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"I just wanna drink a million bottles of champagne."
Video: Santigold: "Big Mouth"
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Kathleen Edwards
Voyageur
By Stephen M. Deusner
Kathleen Edwards co-produced her fourth album with Justin Vernon of Bon Iver, jettisoning country rock in favor of gauzy production and a band that includes Vernon plus members of Megafaun, Francis & the Lights, and Peter Wolf Crier.
Cate Le Bon
CYRK
By Stuart Berman
The cool, disaffected Welsh avant-pop chanteuse's second album is more playful and irreverent than her debut, a 2009 collection released by collaborator/mentor Gruff Rhys of Super Furry Animals.
Lupe Fiasco
Friend of the People
By Jayson Greene
Lupe Fiasco's new mixtape samples Justice and M83 and shows a strong interest in aggressively macho dubstep. For about a third of it, you feel actively punished for paying attention.
Loincloth
Iron Balls of Steel
By Hank Shteamer
Over the course of a decade, the highly regarded ultra-technical instrumental-metal outfit Loincloth's discography totaled four songs. The N.C.-Va. trio's debut LP leaves room for a broader audience to hear what the fuss was all about.
Expensive Looks
Dark Matters
By Brian Howe
On this debut LP, the young New York City native Alec Feld-- whose voice wouldn't sound out of place on a Wolf Parade or Animal Collective anthem-- creates synth music with a sleepy grandeur.
Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo OST
By Andrew Ryce
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross follow their award-winning score to David Fincher's The Social Network with this bleak three-hour The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo soundtrack, a sprawling mass that exceeds the length of the film it was meant for.
T.I.
Fuck Da City Up
By David Drake
Fresh from his most recent dalliance with hard time, this mixtape-- featuring guest spots from Young Jeezy, Nelly, Dr. Dre, and others-- finds T.I. back in the scrappy mode of his early days.
Wiley
Evolve or Be Extinct
By Jess Harvell
It's arguable that even Wiley can't remember every track he's released in the past half-decade, but the grime godfather's new LP is one you should play closer attention to.
Cardinal
Hymns
By Joe Tangari
In 1994, Eric Matthews and Richard Davies released an influential chamber-pop album under the name Cardinal. Almost 20 years later, they've reunited for its follow-up.
Juicy J
Blue Dream & Lean
By Jordan Sargent
One half of Memphis' legendary Three 6 Mafia offers a continuation of his two collaborative mixtapes with Lex Luger, a druggy 28-track album featuring guest spots from A$AP Rocky, Spaceghostpurpp, and Kreayshawn, among others.
The Big Pink
Future This
By Ian Cohen
After the explosive and decadent A Brief History of Love, the Big Pink return with an album that aims for positivity and a deeper connection with their audience.
Raekwon
Unexpected Victory
By Paul Thompson
Armed with passable productions and an uneven roster of guest stars, the Wu-Tang dynamo's first full-length release since 2011's Shaolin vs. Wu-Tang LP rarely smacks of anything like victory. The sound's too lousy-- and the stakes too low-- to live up to his past glories.
Todd Terje
It's the Arps
By Andrew Gaerig
The Norwegian space disco producer follows last year's surprisingly sticky Ragysh EP with a refreshingly clean four-track EP composed with an ARP2600 analog synthesizer.
Ernest Gonzales
Natural Traits
By Andrew Ryce
The San Antonio producer, who records cinematic sorta-dance music as Mexicans With Guns, offers post-rock for the Flying Lotus generation on this new solo LP.
Jakob Olausson
Morning & Sunrise
By Matthew Murphy
The Swedish psych-folkie and beet farmer follows his brilliant 2005 debut Moonlight Farm with a more electric, more rock-inclined offering that finds him returning to the earlier record's evocative terrain without repeating himself.
Rick Ross
Rich Forever
By Jordan Sargent
Rick Ross' new mixtape, possibly his best full-length, finds the Teflon Don moving out of his comfort zone and entering a world where it feels like something is at stake.
Drexciya
Journey of the Deep Sea Dweller I
By Philip Sherburne
From 1992 until 2002, the mysterious electro outfit Drexciya created not only some of Detroit's most original, enduring electronic music, but one of techno's greatest myth systems. This compilation-- the first in a planned four-volume anthology-- serves as a crucial introduction.
Bebetune$
Inhale C-4 $$$$$
By Brandon Soderberg
Following the success of last year's polarizing Far Side Virtual, James Ferraro puts out a free, victory lap mixtape, one that finds him developing a mutant strain of mainstream rap and R&B.
Pinch
Fabriclive 61
By Andrew Ryce
Dubstep pioneer Rob Ellis' exciting entry in the Fabriclive series occupies a many-limbed vaguely house, vaguely techno hinterland: It's damaged, blackened, and foreboding, no matter what genre it might be interrogating.
Arrange
Five Years With the Sun EP
By Brian Howe
In the hushed tones of this brief collection, the young Fort Lauderdale electronic songwriter Malcom Lacey dramatizes the process of a gentle person grappling with dark thoughts.
Rivers Cuomo
Alone III: The Pinkerton Years
By Ian Cohen
Unlike the previous Alone iterations, Alone III: The Pinkerton Years feels like an actual Weezer album rather than Rivers Cuomo's yard sale. It's a bracing, imperfect reminder of a time when music was something Cuomo couldn't live without.
Oval
OvalDNA
By Andrew Ryce
This remarkably consistent, 25-track collection of bits and bytes from assorted past Oval eras flies by in an easygoing blur, rendering sounds in a fluid and volatile technicolor that's missing from even the project's classic records.
Vado
Slime Flu 2
By Jayson Greene
The goofy Harlem rapper and Cam'ron sidekick's new mixtape delivers what the original Slime Flu did-- high-speed, tightly realized, pugilistic goon rap-- to nearly as entertaining results.
Mars
Live at Artists Space
By Marc Masters
Feeding Tube teams with Mars bassist Mark Cunningham to offer the entirety of his no wave band's two-set performance from the 1978 Artists Space festival, the same event that led Brian Eno to compile his scene-defining compilation No New York.
Various Artists
Rush Hour Presents Amsterdam All Stars
By Andrew Gaerig
This set of 12 exclusive tracks, which offers a portrait of the current house music talent operating in or originating from Amsterdam, is filled with raucous, 4/4 shakers born in the 1980s in Chicago but possessing updated wardrobes.
+1
Big Freedia
Live at Public Assembly
New Orleans bounce maven, Big Freedia, explains the intricacies of call and response and its effect on her unique live performance.
Articles
Gil Scott-Heron: More Than a Revolution
Andrew Nosnitsky combines archived quotes from Gil Scott-Heron and original interviews with those who knew him to present a full picture of the late poet, novelist, singer, songwriter, pianist, satirist, and father of four.
Underscore
Wipers
Nick Sylvester kicks off our new series Underscore, which surveys undervalued artists, scenes, and eras of the past. This inaugural edition focuses on the first three LPs from influential Portland punks Wipers.
Why We Fight
Your Chemical Romance
Nitsuh Abebe on understanding musical tastes across generation gaps and why the cohort that grew up liking (or loathing) emo acts like My Chemical Romance is so important.
Interviews
Los Campesinos!
Over the last five years, this UK band has become one of indie rock's most consistent (and candid) attractions. With new album Hello Sadness in mind, we talk to leader Gareth about hating England and loving Drake.
Rising
Yamantaka // Sonic Titan
This Canadian "Noh-wave" act makes widescreen psych inspired by everything from doom metal to comic books to Buddhist enlightenment to Chinese opera to meditation to anime to Kiss-style face paint.
Guest Lists
Danny Brown
The magnetic Detroit rapper talks to us about Norwegian metal murderers, doing drugs with fans, Jack White, personalized vibrators, Sufjan Stevens, Korn, action figures, and why he really likes Wednesdays.
Staff Lists
The Top 50 Albums of 2011
Our annual list of the LPs that had us coming back time and time again throughout the year, including records by Bon Iver, Liturgy, Real Estate, and Frank Ocean, to name a few.
Articles
The Words of Others
Author Dave Tompkins chronicles the adventures he's had while touring his acclaimed vocoder history How to Wreck a Nice Beach, like that time he introduced the National Security Agency to Cybotron.
Interviews
Charlotte Gainsbourg
While the French actress/singer seems so casually put together, she couldn't find the nerve to play shows until just a couple years ago. Here, she talks about stage fright and her new live LP, Stage Whisper.
Staff Lists
My Year in Mixes
From M.I.A. to Blood Diamonds to Elite Gymnastics to Clams Casino, Carrie Battan surveys the free mixes and podcasts that shaped her listening in 2011.