FLOOD

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

20 collections that defy the streaming age.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

These three all-rarities packages from the Birmingham sonic-collage duo create a cinematic experience from refurbished unused material.

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

Compiling and curating rarities, and putting them next to newly remastered, raw-knuckled classics, this box set takes the form of something frank and fresh rather than merely ruminative. 

The “outlaw cowboy” brings to his game the opulence of a big label with an explosive, evocative production tone crossing Spaghetti Western plains and a mountain range’s open skies.

In contrast with his most incisive work with The White Stripes and The Raconteurs, the first of White’s two planned solo albums in 2022 feels based on the ideas of a man who’s lost without equity and union.

Josh Tillman’s latest release is a record so layered, lush, calming, and dulcet that you hardly notice its frequent aimlessness.

Hunter and his Six are unafraid of dashing their smooth soul with the good grit of the blues and a live-in-studio recording vibe.

This collection of previously unreleased Fillmore East showcases and bonus tracks is the wired, weird epic you didn’t know you needed.

This collection of instrumental-only recordings from the band’s final decade together sounds freer than anything in their avant-punk and post-no-wave past.

The job of this freshly remodeled package is to heighten the stellar, grungy-but-clean studio mix given to the original sessions by Tony Clark and Alan Parsons.

RZA pens a rapier-fast love letter to his heart’s obsession while giving Scratch space to run his jazz.

The Doors guitarist discusses his new autobiography, his band’s Hollywood Bowl concert film, the 50th anniversary of their last studio album with Jim Morrison, and life in “fantastic LA.”

Glasper’s most vocal excursion to date features so many voices that there’s hardly room for his bracing instrumental work.

Origin Story captures the raucous fun of two kids feeling their way through their guitars and their words while guessing at their silly talents to come.

Dogg’s 808s & Heartbreak–inspired soul is characterized by steeliness, a live-band feel, and the past’s traditions of oversexed bravura.

On her first album in a decade, Mitchell lets the delights of vocal harmony and opulent melody with a raw, silken edge shine through.

Mark Oliver Everett is, as always, glad to be unhappy with this spare and soul-strewn 14th LP.

These two volumes of early-’70s gospel recordings capture a moment that was fresh and funky for young churchgoing crowds in the South.

Listening in on the pair who’ve made the freakiest soundtrack on television with ’90s indie-rock touches.

The late, legendary stand-up comic and actor with a flair for all things blue, had a thing for music.

So much of the record is of a sneery, stabby nature and blunter than Costello’s more sophisticated recent songcraft.

10 LP packages that kept our eyes and ears busy over the past year.

Bored Ape Yacht Club #9797—a.k.a. Jimbo—on becoming the first NFT to make and release its own music video with the electro-shock-trap-hop of “Delist your ape (2DaMoon).”

The Brooklyn collective have never sounded more sure-footed and effortlessly melodic than they do with this gathering of friends.

Both recent live albums see the songwriter reinventing his and others’ songs with care, invention, and consideration.

Kim Gordon and Bill Nace continue along their improvised music path with the help of fellow avant-garde journeyperson Aaron Dilloway.

Bowie collaborator Mark Plati details the new box set “Brilliant Adventure,” which includes the long-lost LP “Toy” recorded in 2000 among other curios from the preceding decade.

On the pair’s first full-album collaboration, spaced-out ambience and abstract linguistics come together for something unique, brutal, and beautiful.

With Adele contributing “30” to the canon, here are a dozen other albums that poetically and coarsely tackle legal uncoupling.

Both new releases happily and uniquely go further into defining the myth and the magic of Brian Wilson.