FLOOD

FLOOD is a new, influential voice that spans the diverse cultural landscape of music, film, television, art, travel, and everything in between.
A.D. Amorosi
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Reviews
Alison Goldfrapp, “The Love Invention”

The Goldfrapp vocalist is bound for the dancefloor on her debut solo outing.

May 31, 2023
Reviews
Tinariwen, “Amatssou”

On their ninth album, the Malian outfit moves further through their exploratory desert-blues aesthetic by interlocking their groove with the sounds of American country music.

May 24, 2023
First ListenIn Conversation
Dexys Look to the Inherent Power of Femininity on the Title Track From New LP “The Feminine Divine”

We spoke with Kevin Rowland about the iconic new wave outfit’s first album of original material in over a decade, arriving July 28 via 100% Records.

May 17, 2023
Reviews
Soft Cell, “Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret… And Other Stories: Live”

Capturing Marc Almond and David Ball’s recent reunion tour celebrating 40 years of their debut disc, the pop icons span the distance from the dark electro of their origins to their more recent socially aware songwriting.

May 15, 2023
Reviews
The Lemon Twigs, “Everything Harmony”

With their fourth LP, the D’Addario brothers have moved the needle from the hammy, theatrical rock-outs of their past to something more earnest and plainly emotional.

May 11, 2023
Reviews
The White Stripes, “Elephant” [Deluxe]

To celebrate its 20-year anniversary, this reissue package includes a 27-song live set from 2003—as well as the remastered sounds of a scabby record that all but blew out your CD player.

April 26, 2023
Reviews
Everything But the Girl, “Fuse”

On their first record in 24 years, Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt balance the bedsit-melancholic intimacy of their earliest character studies with the chill club music of their later work.

April 21, 2023
FLOOD’s Guide to Record Store Day 2023: David Byrne, Stevie Nicks, Blur, Arooj Aftab, and More

34 titles to keep an eye out for at the first post-pandemic slam dance.

April 21, 2023
In Conversation
Rodrigo Amarante’s Fantastic LA

Ahead of his performance at Walt Disney Concert Hall this weekend, the Brazilian-born musician talks returning to his longtime home of Los Angeles.

April 20, 2023
Reviews
David Bowie, “Aladdin Sane” [50th Anniversary Half Speed Master]

Already clarion-clearly produced for (mostly) ship-in-a-bottle precision, the 2023 reissue’s sound is bracing nearly to a fault, with what was rushed in its original release subtly made right.

April 11, 2023
Reviews
Thomas Bangalter, “Mythologies”

The Daft Punk member’s orchestral debut saws and soars its way into a nearly nirvana-like state.

April 06, 2023
Reviews
A Certain Ratio, “1982”

On their latest full-length, the Manchester funk-punk group reinvent their skeletal dance-floor groove to concoct something sunshiny and frisky without denying their aggro past.

April 04, 2023
Reviews
Van Der Graaf Generator, “The Bath Forum”

This four-album set collects some of the most ferocious career-spanning moments from the art-prog act recorded at a live session in London.

April 03, 2023
Reviews
Pink Floyd, “The Dark Side of the Moon” + “Live at Wembley Empire Pool, London, 1974”

The now-50-year-old iconic LP—and its rarely heard Wembley live show recording—represents progressive rock at its most endearing, embraceable, and enduring.

March 29, 2023
Reviews
JPEGMAFIA & Danny Brown, “Scaring the Hoes”

The radically caffeinated and overheated emcees’ new duet album achieves a cohesion that could only be described as alchemical magic.

March 28, 2023
Reviews
Lana Del Rey, “Did you know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd”

Shame, sex, death, and family all wriggle through Del Rey’s new album as if pouring mercury through a sieve, with Jack Antonoff’s light orchestration designed to make it all go down easy.

March 27, 2023
Film + TV
“The Upsetter” Is a Full-Circle Portrait of Lee “Scratch” Perry

Adam Bhala Lough and Ethan Higbee’s 2009 documentary on the producer and toaster is now streaming on Criterion Channel, and available physically through Factory 25 and Vinegar Syndrome.

March 22, 2023
Reviews
Depeche Mode, “Memento Mori”

The sonic sparseness of the band’s fifteenth album—and first since the passing of co-founder Andrew Fletcher—is a welcome retreat from their more conventional forays into universality over the past decade.

March 22, 2023
Reviews
U2, “Songs of Surrender”

This massive collection of re-recorded hits offers genuine surprises as to how the band sees themselves and their material, making for their best new old album in some time.

March 17, 2023
Film + TVIn Conversation
Music Supervisor Frankie Pine on Making “Daisy Jones & the Six” Rock

Pine talks transforming the fictional group into a real band of sorts, and choosing aptly emotional ’70s-centric needle drops for the series’ Fleetwood Mac–ish drama.

March 17, 2023
Reviews
De La Soul, “3 Feet High and Rising”

The Long Island–based trio’s Möbius-stripped voices in tandem with Prince Paul’s seamless sampling are what make their 1989 debut one of hip-hop’s foremost GOAT contenders.

March 13, 2023
Reviews
Miley Cyrus, “Endless Summer Vacation”

Dedicated to her gauzy Los Angeles’s sunny days and noir-ish nights, Miley’s eighth LP is her most consistent, evenly handed record to date.

March 10, 2023
Reviews
Burt Bacharach & Elvis Costello, “The Songs of Bacharach & Costello”

In addition to live recordings and rarities, this two-vinyl, four-CD package features a remastered version of the pair’s 1998 collaboration Painted by Memory that will break your heart with each spin.

March 06, 2023
First Listen
Money Mark Turns Imaad Wasif’s “So Long Mr. Fear” on Its Head with New Remix

Retitled “Mr. Fear, So Long,” the collaborative rework reanimates the single with “alien funk.”

March 06, 2023
In Conversation
A Tale of Ten City: Marshall Jefferson and Byron Stingily on the Past and Present of “Love Is Love”

The iconic Chicago house duo discuss their trajectory from their early major-label releases in the late-’80s to the two records they’ve crafted since reforming in 2021.

March 03, 2023
Reviews
John Fizer, “Treasure Man”

The Berkeley troubadour’s once-lost 1977 solo disc is full of weary songs both beautifully plainspoken and warmly character-driven.

February 27, 2023
Reviews
Gorillaz, “Cracker Island”

Damon Albarn dampens some of the project’s kinkier oddities in favor of symmetry and sleekness on his latest star-studded recording.

February 24, 2023

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Milan Records Is Continuing to Shape Itself Around Ryuichi Sakamoto

Label head JC Chamboredon discusses the profound impact the composer and electronic music legend has had on the label his father founded in 1978.

February 24, 2023
New Vinyl Ideas: Numero Group on 20 Years of Giving Us the Unexpected

The archival label’s founders discuss the long road to this weekend’s anniversary festivities in LA, with Codeine, Unwound, Karate, and more set to take the stage at the Palace Theater.

February 16, 2023
Reviews
The Go! Team, “Get Up Sequences Part 2”

The loud, bass-bin rattles of the sequel to their 2021 LP sound like a party among old friends and new, mixing cutting-edge noise-rock R&B with old-school shoegaze and synth pop.

February 15, 2023
Reviews
Bob Dylan, “The Bootleg Series Vol. 17: Fragments – Time Out of Mind Sessions: 1996-1997”

On the series’ 17th installment, listeners are transported to the sound of desire, a Dylan reconnecting and reconnoitering with a curt and surly muse.

January 31, 2023
Reviews
Bass Drum of Death, “Say I Won’t”

The Mississippi garage rockers move past lo-fi toward a more soulful and power-chord heavy sound on their Patrick Carney–produced fifth album.

January 30, 2023
Reviews
Lil Yachty, “Let’s Start Here.”

The Atlanta rapper has taken up the mantle of prog-psychedelic, live-band hip-hop, and the results are as outwardly wily and avant-garde as they are insular and introspective.

January 27, 2023
Reviews
MIKE, “Beware of the Monkey”

Like a short story writer moving into the novel’s narrative form, the East Coast rapper has figured out how to expand his dreamy sensibilities without losing his intimate sleepy qualities.

January 24, 2023
Reviews
Måneskin, “Rush!”

The Italian rockers’ third effort is the slick, chic, and over-stuffed meal in which to portray their fullest flavors.

January 23, 2023
Reviews
†††, “PERMANENT.RADIANT”

The first EP from Deftones’ Chino Moreno and Far’s Shaun Lopez in nearly a decade never ceases to thrill, even in its quietest measures.

January 20, 2023
Reviews
Man or Astro-Man?, “Distant Pulsar”

On their second bite-size studio release since 2013, the space-age surf punks are angrier and more propulsive-sounding than in their past, and with that, more bluntly direct in their execution.

January 19, 2023
Reviews
Cheap Trick, “Live at the Whisky 1977”

This live box set showcases newly made medleys that result in razor-sharp glam-rock cuts with complex melodic curveballs, crushing metal-pop guitar work, and the chemistry of a close-knit, veteran bar band.

January 10, 2023
Art & CultureIn Conversation
Kid Congo Powers Tells His Truth in New Memoir “Some New Kind of Kick”

The guitarist/vocalist with two new albums examines his time with Nick Cave’s Bad Seeds, The Gun Club, and The Cramps.

January 09, 2023
Staff Picks
The Best Reissues of 2022

20 collections that defy the streaming age.

December 29, 2022
Film + TVReviews
Todd Haynes’ “The Velvet Underground” Is a Love Letter to a Scene, Not Just a Sound

Padded with interviews and commentary, the real draw of Criterion’s 4K digital master is the inclusion of full versions of the avant-garde films excerpted in the doc.

December 19, 2022
The Roots’ Captain Kirk Douglas Goes Boldly Into the “New Unknown”

The guitarist discusses the therapeutic jams of his sophomore solo LP under the outlet Hundred Watt Heart.

December 06, 2022
FLOOD’s Guide to Record Store Day Black Friday 2022: David Bowie, The Weeknd, Alex G, RZA, Nico, and More

30 titles to keep an eye out for at this Friday’s annual post-turkey crate dig.

November 23, 2022
Reviews
Alice Coltrane, “Ptah, the El Daoud” [Reissue]

Beyond its golden coloring reflecting Coltrane’s sunburst spirituality, this reissue highlights the intertwined holy path shared with her late husband conveyed in the cosmic music she crafted in his wake.

November 22, 2022
Reviews
GloRilla, “Anyways, Life’s Great…”

This no-fat, all-funk debut EP is like a hard, wet kiss planted unexpectedly on your lips.

November 18, 2022
Reviews
Guns n’ Roses, “Use Your Illusion” (Super Deluxe)

The twin neo-metal LPs incorporating bits of blues, country, punk, and classical into their tunes finally arrive together in one large package with three times the bombast.

November 17, 2022
Reviews
The Human League, “The Virgin Years”

This 5-LP collection spanning 1981 to 1990 shows that the Sheffield group were way ahead of the curve when it came to the innovations made in the name of future-looking synth-pop.

November 10, 2022
Reviews
NEU!, “50!”

Mogwai, Man Man, IDLES, and The National are among the artists contributing chilly, distant remixes as part of this historical, 46-song overview of the krautrock duo’s original albums.

November 08, 2022
Reviews
Show Me the Body, “Trouble the Water”

It’s the vocal textures and potent poli-sci lyricism that move all the needles on the NYC hardcore innovators’ third and most maximal album.

November 07, 2022
Reviews
The Beatles, “Revolver” [Super Deluxe]

Capturing the mesmeric vibe and stretched compositional prowess of The Beatles and George Martin circa 1966, this lavish heavy vinyl kit meets the new expectations set by the epic Get Back.

November 03, 2022
Reviews
Jon Brion, “Meaningless” [Reissue]

Re-released 21 years after its debut, the producer and composer’s power-pop turn is a decorous affair with a personal and personable backstory.

November 02, 2022
Reviews
Brian Eno, “FOREVERANDEVERNOMORE”

His first solo album of vocal-based song since 2005 is mostly oddly beautiful and vaguely over-obvious in the lyric department, the latter strange for an Eno effort.

November 01, 2022
Film + TVReviews
The Sound and Vision of David Lynch’s “Lost Highway”

With Criterion Collection’s new 4K HD digital restoration out now, we revisit the industrialist nightmare of the 21st-century noir horror film.

October 31, 2022
Reviews
Todd Rundgren, “Space Force”

Confusing expectations again, Rundgren’s latest seems to outstretch its long arms to accommodate guests rather than interacting in a duet setting.

October 31, 2022
Reviews
Various Artists, “Here It Is: A Tribute to Leonard Cohen”

Producer Larry Klein welcomes an elastic jazz ensemble to manipulate the subtle majesty of Cohen’s music for a murderer’s row of vocalists on a varied, often less-than-obvious selection of tracks.

October 27, 2022
Reviews
Charles Mingus, “A Modern Jazz Symposium of Music and Poetry” [Reissue]

On this lost 1957 classic, the rarity of Mingus compositions for sextet fly to the fore in vividly colorful and aptly tuned dedication to friends and fellow masters.

October 26, 2022
Reviews
Nick Hakim, “Cometa”

The psychedelic R&B of the DC songwriter’s clattering new album rings out righteously in the name of refreshed contentment and love lived to its fullest.

October 25, 2022
Reviews
Dawn Richard & Spencer Zahn, “Pigments”

The debut collaboration between the two experimentalists courses through one’s evolution of self-expression while pursuing the tenderness of community.

October 24, 2022
Reviews
Red Hot Chili Peppers, “Return of the Dream Canteen”

Languid, jamming, and psychedelic, the group’s second LP of 2022 is more elastic than its immediate predecessor, and more spacious than anything since Californification.

October 13, 2022
Reviews
Joe Strummer, “002: The Mescaleros Years”

This multi-disc collection serves to remind us that Strummer was never looking to re-make The Clash, but rather to confound the expectations of his audience and expand his own horizons.

October 06, 2022
Reviews
Yungblud, “Yungblud”

Removing the classicism, glam-goth density, and commitment to bleeding-heart Brit-punk of previous recordings leaves nothing behind on the songwriter’s third LP.

October 04, 2022
Reviews
OFF!, “Free LSD”

Keith Morris’ latest hardcore-punk outlet expands outward from their rough, fast exterior without losing their fury or favor in hardcore branding.

October 03, 2022
Reviews
Björk, “Fossora”

The Icelandic songwriter, producer, and vocalist’s first album in five years sees her pulling up her own roots, replanting them, and cajoling them to blossom colorfully anew.

September 30, 2022
Reviews
Lou Reed, “Words & Music, May 1965”

Folksy, harmonic, and earnest in a way that Reed’s often-salacious songs could never be, this archival leap into memory lane is charming, scattered, sketchy, and even funny at times.

September 27, 2022
Reviews
Alex G, “God Save the Animals”

Alex Giannascoli’s latest has a density to its proceedings that his previous albums lack—all while maintaining the quirk and intimacy of the bedsit recording proposition of his project’s origin.

September 26, 2022
Reviews
Sudan Archives, “Natural Brown Prom Queen”

Brittney Parks finds more of her own soulful way with a richer sense of storytelling, focused songcraft, and studies of racial divides on her second LP.

September 13, 2022
Reviews
Lee “Scratch” Perry, “King Scratch (Musical Masterpieces from the Upsetter Ark-ive)”

This handsomely illustrated boxset is a commendable attempt at stuffing the story of the legendary producer and toaster into one collection.

September 12, 2022
Reviews
Santigold, “Spirituals”

The producer and vocalist’s fourth full-length is a haunting and deeply personal work without eschewing her usual radically manic aesthetics.

September 09, 2022
Mimi Roman Has a Rockabilly Heart, a Tin Pan Alley Soul, and Many Stories to Tell

Upon the release of two archival collections—First of the Brooklyn Cowgirls and Pussycat—the ’50s-era figure walks us through the many fortunate turns her music career took.

September 02, 2022
In Conversation
Blondie’s Clem Burke on Keeping the Beat for “Against the Odds”

The drummer discusses growing with the band over the past five decades, as well as their epic new eight-LP box set.

August 29, 2022
Reviews
Diamanda Galás, “Broken Gargoyles”

Still a pillar of the avant-garde in 2022, Galás has neither mellowed or pulled back when it comes to rage on the two extended tracks that fill her latest LP.

August 25, 2022
Reviews
Pantha du Prince, “Garden Gaia”

The improvisation and collaboration on Hendrik Weber’s latest LP vibes with Gaia’s role as an ancestral mother to all that is life in Greek mythology.

August 24, 2022
Reviews
Neil Young + Promise of the Real, “Noise & Flowers”

This live recording of a set from 2019 further proves that any musical team that could bring vintage Young into the present without watering down its tenderness or poetry is heroic.

August 22, 2022
Reviews
​​Danger Mouse & Black Thought, “Cheat Codes”

This collaborative LP places producer Danger Mouse’s lush, tense arrangements and cushiony, snapping beats in the service of The Roots’ lyricist and microphone expert.

August 16, 2022
Reviews
Beastie Boys, “Check Your Head” [30th Anniversary Edition]

The Beasties clean up nice on this reissue of the album that introduced their dirtball brand of insistently stewing lo-fi mixed-bag skronk.

August 15, 2022
Reviews
Melvin Van Peebles, “Watermelon Man” [Reissue]

The 1970 film’s OST is one long, funky collage moving jarringly from blues, jazz, honky-tonk, ragtime, rock, country, and R&B without distinction between the lines.

August 09, 2022

Beyonce Reveals the Cover Art to Seventh Studio Album Renaissance;

Credit: Beyoncé/Instagram;

https://www.instagram.com/p/Cfb3ddsFe2S/

Reviews
Beyoncé, “Renaissance”

Bey’s seventh solo album is about abandon and joy, something celebratory that hasn’t been in her music since 2006’s B’Day.

July 29, 2022
Reviews
of Montreal, “Freewave Lucifer fck”

Kevin Barnes remains an always-unexpected delight with hints of madness, the morose, and zealous merriment in the air on their latest experiment.

July 28, 2022
Reviews
She & Him, “Melt Away: A Tribute to Brian Wilson”

Trafficking in sloe-ginned-up melancholy and soft shoe-shuffling pacing, this collection of covers sees the duo at weird ease interpreting Wilson’s catalog.

July 26, 2022
The Converging Lines and Voices of “Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song”

Journalist Larry Sloman and vocalist Sharon Robinson dig deeper into their relationship with the song at the heart of the new documentary feature from Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine.

July 20, 2022
Reviews
Neil Young with Crazy Horse, “Toast”

On this previously unreleased collection recorded in 2001, Young and the Horse do nuance and near silence with the same raging emotion they do noise and propelled rhythm.

July 08, 2022
Reviews
Moor Mother, “Jazz Codes”

Camae Ayewa has created a melodic tone poem with stunning clarity, calm, tuneful choruses, and lustrous complexity on her new album.

July 07, 2022
Reviews
Wire, “Not About to Die”

For Wire fanatics, this often-coarse collection of Chairs Missing/154-era demos is a necessity.

June 23, 2022
Reviews
Grandmaster Flash, Melle Mel & The Furious Five, “Sugarhill Adventures – The Collection”

On the extended mixes that fill the box set, one could argue that the stutter and stretch of Grandmaster Flash at his finest is like listening to Miles Davis transition out of post-bop and into the roar of fusion funk.

June 22, 2022
Reviews
Prince and the Revolution, “Live”

This show and its material have long been part of the public ledger, but never with such stunning clarity—you can almost feel Prince’s crushed velvet duster breezing by you from the stage.

June 21, 2022

photo by Prestin Groff

FLOOD’s Guide to Record Store Day 2022 Part 2: Prince, Wilco, Kali Uchis, and More

15 titles to keep an eye out for at your local indie record shop this Saturday.

June 17, 2022
Reviews
Perfume Genius, “Ugly Season”

The sonic vibe of Mike Hadreas’ latest is an extension of the experimentalism of Set My Heart on Fire Immediately and its earthen elements of chamber art-pop, wonky R&B, spindly goth-industrial, and ever-so-decadent disco.

June 16, 2022
Reviews
S.G. Goodman, “Teeth Marks”

The Kentucky-based songwriter’s sophomore LP basks in Southern glow with just a little more lean toward ennui and existential dilemma than the scarred specifics of her debut.

June 13, 2022

‘SEX PISTOLS: THE ORIGINAL RECORDINGS’ – 20 tracks from the world’s most controversial band. RELEASE DATE: May 27th on UMe

Reviews
Sex Pistols, “The Original Recordings”

There’s a reedy feeling on these B-sides, covers, and primal versions of familiar attacks on aristocracy that highlight Johnny Rotten’s role as the last great rebellious frontman.

June 01, 2022
In Conversation
Victory of Dälek: Industrial Hip-Hop Still Reigns Supreme on “Precipice”

Will Brooks—a.k.a. MC Dälek—talks the past and future of his longstanding rap project and the shadow and shade of their latest LP.

May 26, 2022
In Conversation
Brian Jackson on Re-Introducing Himself with “This Is Brian Jackson”

The legendary keyboardist, composer, and collaborator to Gil Scott-Heron strikes out on his own for the first time in a minute.

May 25, 2022
Reviews
The Clash, “Combat Rock” / “The People’s Hall” [Special Edition]

This essential reissue ties together most of what the group recorded in studio and demo sessions after the “Radio Clash” 12-inch—plus their collaboration with late toaster Ranking Roger on a separate EP.

May 24, 2022
Reviews
Harry Styles, “Harry’s House”

On his latest solo venture, Styles smooths out the influences so prevalent on Fine Line in order to make a brassy and clingingly contagious new album.

May 23, 2022
Reviews
Bryan Ferry, “Love Letters”

Roxy Music’s lounge-lizard crooner interprets a handful of classic pop songs across the decades without concern for genre or an era’s agenda.

May 20, 2022
Reviews
The Rolling Stones, “El Mocambo 1977” + “Licked Live in NYC”

These two live collections are exceptional examples of the Stones at their grungy, brassy, ballsy finest—and sharp, sad reminders of what it truly means to have lost drummer Charlie Watts.

May 19, 2022
Reviews
Norah Jones, “Come Away with Me” [20th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition]

The full-bodied anniversary collection paints a wilder portrait of Jones’ debut, displaying a surprising angularity and nervous energy.

May 17, 2022
Reviews
Black Star, “No Fear of Time”

Over 20 years since their sole album together, the latest from Yasiin Bey and Talib Kweli never reaches the skies of their debut, or the full flower of the talents of anyone involved.

May 16, 2022

Nick Cave and Warren Ellis photographed by Charlie Gray.

Film + TV
Andrew Dominik Profiles a Healing Nick Cave in “This Much I Know to Be True”

The New Zealand–born filmmaker’s new concert film hits theaters tomorrow.

May 10, 2022
Film + TV
Music Supervisor Gabe Hilfer on Overseeing the Funky Sounds of “Winning Time”

In the final quarter of the first season of HBO’s sporting dramedy, we look at one of its central players.

April 28, 2022