Magic Tuber Stringband BY JORDAN MAINZER There's a foreboding quality to the music of Durham-based trio Magic Tuber Stringband, in how Courtney Werner's fiddle lurks behind Evan Morgan and Michael.....

The Black Keys' Dan Auerbach BY JORDAN MAINZER Two weeks ago at the Vic Theatre, in between ripping through "Gold on the Ceiling", a standout from The Black Keys' most Grammy-nominated album, and...

Margo Price BY JORDAN MAINZER As the Jon Langford-designed mural of John Prine was unveiled on the north-facing wall of the Old Town School of Folk Music, I found myself reflecting on the fact that....

Photo by Joshua Powers BY JORDAN MAINZER When I called singer-songwriter Jacob Augustine in early May, some hours before a show in Madison, Wisconsin, he was still in Chicago, having played The...

(ALTER) BY JORDAN MAINZER According to Belfast duo Chalk, the project of vocalist and producer Ross Cullen and multi-instrumentalist Benedict Goddard, the club is where you can go to feel, work...

Photo by Joanna Grace Babb BY JORDAN MAINZER Each one of Shannon Lay's past few albums have coincided with a significant chapter in her career. August was the Los Angeles singer-songwriter's first.....

(Sacred Bones) BY JORDAN MAINZER You don't have to speak French to understand the urgency present within URGH, the sophomore album and Sacred Bones debut from Manchester noise rock band Mandy,...

Nourished By Time BY JORDAN MAINZER Though Warm Love Cool Dreams Sunday was headlined by artists who made some of the most beloved indie records of the 2010s, my favorite sets were primarily earlier...

The Jesus and Mary Chain BY JORDAN MAINZER Before the more popular, longstanding indie rock stalwarts of the 2010s took over, the Saturday of the second Warm Love Cool Dreams festival at the Salt...

Anjimile BY JORDAN MAINZER Talk about artists making the most out of not just minimal setups, but the spaciousness of their voices. Last Wednesday at the Hideout, North Carolina's Anjimile and local...

(Domino) BY JORDAN MAINZER The Newcastle upon Tyne quartet really means it with the title of their fourth album. When you listen to Hen Ogledd's DISCOMBOBULATED, it seems like your schemas have been...

Primitive Ring BY JORDAN MAINZER What do you do when you're prolific musicians, working with restless virtuosos like Ty Segall and leading bands such as Hoveriii, and you have a free moment? Start a...

Mock Media BY JORDAN MAINZER Very few bands making music in 2026 sound like Mock Media. This is probably because very few have such strong irreverence for the type of propriety that would prevent...

(Dead Oceans) BY JORDAN MAINZER During her performance of Puberty 2's "I Bet On Losing Dogs" in Grant James' concert movie The Land, Mitski drops to all fours and pants. The song is not literally...

Photo by Laura Carbone BY JORDAN MAINZER Often, it takes a musician handing over the controls to a second set of ears to sonically manifest their aims. The opposite was the case for Selwyn Birchwood...

(InFiné) BY JORDAN MAINZER The type of music that harpist Mary Lattimore and singer/producer Julianna Barwick play is transformational. Beautiful and sometimes droning, it lulls you into hypnosis,.....

Photo by Megan Anton BY JORDAN MAINZER Introducing a new side of yourself to the public often feels vulnerable, even when that introduction is mostly via covers of well-known songs. For drummer Bosh...

Cass McCombs BY JORDAN MAINZER One's a playful singer-songwriter and the other's a certain Deadhead, but on their tour, Cass McCombs and Danny Arakaki have switched places. On Saturday at Lincoln...

Carlos Niño BY JORDAN MAINZER When I first listen to a Carlos Niño & Friends record, I dive right in without reading too much about it. The sounds seem endless, a spectrum from the human voice to...

Photo by Silvia Grav BY JORDAN MAINZER For almost 25 years, NYC-via-California singer-songwriter Cass McCombs has shared gentle, sparse, impressionistic songs and albums that combine Dylan-esque...

Michael Shannon and Jason Narducy and Friends BY JORDAN MAINZER When actor Michael Shannon and prolific local hero/musician Jason Narducy teamed up to play R.E.M.'s classic debut Murmur in full at.....

Photo by Kaylene Widdoes BY JORDAN MAINZER The benefits of leaving a smothering situation might not be immediately apparent, but they're almost always fruitful. Twin siblings Mercedes and Phoenix...

Cut Worms BY JORDAN MAINZER These days, Max Clarke explores the elusive. The Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter, who records as Cut Worms, has made a name for himself writing classic-sounding rock and...

Photo by Danny Clinch BY JORDAN MAINZER Adam Weiner, the founder and sole constant member of the project Low Cut Connie, operates with steadfast principles. From his continually self-released music,...

Photo courtesy of the artist BY JORDAN MAINZER Let's get this out of the way: Welsh band The Joy Formidable, whose drummer Matt Thomas left the band a couple years ago, haven't broken up. They...

Photo by Kate LaMendola BY JORDAN MAINZER When I called Langhorne Slim a couple weeks ago, he picked up from a Hilton Hotel in Carrboro, North Carolina, having left for tour from his home in...

(Transgressive) BY JORDAN MAINZER "Life is a part of love," sang Beverly Glenn-Copeland on "Prince Caspian's Dream", a track from 2023 album The Ones Ahead. That album represented the culmination of...

Jana Horn BY JORDAN MAINZER Normally, I don't give too much attention to capitalization choices in song titles, but that the tunes on Jana Horn's self-titled album (No Quarter) are in sentence case....

Photo by Robin Christian BY JORDAN MAINZER "There's always things to write about if you move around enough," Lande Hekt said to me last month. She was speaking over Zoom from a cold, breezy...

SPRINTS BY JORDAN MAINZER There was a moment during SPRINTS' set on Thursday at Lincoln Hall where it was clear to me that the Dublin punk quartet had leveled up. It wasn't a particularly showy...

Friendship BY JORDAN MAINZER The bill tomorrow night at the Empty Bottle presents two different sonic manifestations of interpretational music, observations colored by the subconscious mind....

Brigitte Calls Me Baby frontman Wes Leavins BY JORDAN MAINZER In the middle of presenting songs from Brigitte Calls Me Baby's upcoming sophomore album Irreversible (ATO), frontman Wes Leavins...

Photo by Declan Levitt BY JORDAN MAINZER Stéphane Schück's life so far has been chock full of coincidences. How many full-time physicians do you know, who are also power pop aficionados, who...

BY JORDAN MAINZER During our first year of full-blown fascism, music--and art in general--proved to be more important than ever, as the form of expression with the purest intentions around which to.....

Bonner Kramer BY JORDAN MAINZER Tomorrow, prolific avant-garde legend Bonner Kramer caps off a busy 2025 with …and the crimson moon whispers goodbye (Shimmy-Disc), his first solo album since 2020's....