Osmosis Tones

By Eleni Haberis “When you gone switch the flow?” “I thought you'd never ask.” If you know of rapper DaBaby, you've definitely thought this to yourself. But if you go through and listen to DaBaby, you know that he's said these exact words, and then immediately ignored them. And honestly, Jonathan Kirk’s combo of a playful, “fuck-you-I-wont-do-what-you-tell-me” attitude and energetic flow made us fall in love with him. But how long can one charismatic trick hold up? With his newest album BLAME IT ON BABY (his third album in less than two years), maybe we need more than just the flow to switch. DaBaby shot up to fame in the last year and a half with the help of his huge personality, and of course his signature (but repetitive) flow. People seemed to really like that he was energetic and fresh; he just wanted to let you know that he, his friends, his jewelry, and his fame were all on the come up. And that they were having a really good time doing it. He was

By Greg Wiacek Alright, let’s address the elephant in the room: as of the time of this writing, Fetch The Bolt Cutters, the fifth record from singer/songwriter Fiona Apple, holds a perfect 100 on Metacritic , averaged from 21 different high-profile reviews. A certain music blog , who awarded this album its first perfect rating in nearly an entire decade, concluded that “no music has ever sounded like [this album].” The quote comes off just a bit hyperbolic, given that the roots of this album largely carry over from Fiona’s (excellent) previous album from eight years ago, The Idler Wheel... (that’s all of that title I’m typing out, damn it!). The primary difference, however, is that this album has an additional injection of inspiration from the production styles of Kate Bush’s The Dreaming (whom she brilliantly references later in the album) and Tom Waits’ Bone Machine . Now, is this album perfect and going to change your life? No, I don’t personally think so - nor do I

By Luke Robinson In the latter half of the 2010s, hip hop trio Griselda proved once again that boom bap is not dead. Yes, old heads need to move on from 1994 and realize there are amazing new hip hop movements and artists - I’d take J.I.D. or Denzel over LL Cool J any day. But Griselda has played it differently than your typical boom bap group: they have escaped the bombard-with-lyrics format in favor of incredibly gritty and cold coke-raps, more akin to Clipse than Army of the Pharaohs.  Griselda are also serious about this shit. All three MCs - Benny the Butcher, Conway the Machine, and Westside Gunn - have collectively served many years behind bars, having lived the life of needing to push drugs in order to survive. Taking these stories, the trio helped carry the torch for a new era of production in the underground. Gone now are the heavily quantized drums and stale jazz samples of the 90’s, replaced with percussion that is minimal if not absent, and sounds as experimental

Homestar Runner , the world's greatest Flash-animated web series, recently released the  Homestar Runner Original Soundtrack , containing 20 years of tunes from the site. Here, Zach commemorates the music, from its context as pastiche to its quality as bedroom pop.

By Tommy Delone This past New Year’s Eve, as The Strokes held a show in Brooklyn, frontman Julian Casablancas had something to say. “Yeah, we’ve got a new album coming out soon. 2020, here we come. The 2010s, whatever the fuck they’re called, we took ‘em off. And now we’ve been unfrozen and we’re back.” It’s been a long 7 years since their last studio album, Comedown Machine , and fans (mostly just me) were beginning to question if we’d see another album from the “modern rock” pioneers. The Strokes have always fought the status quo and made the music that they’ve wanted to make. Throughout their career and their musical growth, they have always tried to make their music innovative, while also paying tribute to their influences as much as possible. The New Abnormal , is an almost perfect representation of that.  Every song on The New Abnormal is a tribute to many of the great alternative bands of the 80s, but doesn’t go as far to not interfere with The Strokes individuality. Wh

By Zach Zollo Depressedelica is haunted: by ghosts of childhood, by phantoms of relationships past, by demons in disguise - really, anything that goes bump in the night.  Originally slated for an October 2019 release, depressedelica was put on hold after Mathew Lee Cothran sought treatment for bipolar disorder, depression and alcoholism with the support of his label. After nearly six months of musical purgatory, the album was "surprise!" released this past Friday, along with the welcomed announcement that Cothran is on a stable path down the road of recovery (Mat, if you're reading, we love you and we're proud of you). But while the man has begun to find peace, the music echoes conflict and uncertainty, in both finality and identity.  According to their Bandcamp , depressedelica is presumably the final album for Cothran under the elvis depressedly moniker. It's surprising, then, that this album feels misplaced along prior releases under the name. Mus

By Zach Zollo

Photo credited to Jason McDonald Let Me Reminisce Over You  is an ongoing feature written by Tommy Delone, where he examines the music of his most formative artists. Here, to correspond with the release of their 6th studio album,  The New Abnormal , Tommy dissects the notion of the Strokes being the saviors of rock and roll.

By Zach Zollo Another month, another look back at the best albums released. Featured in this post are albums we did not formally review. Here, you can read our reviews for Eternal Atake , YHLQMDLG , Healer , and Heavy Light , as well as other great records in our feature Let’s Ketchup . Now onto this month's gems.

By Kenny Cox Internet legend tells us at the dawn of each new decade emerges the pop superstar that is poised to reign over music for years to come. The end of the 90’s saw Britney ascend to the top of the charts, as did Lady Gaga towards the latter half of the 2000’s. So who is the torch being passed to for this new decade. While multiple artists seemed like obvious choices, one singer in particular made a case for a surprise addition to the race — Dua Lipa. Since the release of her 2018 single “One Kiss” with Calvin Harris, Dua has carved out a space for extravagant, high-energy dance tracks in a pop landscape seemingly defined by minimalism and misery. And with her second LP, Future Nostalgia , Dua may have just dashed across the finish line in the race to be 2020’s defining pop act. Pivoting from the seemingly radio-engineered tropical house and Forever 21-core pop of her debut record, Future Nostalgia pulls from the 70’s and 80’s to make an irresistible, exhilarating

Presenting "I've Made This For You," an ongoing feature where one of our staff curates a playlist for another. Here, Zach continues his quest to break Luke's psyche with a haphazard mix of genres, from film scores to the Red Hot Chili Peppers.