Big Thief performs during Project Pabst at Tom McCall Waterfront Park in Portland, Ore. on July 28, 2024. Photos: Leah Flores. By Ben Niesen PORTLAND, Ore. — Big Thief and Denzel Curry closed out a successful second day of Project Pabst at the Tom McCall Waterfront Park on Sunday.…

The best albums of 2020 include (clockwise from top left): Benny the Butcher, Sault, The Soft Pink Truth, Jacob Collier, Lucinda Williams, Jahari Massamba Unit, Bruce Springsteen, Loyal Lobos, Soccer Mommy and Crack Cloud. Welcome back to RIFF’s year-end album roundup! If you’re joining us just now, you’re here…

Soccer Mommy is the brainchild of 22-year-old Sophie Allison, who uses ’90s-styled indie alt-rock arrangements to communicate thoughts and feelings of someone twice her age. In the last few years she’s quickly gained popularity after releasing her last album, Clean, in 2018. It was home to many awesome tunes, including…

Kacey Musgraves performs at the Masonic in San Francisco on Feb. 16, 2019. Courtesy: Paige K Parsons. SAN FRANCISCO — It’s been quite a week for country queen Kacey Musgraves. It began last Sunday with four Grammy Awards, including the coveted Album of the Year win for 2018’s Golden…

Tame Impala performs at Treasure Island Music Festival at Middle Harbor Shoreline Park in Oakland on Oct. 14, 2018. Photos: Chloe Catajan OAKLAND — Everything was a haze. Tame Impala closed out 2018’s Treasure Island Music Festival in what felt like a dream state. A hypnotic swirl on the “The…

Sophie Allison has been writing songs since she was 5. Allison, who records and performs as Soccer Mommy, writes with jarring specificity about everyday life, interactions with the people around her and her own life. That level of detail comes easily to her. Treasure Island Music Festival Tame Impala,…

SAN FRANCISCO — Since Pavement went on hiatus in 1999, Stephen Malkmus has released seven albums with the Jicks, the most recent, Sparkle Hard, in May. No one can accuse the man of not working hard. With work ethic undebatable, the frontman found another bone to pick with, well,…

Every week there’s a plethora of new music at our fingertips. Artists on platforms like Spotify and Bandcamp are plentiful, and the radio offers a steady deluge of new singles, but who has time to sort through all that? RIFF does! We’ve pooled our resources to find some of…