Woodhouse Interviews

A pyromaniac haunts Points of Origin.John Leonard Orr, a serial arsonist who was also a fire investigator, shambles through Will Stratton's excellent new album as a wayward grim reaper. But fire itself does not haunt Points of Origin. How could it when it's the blazing heart of the album? From the former conman forecasting his propane-fueled death to the eon-spanning “Red Crossed Star,” which charts thousands of years of crimes and flames carving California, fire is all matter and all that matters. Stratton's story telling slots between the dirtbag ponderings of Warron Zevon and Hannah Frances' rot filled meditations. His characters are lively, flawed, always running from themselves and the flames that threaten to take everything they hold dear. Song by song Stratton's remarkable knack for crafting empathy grows deeper and deeper, ensuring we must see ourselves in these flailing and failing coots, and the fears that hold them.Points Of Origin by Will Stratton

“I'm a savage/I'm a sad bitch,”slurs Quinton Barnes. He's more the former than the latter on CODE NOIR. The Canadian rapper blends R&B, hip-hop, house, hyperpop, and anything else that would inject his beats with color and panache. There are moments of vulnerability, but Barnes is mostly here to celebrate and giggle. We talked to him below.

Supplication offers a path.Christianity, heteronormativity, they promise a program. Follow us, do not question, and you will be rewarded. What happens when you stray?That's a core question behind Baths. Will Wiesenfeld's electronic project has asked it again and again, especially on 2013's brilliant Obsidian. And the uncertainty has come roaring back on his newest Gut. Gut refers to Wiesenfeld's promise to act instinctually while crafting the album, allowing impulses to direct the music. And that's clear from the throbbing beat on “Eden” (which is about having sex with an angel) or the cheery vocals yelling “that's that!” after Wiesenfeld asserts that “carnal is a normal mode.” Wiesenfeld thrives in juxtapositions and situations that, at first, appear to be contradictions. Gut catalogues sex both as an annihilating, freedom giving act, destroying the anxieties of the body, but also views fucking as a normal, even inane. Wiesenfeld's exploration of queerness refuses any path, spiritually, physically, sexually. And we're all the better for it.

Ghosts litter Drinking Songs. The damned drowned, dying soldiers, innocents packed onto a train before it explodes; there's not a note on Drinking Songs that isn't haunted. Released 20 years ago this year, Drinking Songs marked a foundational shift in Matt Elliott's life. He abandoned his work in the drum & bass group Third Eye Foundation and found a different way to pedal dread. Elliott composed using a morass of phantom vocals, nylon guitar, off-kilter piano, wailing horns, and a pervasive sense of doom. His vision was a dour bar in some Eastern European barony, where the patrons haven't realized they're already dead. 20 years on, Elliott has returned to Drinking Songs with a live, recomposed version of the original tale, the specters of the damned as lively as they were two decades ago. We talked to him about the best drink to pair with the album, the death of innocence, and the false promise of futurism on The Woodhouse.

The voice is an instrument. The voice is the narrative. Flipping between at least four different languages, and darting across each others' vocal ranges, Catalan duo Tarta Relena offer a confounding, exhilarating version of vocal-focused music. Drawing from Gregorian chant, autotune forays, and Drum & Bass, their newest album És pregunta, could've been a total mess, but Helena Ros Redon and Marta Torrella i Martínez's strident voices serve as an awe-inspiring, unshakeable foundation. We talked to them below.

We open by discussing an Irish goodbye vs a French exit. The phraseology is different but the outcome is the same; “Leaving the Party Early.” The first song on Trust Fund's excellent Has it Been A While? and a perfect introduction to the introspection, paradoxes, and uncertainty all coming from a core human experience: terrified of being known, and knowing that's the only way to be loved. Trust Fund ringleader Ellis Jones' dexterous guitar work follows him through philosophical discussions entwined with urban decay and never ending construction. It's easy enough to agree with Nietzsche when your city is covered in scaffolding, the local housing authority swearing it'll be done soon. But just as many revelations come in small personal moments like a holiday shattered by grief (“In the Air”) or the contradiction duet of “The Mirror.” Has it Been A While? is Trust Fund's first album in 6 years, and its beauty and natural curiosity feel miraculous. We talked to Jones below.

Wrestler, rapper, world champion, pharmacist. Ahmed, With Love. might have the strangest resume of any MC alive. The Dublin-based rapper has joined a growing throng of Irish artist embracing a colorful, playful wave of hip-hop, influenced by ‘90s rap greats, but also a smattering mix of Brazilian beats, electronic silliness, and rave euphoria. We talked to him below.

Can you have a pleasant haunting? Sanje thinks so. “You can be Casper!” he says with a laugh. The lead single from his stunning debut, De Repente Otra Vez, is “Buen Fantasma,” the story of a long lost soul following those it once loved. But Sanje doesn't envision any Paranormal Activity shenanigans, instead, this phantom wants to dance, hug, and watch over those it was connected to. It's a lovely thought, paired with a slamming Cumbia beat and a triumphant trombone-lead hook. Plucking influences from the warmest, most analog days of progressive-rock, Salsa flirtations, and pure pop pleasures, Sanje has crafted an impossibly self-assured debut. We talked to him below.

It's autumn, and everything has changed. Band members come and go, songs mutate, the seasons shift. There's an acceptance, both in title and general mood, for Clasping Hands with the Moribund, another entry into the U.K.'s recent salvo of excellent folk-rock. And as these prog-infused songs suggest, acceptance through art is one of the few ways to survive meteoric changes. We talked to Lifter below.

Albums are not usually conversations. Or if they are, they're pretty one way. Not so for Scott Orr's Miracle Body, a deeply comforting slice of jazz, new age, and sophisti-pop that melds together into one of 2024's most welcoming records. With his fluttering falsetto Orr ushers us in, sits us down, and offers tea and conversation. We talked to him below.

Dumbasses, gimmick peddlers, conmen coned by their own bosses dot Famous Lunch. Chris Acker isn't depressed, he's just disappointed. And his sighing country tunes, tasteful pedal steel and all, just need a nap. From the surprisingly pretty letdown “Shit Surprise,” to the deeply confused self-reflection “Don't You Know (Who I Think I Am),” Acker uses a rouges gallery as a mirror, a warped perspective that's occasionally clarifying, often baffling. We talked to him below.

Singing at the edge of the world. Staring into the cold Atlantic, watching the waves crash all around, and seeing only the pale blue of the horizon must be sublime. And sublime in its original meaning, something that invokes awe with a touch of terror. There are few moments that remind humans of their smallness like staring into the void of the sea. Sangre de Muerdago aims to grasp that feeling with every release. Using a fusion of traditional instruments and folk-stories from their native Galicia, the band replicates the feeling of sailors from a past time, looking out into the infinite expanse, humbled. Sangre de Muerdago's newest, A Ilusão da Quietude, is a momentous effort, something that appears like an archeological artifact, fully formed from a world we barely know. We talked to Pablo from the group below.

Is “crushing joy” a thing? That's the only way I can describe And So I Watch You From Afar and, especially, their newest album Megafauna. There are few bands as loud as the Belfast boys, but the chords that fall down like an Everest avalanche are all major, the electrifying guitar lines soar and crunch with equal ferocity. Megafauna is getting punched in the face and smiling. But that's what ASIWYFA have done their entire careers. What this record truly does is balance the difference between their moments of miraculous joy and all out brawls. Two part rager “Mother Belfast” is as seismic as anything they've ever done, but comes right before “Years Ago,” a nostalgic ode to every bar the band's ever played, which sounds like a beer soaked lullaby. That's the duality of the world's best rock band. We interviewed Rory from the band here on the Woodhouse.

“I wondered lonely as a cloud.” Emphasis on lonely. Troubadour, vagabond, carpenter, folk-singer Peter Oren broke out in 2017 with his mythological heavy Anthropocene, with themes as crushing as his rumbling bass-baritone voice. Seven years on, Cloud Song finds him wrangling with both physical troubles and existential dread. In his view, the old Wordsworth poem can be played as an individual briefly drifting through life, untethered, for better and worse, from the earth. Beautiful and pensive, Oren's Cloud Song lingers long after the first listen. We talked with him below.

And So I Watch You From Afar are as joyous as their name is ridiculous. Like an energy drink being shoved into your soul. Like the world's happiest mosh-pit. Like punching god in the face after climbing Mt. Everest. The ebullient drubbing produced by ASIWYFA has no musical comparison, just impossible physical feats that barely glimpse the improbability of this color-strewn noise. Math-rock, post-rock, the labels don't really matter. What the Belfast quartet has always done is extolled the brilliance of heavy music. Heavy music, albeit, with gratuitous major chords, chain-gang vocals and playfulness encoded in its very DNA. And this sort of inspiring insanity is exactly what landed them here. Two of their albums, 2013's All Hail Bright Futures and 2017's The Endless Shimmering made the list, along with Heirs cut “Animal Ghosts.” Read our blurbs below, listen to our interview with ASIWYFA founder Rory Friers and hear why we think they're the best of the 10s. “I'm a huge believer still in the idea of an album and the feeling of you get to know it really intimately and it becomes a companion and a friend.” — Rory Friers

There are glitches in the system. And Kill Bill's one of them. The southern rapper is a founding member of the internet label/collective EXO music, popping up in the early 2010s with his gravelly, Lil Ugly Mane-esque flow. But simple nerd-rap this ain't. Using a kaleidoscoping mish-mash of references from N64 heydays to Matrix breakdowns, Bill explores mental illness, self-identity and the larger world of rap. So, listen to our interview, read our blurb on “RPG” and see why we think it's one of the best of the 10s. “I really like nostalgia and I like the whole escaping from this particular time I wanna be anywhere but right now feeling. ”— Kill Bill

“Dumbfounded, downtrodden and dejected/Crestfallen, grief-stricken and exhausted.” All hail the king of anxiety. Pop-punk legend Jeff Rosenstock mutated his career for the…at least third time with a wallop of hyper-catchy, hyper-depressing albums. Anthemic to the core, POST- was the grandest of them all, a personal and political dissection in the wake of Trump's election. No one gets out unscathed, especially not Rosenstock. It's hard too say if there's hope ringing out of the album, but at the very least it's one of the finest albums to scream along to this decade. So listen to our interview with Rosenstock, read our thoughts on POST- and see why it's one of the best of the 10s. “‘Aw yeah that was the best!' No it wasn't! I was sad then too!” — Jeff Rosenstock

A darkness lingers in the electronics The stuttering hi-hats, bubbling synths and cascading keyboards all made for something beautiful, but tinged, at all moments, with an abyssal sorrow. Canadian trio Braids set out to explore the warped worlds of Aphex Twin and Boards of Canada through their own rock background and crafted the gorgeous Flourish // Perish. But being locked up in a harsh Montreal winter and exorcizing Raphaelle Standell-Preston's struggles with anxiety, gift the album a placid, entrancing surface with an ocean's worth of unrest below. So listen to our interview with Braids, read our thoughts on its centerpiece “In Kind” and see why it was one of the best of the 10s. “If we shut ourselves in a box in the middle of winter, we're going to write some dark shit. ”

“Listen to it at night, by the sea.” These were Neige's parting words to me. After a discussion of the colors, emotions and seasons that Alcest's glorious Écailles De Lune runs through, his advice was to experience it in its natural habitat. Metal has always been beautiful. Metallica's “Fade to Black,” Black Sabbath's “Planet Caravan,” Emperor's “Into the Infinity of Thoughts,” metal has found glory both between and with crushing sections of doom. And Alcest tenderly weaves them all together in a grand tapestry. Écailles De Lune stands as the French outfit's finest fusion, with the sweeping brutality of Dissection in unholy matrimony with Slowdive's dream worlds. We met Alcest's mastermind, Neige, during Austin Terrorfest, chatting with him just before he took the stage. So listen to our interview, read our thoughts on Écailles De Lune and see why it's the best of the 10s.

Before we even hit record, Siyabonga Mthembu is telling me a story. It involves, in no particular order, a run in with London based jazz-wizard Shakaba Hutchings, a near clairvoyant café owner and a subway train filled with musicians, their instruments taking up more room than their bodies. Mthembu's stories are like the music creates, sly, captivating and always on the edge. Alongside composer Thandi Ntuli, Mthembu crafted the sprawling collective Indaba Is, a showcase of music from South Africa. Though often billed as a jazz release in media, the truth is much stranger. The collection deliriously bounces between post-rock, blues, gospel and Indian classical music as much as it does jazz. Both Ntuli and Mthembu are absolute in this—the scene is not homogeneous. It is ever mutating, stranger (and more compelling) on each successive listen. We chatted with Mthembu and Ntuli below.

Somewhere in our conversation, Rob Mazurek mentions he wants listeners to “levitate” to his music. And, impossibly, I think he can pull it off.  The trumpet player, composer, synth-master, mole maker is also the leader of the Exploding Star Orchestra, a jazzy bunch of rabble rousers who's most recent album, Dimensional Stardust, is as baffling as it is beautiful. It's like looking into an ever tumbling kaleidoscope and the millions of shining particles suddenly spitting out a fully formed Monet. This is music of a joyous revelry and we chatted with Rob about it.

If you're gonna get in a bar fight, better know who's got your back. Man fights self, god, society and whiskey on Good Looks' debut Bummer Year. The Austin, Texas outfit are a cobbled together quartet of dudes from across the Lone Star State, each with stories of small towns filled with late-capitalism rot. Lead singer Tyler Jordan looks over his shoulder constantly, both to his past and trying to figure out who's still following him through the brutality of service industry jobs, failed romance and political nihilism. “My body could be put to better use/ Instead of working all day long/ For someone else's dream to come,” he sighs on “21” as Jake Ames' chiming guitar rings out from the heavens. Like the best Alt-Country albums, Bummer Year alleviates its darkest corners with rays of warmth and fierceness. The title track compels the working class to spill into the streets and “First Crossing” is a neat handbook on the best waterholes to trespass into across Texas. While talking with Jordan, we chatted about Ames' recent stay in the hospital, after being struck by a car right as the band were releasing the album. Ames is recovering, in part, thanks to a successful Gofundme page and a fundraiser concert that saw the whole of Austin come out on his behalf. But the crushing worry of health care costs combined with the warm hope given by musicians of all sorts coming out of the woodwork reflects the core of Bummer Year. The world will try to crush you, you're gonna need some friends to survive.

The first noise we hear on Christine is a bird, chirping merrily away, like it's warming up its voice. It's apropos, considering the five tunes of naturalist meditation we're about to embark on. The EP from Portland-based songwriter Canary Room, aka Maddy Heide, is one of 2021's small joys. Heide's dexterous guitar work and fluttering voice puts her alongside the bare musings of Linda Perhacs or Sibylle Baier, but with her constant gestures at the natural world, with water springing forth in nearly every lyric, Christine is most at place not with other humans, but in nature. By the end of the EP, it becomes self evident that the tuning bird at the start was getting ready to duet with Heide. We chatted with Heide below:

Focus your rage.  Alonzo Demetrius certainly has. Tempered by his skill, genius and fiery trumpet playing, his righteous anger at the sprawling, cruel prison system of the United States has created a remarkable document. Live from the Prison Nation is an at turns, beautiful, eerie, disturbing, but always a powerful piece of activism. Drawing from the memories of his Uncle and Cousin who both served prison sentences, Demetrius and his band, The Ego, flow through the murky, Kafka-worth world of the carceral state, their expansive, ecstatic jazz matched by protest chants and sound bites from Angela Davis and Mumia Abu Jamal. Some of these songs are mammoth tracks, epic in length and scope, with danceable opener “Expectations” and closer “F.O.O Shit” (F.O.O meaning Fraternal Order of Oppressors) landing in the upper echelon of furious jazz masterpieces, and in the history of protest music. We sat down with Demetrius and chatted about the album. 

“We have mad beef with the other four seasons”  Fuubutsushi have officially declared war on Vivaldi. The classical composer's Four Seasons suite towers above most seasonal music as the foundational sonic document for spring, summer, fall and winter. But the jazz quartet, all speaking from different parts of the country seem assured, if not without a few giggles, that they'll take over the pop cultural space for musical representations of the changing seasons. And they, at the very least, have the melodic skills to do it. Over the course of the pandemic, Chris Jusell, Chaz Prymek, Matthew Sage and Patrick Shiroishi exchanged ideas online and slowly stitched together four albums, one for each season. The inaugural one was also their self-titled, with Fuubutsushi representing autumn. Even without added context, it's impossible to listen to “Sugar Maple Turn” or “Chorus Wheel” and not see visions of spinning, golden leaves and long bike rides through the dimming light of late summer. We sat down with Fuubutsushi and our conversation is below.

Peace. Freedom. Self-discovery. These are the underlying themes of Nafs at Peace. Without a single word spoken on the album, it's remarkably self-assured and self-evident in its truths. Created by Pakistani improvisational jazz outfit Jaubi, Nafs at Peace is one of the year's most revelatory releases. Weaving together the threads of Hindustani classical music, hip-hop beats and spiritual jazz, the group has made a record as funky as it is healing. The connections between the ecstatic jazz of Alice Coltrane or Pharoah Sanders are less evident in the notes played, as Jaubi based these songs around specific melodic, raga structures, but in the intent. These are musicians lost in their instruments or—at its most ascendent, one with the notes themselves. Nafs at Peace is nothing short of a joy, and we chatted with guitarist Ali Baqar about the album.

We don't use the word “luster” enough. We've pretty much relegated it to the shimmer of a pearl. But, from the album cover to the final track, Alexia Avina's A Little Older, does shine with the luster of a pearl; beautiful, transfixing and harkening to nature. The ever traveling musician has crafted one of the most propulsive ambient releases in recent memory, deftly combining indie-rock hooks with glitchy production and deep wells of mediative synths. Her crystal clear voice flips from a strident narrative focus to flittering choirs of harmonies on a dime. A Little Older, at its best, feels like sinking into a warm sea. We chatted with Avina below.

To make proper pastiche, it takes true love for what you're taking the piss out of. Anyone can rip off, it takes a disciple to poke fun and ascend simultaneously. And, miraculously, Australian pop prince Kirin J Callinan pilfered from EDM, country and ‘80s pop to create the silliest love letter of the 2010s. But, in the dark, beautiful corners of Bravado there is a wondrous vulnerability that casts all of Callinan's prancing and crooning in a new light. This was a labor of exploration, debauchery and a reverent screed to the power of pop music. So listen to our implausible interview with Kirin, read our thoughts on Bravado and see why it's one of the best of the 10s. “I was trying to find beauty in ugliness. Gravitating toward the worst sounds, the worst lyrics, the worst ideas I could.” — Kirin J Callinan

Evolve or die. Any rock band who's had more than one successful album knows this. But the choice paralysis of just how many directions you could go often proves the death-kneel for many metalheads. Elder, when presented with this quandary, simply said “oh we'll do all of it.” From their early days of slab-like doom metal, there was always a mischievous quality to their music, just waiting to burst into flight. From album to album they indulged in bigger and surprisingly beautiful passages, making connections from Blue Cheer and Black Sabbath to Dvořák and Emerson, Lake and Palmer. And once they perfected the formula, they presented “The Falling Veil” unto the world. So listen to our interview with Elder front man Nick DiSalvo, read our thoughts on “The Falling Veil” and hear why it's one of the best of the 10s. “I realized everything I'd been doing in my life meant nothing to me. Because when I wasn't working I was holed up in my room, writing music.”— Nick DiSalvo

Life bubbles up beneath death. The emergence of spring might have a sound for you. The rustling of robins, hushed winds blowing over freshly sprouting clover fields, but as winter's grip loosens, something more elemental burbles. Composer Elori Saxl heard it from the shores of Lake Superior, the growing sounds of water flowing beneath thick sheets of ice. Under a surface of sheer stillness, life flowed. Saxl took those sounds and made it the bedrock, both narratively and sonically, of her newest album The Blue of Distance. The manipulated sounds of water are the rhythmic spine of “Blue” and her arrangement of plucked strings in “Memory of Blue” eventually evaporates into the surrounding wall of flowing water, the two becoming inseparable. The Blue of Distance wrangles with the ideas of memory and how they're warped by the digital age, but it also stands alone as an album without any outside narrative. Alongside the seminal works of Gas and William Basinski, Saxl's nexus of digital, analogue, nature and manipulation is one of the finest ambient albums in recent memory, calming in one deft arrangement, thought-provoking the next. We sat down with Saxl and chatted about her work.

Disasterpeace has a claim to being one of the most influential artists of the decade; in a quiet, chameleonic way. Though Rich Vreeland doesn't usually do things quietly. His best known work is awash in digital decay and thumping kick drums. The horror sensibilities of John Carpenter fed through a Super Nintendo. His industrial by way of chip tune aesthetic gained him praise in the blissful to terrifying fuzz of Fez and the insidious lurk of It Follows. Vreeland's absurd prolificness has now led him to full orchestral work as he scores Under the Silver Lake, the newest film from It Follows director David Robert Mitchell. Looking back on his catalogue, there's truly little that Vreeland hasn't tinkered with to great success. So, listen to our interview with him, read our thoughts on Fez and see why we think Diasterpeace is one of the best of the ‘10s.

Every Supergiant Games release is an event. But it's not just from the gamers and critics who adore the video games' rich stories, immaculate art style or addictive game play. It's the music nerds that also wait with bated breath on Darren Korb's newest score.  As Supergiant's in-house composer and audio head, Korb has become a fixture unto himself with his compositions, from the Lead Belly meets Massive Attack thunk of Bastion to the Imogen Heap inspired Transistor soundtrack. But for Korb, and Supergiant as a whole, Hades might be the zenith. The game has received lavish praise, and so has Korb's work, which has found him expanding into new sounds. Hades' eccentric score is a mixture of Mediterranean folk, progressive-metal and lush chamber pieces. Alongside collaborators Ashley Barrett and Austin Wintory (composer of Journey), Korb has reached the apex of composition: an album that can stand on its own sweeping merits while providing the perfect audio companion to the gameplay. We talked to Korb about his research for the score, his work voicing the main character, Zagreus, and recording in Abbey Road. These two interviews are from before Hades' release, looking at the history of Korb's work with Supergiant. The second is after Hades' release.

Every Supergiant Games release is an event. But it's not just from the gamers and critics who adore the video games' rich stories, immaculate art style or addictive game play. It's the music nerds that also wait with bated breath on Darren Korb's newest score.  As Supergiant's in-house composer and audio head, Korb has become a fixture unto himself with his compositions, from the Lead Belly meets Massive Attack thunk of Bastion to the Imogen Heap inspired Transistor soundtrack. But for Korb, and Supergiant as a whole, Hades might be the zenith. The game has received lavish praise, and so has Korb's work, which has found him expanding into new sounds. Hades' eccentric score is a mixture of Mediterranean folk, progressive-metal and lush chamber pieces. Alongside collaborators Ashley Barrett and Austin Wintory (composer of Journey), Korb has reached the apex of composition: an album that can stand on its own sweeping merits while providing the perfect audio companion to the gameplay. We talked to Korb about his research for the score, his work voicing the main character, Zagreus, and recording in Abbey Road. These two interviews are from before Hades' release, looking at the history of Korb's work with Supergiant. The second is after Hades' release.

“Everything about that record is cursed.” Will Wiesenfeld says that with a laugh, but it's not really a joke. Obsidian, his second album under the name Baths, set off a brutal run of shows with a new collaborator, Morgan Greenwood, and electronic failures that seemed to have come from a witch's hex. But you could have gotten the cursed feeling just from the music. Obsidian is at once a dancy, electronic album and an uncompromisingly punishing listen. So hear our interview with Wiesenfeld, read our thoughts on Obsidian and see why it's one of the best of the 10s. “I think my whole life is a wake for Final Fantasy 8.” — Will Wiesenfeld

When I first saw Yeasayer, it was at an outdoor music festival in Houston—-in June. If you're from Texas, you know how horrific this is. It was 107 degrees when the Brooklyn boys took the stage. Front man Chris Keating sweated through every article of clothing he had, making the foot around him a salty splash zone. But it all made some sort of humid sense. Yeasayer, fresh off of the hallucinatory highs of their debut All Hour Cymbals had decided to dive into the pop deep end. But, as a band who traded in fever dreams, it would have to be utterly baffling. So it was and Odd Blood landed at the beginning of the decade, a beguiling, hypnotic, fiendishly dancable record that rode the undeniable bass groove of Ira Wolf Tuton and the dueling song-writing chops of Keating and Anand Wilder. It was as grand as it was unstable, pop mutated to some future form. As we count down the greatest music of the 2010s, Odd Blood and its lead single “Ambling Alp” made the list. We sat down with Wilder to discuss the record and what it means to him now. So, listen to the podcast, read our thoughts on Odd Blood and “Ambling Alp” and hear why we think they're the best of the 10s. “I think we're always interested in self-sabotage. ” — Anand Wilder

Miles Davis' “Générique” floats in like he was blowing fog through his trumpet. It's a surreal, beautiful, late-night ode to the night itself and all its pain and delight. To stretch that feeling over an entire album, rather than three minutes, would be a Herculean task of skill and restraint. And yet, La Saboteuse exists. Yazz Ahmed's document of psychedelic, Bahraini-inspired Jazz feels and sounds like nothing else in its genre. In a decade that saw Jazz reborn and reimagined through the fertile chaos of Hip-hop, Minimalism, Afrobeat, Caribbean swing and Cuban rhythms, Ahmed crafted a myth of dream-like quality. So hear our interview with Yazz, read our thoughts on her work and see why it's the best of the 10s. “[Psychedelic music] means losing your mind, being totally captured by the music, going into a dream like state. ” — Yazz Ahmed

Where does a genre end? Not when, as in, not when does a genre die. But where does our labeling regress into fetishism rather than anything helpful? Timbre is quite aware of the boundaries we place upon music and ourselves when dissecting sounds. The Nashville based harpist tours internationally on more traditional orchestral fair, but has also played with Jack White and avant-metal cuckoolanders The Chariot. With her album Sun & Moon she reached to explore the liminal space between any label. So listen to our interview with her, read our thoughts on Sun & Moon and hear why it's one of the best of the 10s. “We're encountering something powerful that was taking them passed their normal life. Out of their stress, fear and pain. ”

“Ode to Physical Pain” is the exact title you'd expect a metal band to whip out at the end of an album. But Thou are no nihilists. Hell, they don't even like being called a metal band. “Ode to Physical Pain,” is, instead, the logical conclusion to the tortured, yet triumphant Heathen; a deep dive into the physical world, our interactions with nature and humanity's base desires. No, this is far from fatalism; it is the least subtle reminder that you are alive. And it is a monstrous, wondrous thing. So, read our thoughts on Heathen, listen to our interview with Thou and hear why it's the best of the 10s.  “We were finding utopia by striking a balance between two extremes” — Bryan Funck

A boy, a teen, a man, but one dream. That's the vision of A Dream Deferred. Skyzoo channels himself at 7, 15 and as a young man, daring the world to defy his ambition. Over some of the most lush production of the decade, Brooklyn becomes a character as much as an environment, breathing down Sky's neck, threatening and encouraging in equal amounts. And in that cradle, Sky reflects on himself and celebrates Black excellence like few others could. So, read our thoughts on A Dream Deferred, listen to our interview with Skyzoo and hear why it's one of the best of the 10s. “I observed everything as a kid. I was a sponge. My first rhymes were looking out the window on the 18th floor. ” — Skyzoo

Michigan's all-stars go from Barry Sanders to Danny Brown, Sufjan Stevens to Carol Wald. But if Michigan was going to pick one rep, one person to be a synecdoche for the whole warped energy of the state, it might be Shigeto. Zach “Shigeto” Saginaw's last name isn't a reference to the Michigan town, it was a misspelling on Ellis Island scribbled into lore. And that sort of flux, of happy accidents and profundity stemming from the mundane inform his work. That and the rich history of musical life inherent in Michigan itself. So, read our thoughts on “Detroit Part 1,” listen to our interview with Shigeto and see why he's one of the best of the 10s. “Trying to be something is so hard, I feel, besides being yourself. ” — Shigeto

Rap vagabond is about the only way to describe Rav. The USSR-born, London-based, East Coast-terrorizing rapper is a man out of time and without a land. A founder of the internet only EXO label, Rav and his cohort met through the fertile grounds of Newgrounds, looking for fellow hip-hop heads who held Akira and Illmatic in equal reverence. Rav burst out in 2012 with the Hyperkinesis EP, a rambunctious, bratty collection of songs that only held a veneer of joy before diving into an ocean's worth of sorrow. In the three years after, Rav grew up. His own struggles with addiction and depression had reached their climaxes, and in the burnout, he found the spirit that moved Beneath the Toxic Jungle. “Solanine,” the first single from the album, was a grand representation of the lo-fi, sigh filled, improbably catchy rap that he rode throughout the album. So read our thoughts on “Solanine,” listen to our interview with Rav and see why we think it's one of the best of the 10s. “That perfect ideal version of me being in a better place, just in that moment in time, felt like it was further than ever before. ” — Rav

So your famed indie-rock band, a staple of the 2000s, is breaking up. Your influence is such that your own son plays your most famous song just to piss you off. What's your response?  Well for Peter Matthew Bauer it was to hunker down in hotel rooms across Europe, demo like crazy, awash himself in his own mystic upbringing and craft Liberation! Though it might feel like a cheeky poke at The Walkmen to title your first solo record as such, Bauer looks for a deeper, more welcoming freedom. And that rings out across the sheer warmth of Liberation! He visits places of worship and finds kindness and dirty jokes in equal amounts, each new spire, chapel or slice of nature as friendly as the last. It's an album about spirituality, quitters and the nexus between. So listen to our interview with Bauer, read our thoughts on Liberation! and see why it's the best of the 10s.  “I wanted to make music that, if you liked it, it meant you were putting up with me.” — Peter Matthew Bauer

Peter Oren is tired. There's a weariness associated with all bass-baritones. Something in that low-rumble and rust that radiates a sense of pleasant exhaustion. But for the abyssal voice of Oren, there are troubling questions that ripple through and weigh him down. Anthropocene takes a micro and macro view on a rapidly evolving world and Oren's (and our) inability to keep up with the speed. And the ever growing specter of Climate Change follows him at every turn. The anxiety, doom and depression that clings to a possible dystopian future rings clear through his voice. And in channeling that fear, he created one of the finest political records of our time. So hear our interview with Oren, read our thoughts on Anthropocene and see why it's one of the best of the 10s. “I tend to find the lessons I need in the natural world.” — Peter Oren

Proper polymaths have one guiding principle: love every genre you explore. And it's clear from the first note of any Olga Bell album she's dedicated to that rule. The classically trained pianist, electronic warlock and hip-hop connoisseur hasn't found a sound she can't warp and adore. At the beginning of the decade she toured with The Dirty Projectors and Chairlift and released Край an exceptionally ambitious project dedicated to the music of her native Russia. But a wondering spirit like Bell gets bored and her next album, Tempo, was an ode to dance music, bouncing from BPM to BPM and dance move to dance move. The opening song “Power User” was a stately mix of G-Funk, Beastie Boys brattiness, dancefloor empowerment and terrifyingly catchy synth-pop. So, listen to our interview with Bell, read up on “Power User” and see why we think it's one of the best of the 10s. “I think being an artist requires a certain amount of delusion and then checking that delusion. ” — Olga Bell

“It's easy to fall in love,” but is anything else easy? Nick Shattell doesn't think so. The paranoid, beautiful, rambling sprawl of It Could Just Be This Place rushes its way through decades of country music, detailing every hardship and heartbreak Americana loves to soundtrack. Yeah, falling in love is a piece of cake, but late night conversations with an obstinate god, growing old and getting your heart chipped away by the weight of the world, not so much. So what else could we do but dive in? Listen to our interview, read our thoughts on It Could Just Be This Place and hear why it's the best of the 10s. “Can you ever break up with God? It feels more like denying the existence of something, which I know some of my exes are capable of, but I am not so sure they are right considering I still exist.”

Casual, brutal contradictions fill up Mister Goblin's mind. From the forced cheer of “Holiday World” to the military discount at the fireworks store and the healing balm of Sly and the Family Stone's “Que Sera Sera” soundtracking the depths of the pandemic, BUNNY, Mister Goblin's newest album, lives with paradoxes. And that expands to the music, with bandleader Sam flipping from fluttering falsetto to soaring screams on a dime, while the instrumentation mutates from post-hardcore breakdowns to swelling country odes to Netflix and chillin'. If it all sounds like too much, too ambitious, rest assured, Mister Goblin handles it with natural grace. Living with those contradictions makes BUNNY feel startlingly vulnerable, and, just as importantly, vitally human. We chatted with Sam below.

Supposedly, the apocalypse will be rung in with horns. But they won't be horns like this, unless the rapture is truly rapturous. The 2010s showcased Moon Hooch's evolution from studious Jazz disciples to rave-inducing dance barons. Using a “reverse DJ” set up, they filter their saxes, vocoders and another set of mad brass weapons that would make Cannonball Adderley smile, through Ableton, playing EDM with Jazz instruments. And that crazed euphoria has translated well in their live shows and songs. At their best, Moon Hooch create a hallucinatory, out of body experience. So, listen to our interview with them, read our blurb on their break through single “Number 9” and see why they're the best of the 10s. “I don't think I'm looking for anything other than my own surrender. ” — Wenzl Mcgowen

Grant Kirkhope is the sound of your childhood. Or at least the games he scored have that nostalgia swirling around. But even more impressively, Kirkhope isn't a relic. Despite ushering in and crafting one of the most melodious eras of video game soundtracks in his time with producers Rare, Kirkhope is still pushing out hits. An architect who is ever at the forefront, Kirkhope is near unparalleled in stature and accomplishment. So listen to our interview with him and see why he's one of the best of the 10s. “I was forgetting the games I'd worked on. I had to look it up. ‘Christ I've got another 150 games!'” — Grant Kirkhope

“Softness” is a common insult in the modern age. A declaration that most of us wouldn't survive past eras of turmoil and torture, where the people were hardier damn it! But, as the unfortunate truth tells, even the most “hardy” people usually didn't survive their respective ages. It wasn't that long ago that all the gold or moral fortitude in a kingdom wouldn't do jackshit against cholera. And Richard Dawson would like to bring that to your attention. His cast of miscreants, prostitutes, beggars, merchants, kings and mystics all go through trials of inordinate magnitudes on Peasant as he croons away, inhabiting each of their bodies, allowing us a voyeuristic view into this mud-caked, grimy world. Already known for his immaculately nasty eye for detail, there couldn't be a better artist to explore the myths of our history. So, listen to our interview with Dawson, read our blurb on Peasant and see why we think it's the best of the 10s.  “It has to be open. It has to not be precise. It has to be foggy. Nothing in life is crisp anyway. You think it's crisp but it's not.” — Richard Dawson

Burn your body, free your soul. Metal, even at its most neanderthalic, has been about transcendence. The moment in the mosh where the flailing limbs start to resemble a larger pattern, the chaos in the wall of sound solidifies into coherence. And no one puts that duality to work like Whores. The Atlanta trio makes the meanest sludge-rock this side of The Melvins and their debut EP CLEAN was a brutal, yet smart opening salvo. So listen to our interview with them, read our thoughts on CLEAN and see why it's the best of the 10s. “I don't know what makes me feel ok. Music, really. Coffee, cats, fuzz pedals. Basic stuff really.” — Christian Lembach

And we journey into the unknown. But what will they be singing there to greet us? After listening and watching Over the Garden Wall, it's still hard to explain. The Cartoon Network mini-series, turned cult classic to straight classic in a few short years, was a longing, autumnal elegy and tapestry of misremembered pasts. Flapper girls giggling along to shape note choirs, beastial operas ringing out over a jukebox, Chris Isaak smirking in the background. And The Blasting Company were our maestros, giddily skipping through time. So listen to our interview with them and see why Over Garden the Wall was the best of the 10s.