his favorite interviews of the year: Loyal Lobos; Damian Lillard; Allan Rayman; Lindsey Stirling; Brandon Leake; James Hersey; Rufus Wainwright; Nico Muhly, Bryce Dessner and Pekka Kuusisto; Vincint; Fantastic Negrito; RAC; Micky Dolenz; Mathilde Froustey; Lisa Loeb; All We Are; and Hailey Whitters.…

Clockwise from top left: Carolina Story, BLACKSTARKIDS, Ryan Webster, James Hersey, Rusty Eye and Imelda May. Every week, there’s more new music waiting to be discovered. We are deep into fall, and yet the warm days have me unsure what season we’re actually in. We are still stuck at…

James Hersey, Courtesy: Tori Whitworth. On the 12-minute bike ride between his studio and his apartment in Berlin, electronica musician James Hersey is starting to see signs that Germany is about to loosen its coronavirus quarantine regulations. It’s April 17 and German Chancellor Angela Merkel has set May 4—“may…

Phoenix photographed at Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, California, on June 10, 2017. Photo: Alessio Neri RIFF doubled in readership in 2017, and as editor-in-chief, so did my workload. As one of five people running our humble little publication on a day-to-day basis, while planning as far out as…

James Hersey performs at BottleRock Napa Valley in Napa on May 28, 2017. Alessio Neri/STAFF. James Hersey has a strong opinion on artists who give up their dreams for financial success; those who collaborate with so many songwriters that they lose their voice along the way. “It becomes diluted,…

Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers perform at BottleRock Napa Valley in Napa on May 28, 2017. NAPA — Tom Petty may have largely stuck to the hits at BottleRock Napa Valley Saturday, but the sheer quantity of those familiar songs spoke volumes about Petty’s amazing songbook. After opening with…