Smooth Operator
For Devonté Hynes, 2013 was either the best year ever or the worst, depending on what’s more important, success or possessions. In November, the twenty-eight-year-old songwriter, performer, and...
View ArticleHouse Style
At first glance, Disclosure’s achievement is simple, and depends on two major decisions. First, the terrifyingly young brothers from Surrey—Guy Lawrence, twenty-two, and Howard Lawrence,...
View ArticleLend Me Your Ears
Ariel Rechtshaid, a wiry thirty-four-year-old producer who has been nominated for a Grammy as Producer of the Year, has no signature sound and doesn’t work in any particular genre more than others....
View ArticleWhat I Missed: 2013 Albums
We fuck up. The Seamless guy comes while the kettle’s cantering and we break every apartment-visitor-worthy glass and drop a thumb drive in the wrong bag. We forget to look at the lists telling us what...
View ArticleHere’s “Strong Swimmer”
Since 2009, Jordan Lee has been writing and performing with a rotating cast of colleagues as Mutual Benefit. His 2013 album, “Love’s Crushing Diamond,” is suspended—above the earth and between moods....
View ArticleThe Awards Show Will Not Be Televised
There will be no hand-wringing. You know who won what last night. You know that an enormous number of voters who help N.A.R.A.S. pick the Grammy winners haven’t been involved in the music business for...
View ArticleReady to Die
Last night’s “Bringing Human Rights Home” show, at the Barclays Center, in Brooklyn, was close to five hours long. It was also, in shorthand, the “Pussy Riot show,” because two members of the...
View ArticleA New Voice
Beck has often used indirection to his advantage. In his roughly twenty-five-year career, he has made so many costume changes that nobody was surprised when, for instance, he released a lavishly...
View ArticleFree De La Soul Day
If you go to the band De La Soul’s Web site, you can download its entire catalogue for free. You should do this—I own most of it, somewhere, but I’m downloading it anyway, because who the hell knows...
View ArticleSahara Blues
The music of Tinariwen, a Tuareg band whose members live in the Sahara Desert region that spreads across parts of Mali, Algeria, and Libya, is often compared to American blues. The band’s sound is...
View ArticleSneak Peak
Annie Clark, who performs under the name St. Vincent, is a musician who arrived fully formed. Her début album, “Marry Me” (2007), showed her to be a nimble guitar player, an expert arranger of voices,...
View ArticleThe XX Takes Hostages
The xx has just finished a ten-day run, at the Park Avenue Armory, of a show with no name but a very specific purpose: to disorient you, bring you close, and then throw you back into the void. I wrote...
View ArticleImprov Everywhere
Erika M. Anderson, who records as EMA, grew up in South Dakota. Her great-great-grandparents, dairy farmers who emigrated from Scandinavia to the Midwest, probably would not recognize the world today,...
View ArticleMetal Heart
Last September, Margaret Chardiet, who has performed under the name Pharmakon since 2007, walked onto a low, black wooden platform in a small art gallery called Dilettante, in downtown Los Angeles....
View ArticleDo Recordings Kill Music?
The musician and writer David Grubbs began his career far from the silence and mushrooms of John Cage, the musician, philosopher, and writer. As a teen-ager in Louisville, Grubbs formed the band...
View ArticleThe Recording Angels
Today, the conclusion of an e-mail conversation that David Grubbs and I had about his new book, “Records Ruin the Landscape.” In the course of several weeks, Christoph Cox, Pauline Oliveros, Lisa...
View ArticleRelaxed Fit
Sharon Van Etten is a bright-eyed, compact, outgoing woman. But the songs on her astonishing new album, “Are We There,” are hardly sparkly—they are slow-moving, efficient vehicles that carry the...
View ArticleFixing the Charts
A few weeks ago, Pitchfork ran “I Know You Got Soul,” a sharp and deeply researched piece by the critic and pop-chart analyst Chris Molanphy about the Billboard Hot R. & B./Hip-Hop chart. He...
View ArticleAngel’s Share
When I met Angel Olsen earlier this year to talk about her second album, “Burn Your Fire for No Witness,” she answered my questions the way she performs her songs—she’s perfectly happy to have you...
View ArticleA Non-Resolution to Elect Fatima Al Qadiri to Non-Office
A few weeks ago, I spoke with Fatima Al Qadiri about her visual and musical output. Over the course of a conversation at MOMA PS1 and several e-mail exchanges, one phrase circulated without being...
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