By: Josh Kitchen / February 3, 2026 Photo courtesy of Shintaro Sakamoto Anyone who has followed Shintaro Sakamoto’s career over the years knows that when he releases new music, they’re in for a truly inventive and exploratory sonic listening experience. From his early days in the highly influential psych-rock band Yura Yura Teikoku, to his solo work, which began in 2011, Sakamoto’s whimsical style and philosophical curiosities make his music all the more rich and infectious.

By: Josh Kitchen / February 2, 2026 Photo Credit: Marlowe Ostara On Death in the Business of Whaling , the sophomore album from Searows ’ Alec Duckart, the insular, muted bedroom-pop intimacy that defined his excellent debut Guard Dog  is cast far deeper—dragged into the darkest depths of the sea and sealed away in Davy Jones’ locker. In those reaches, Duckart has created a record that feels simultaneously grand and intimate, epic and poetic, drenched in gothic nautical image

By: Josh Kitchen / January 29, 2025 “Songs don’t come that often,” Bruce Springsteen said in 2024, talking about the last time he’d written new material. “I’ve gone two years without writing anything.” This was during promo for his latest documentary, Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band , a film about the band’s first outing together in seven years—their longest break since Springsteen disbanded them in 1988. Springsteen’s last album with the E Street Band, 2020

All Write-Ups by Josh Kitchen, except where noted By: Melina Aguilar, Danielle McDuffie, Deepa Mahadevan, Stephen Irvine, and Ricardo Avendaño Vera Ken Pomeroy - Cruel Joke Ken Pomeroy - Cruel Joke It’s all in the storytelling. Ken Pomeroy comes from a long line of storytellers—her great-grandmother (her Mamaw) imbuing in her the traditions of her Cherokee lineage and giving her the name “Little Wolf with Yellow Hair (ᎤᏍᏗ ᏀᏯ ᏓᎶᏂᎨ ᎤᏍᏗᎦ).” That foundation helped shape Pomeroy’s

By: Josh Kitchen / December 28, 2025 Photo Credit: Ashley Osborn Weyes Blood's 2022’s And In the Darkness, Hearts Aglow  is a truly immense record—a multi-storied world that provides endless of solitude, respite, wonder, and that titular fiery, burning glow. It’s a deeply satisfying set of songs, offering a kind of refuge you can return to again and again. Like 2019’s Titanic Rising , Hearts Aglow   is a record where Weyes Blood , aka Natalie Mering , spends every track fle

By: Josh Kitchen / December 22, 2025 Face-melting solos, bone-breaking riffs, perfectly timed and meticulously planned chords and fret decisions. (Or at least they’d have you believe they were.) One of the year’s best movies features a real-life blues legend guitar hero. There was a lot of insanely good guitar playing in 2025. Here are some of the best, with insights straight from the players’ mouths. Goodbye - Tchotchke (Emily Tooraen) Photo by: Kelsey Hart My favorite solo

By: Josh Kitchen / December 22, 2025 Photo Credit: Bob Sweeney SNACKTIME are a pride of Philadelphia.  Formed in 2020, the funk and soul collective began playing free outdoor shows during COVID, coming together to fuse eclectic musical tastes, vibrant personalities, and Philly’s spirit of brotherly love — showing up for their community when people needed connection most. That ethos defines SNACKTIME : a band that truly has something for everybody, without sacrificing serious

By: Josh Kitchen / December 18, 2025 Hannah Cohen is sitting in her Catskills mountain cabin, furnished with rustic stonework and warm wood ceilings. She’s in a cozy knit sweater, her pup Jan—short for Janis Joplin—snoozing just off to her left. Outside, the property is covered in a blanket of snow, pine and hemlock poking through a wintry dreamscape. The air is crisp and pure. This is the world where Cohen wrote and recorded her first album in over five years, Earthstar Moun

By: Josh Kitchen / December 17, 2025 The Lemon Twigs and Tchotchke have joined forces in their first ever joint single, “Tchotchkes,”  a delightful holiday romp that would feel right at home on The Beach Boys Christmas Album —or at least if Brian and the boys put out a post- Pet Sounds  follow-up with all the SMiLE  trimmings. They even make a nod to The Beach Boys’ seminal electronic pseudo Brian Wilson solo album, Love You , by referencing the completely silly “Ding Dang” w

By: Josh Kitchen / December 16, 2025 Photo Credit: Kali Spitzer Listening to Ken Pomeroy talk about her own work, you’re struck by her humility. She’s 23, but her music has already appeared on two major television shows — including one she also acts in alongside Ethan Hawke — she’s performed with legends like Wanda Jackson, John Craigie, and Iron & Wine, and she even sang and appeared in one of the biggest films of 2024, Twisters . Her sophomore album, Cruel Joke , released i

By: Josh Kitchen / December 12, 2025 Photo Credit: Justin Labadie On Weakened Friends’ first album in four years, collaboration is key. After two records of lead vocals and most of the songwriting handled by Sonia Sturino, on Feels Like Hell  , bandmate and wife Annie Hoffman steps fully into the songwriting fold. And like any good marriage, communication and compromise make all the difference. Feels Like Hell is a record that Sonia says is “unequivocally the best thing this

By: Josh Kitchen / December 9, 2025 Quiet rage, a thirst for art in a time of great political strife and unrest, finding love, community, and life through body, motion, and dance and in resistance. It's in these themes and ideas that the music of 2025 has come to solidify. From ROSALIA's aching yearning for beauty and love through pain by way of Vivaldian opera-pop, to Geese's alt-rock sins of their fathers bursting through in absolution and rage, to Japanese Breakfast's come

By: Josh Kitchen / December 1, 2025 Photo Credit: Kane Ocean "Sip my spit, drink my blood/Suck me dry, call me a cunt/I'll break your heart, that's what you want/I'll ruin us before we start." Jazzelle, aka uglyworldwide , spits these lines over a pulsing club beat. One half of the chameleonic art-pop duo skuzland, along with partner-in-crime Robot Moonjuice , she delivers them in their killer summer track “POOR CHOICES.” In the music video, Jazzelle unleashes these lyrics li

By: Josh Kitchen / November 26, 2025 All photos: Amanda Verdadero LA-based New Jersey transplant Kirsten Izer wants to get real. After dropping her poignantly relevant The Perfect Hire  EP earlier this year, she’s already back with a brand-new single, “Anyone But Me,” where she examines feelings of insecurity and imposter syndrome that anyone trying to make sense of life in the modern world can relate to. Izer has been hungry for a life in music since she was just ten years o

By: Josh Kitchen / November 25, 2025 Photo Credit: Helena Wolfenson Sergio Sayeg has only been making music under the moniker Sessa for six years now, but the São Paulo native’s classically Brazilian-influenced oeuvre sounds as if it’s been floating around in the musical ether for decades. Earlier this month, Sessa released his third studio album, Pequena Vertigem de Amor , and it’s his best one yet. On his first two records, Grandeza  and Estrela Acesa , Sessa leaned into m

By: Josh Kitchen / November 21, 2025 Photo Credit: Ryan Molnar When Jordy and Ben met in Liverpool in 2022, neither of them expected they’d end up starting a band together—let alone write and record a full-length album and have it out on a major label within a couple of years. But sometimes the alchemy is just right and the stars really do align. Jordy, who hails from Hawaii, was studying at University in Liverpool when she met Ben, who’s from Manchester. She’d been playing a

By: Josh Kitchen / November 20, 2025 Photo Credit: David O'Donohue You've probably seen Diana Silvers' face. From the cool and mysterious Hope in Olivia Wilde’s coming-of-age hit Booksmart , to Maggie in the horror-thriller Ma —co-starring Octavia Spencer in the titular role about a group of teenagers who befriend a lonely older woman only for things to spiral into something much darker—Silvers has already made a name for herself in film, TV, and modeling. Diana Silvers - Fro

By: Josh Kitchen / November 19, 2025 Photo Credit: Pooneh Ghana When Greta Kline started releasing demos on Bandcamp in 2014 as Frankie Cosmos, her DIY ethos and bedroom-pop lo-fi tracks were immediately embraced for their honest and raw vulnerability. Songs like “Leonie” and “Art School” felt like glimpses into the mind of an artistic, hyper-creative 20-year-old who sang as if she had to get every idea out or risk losing the chance to speak. Over the next decade, Frankie Cos

By: Josh Kitchen / November 7, 2025 Photo Credit: Jamie Lee Taete Graphic designer and artist Jenny Hirons never planned to release the music she’d been quietly exploring in her personal life. Though she’s been playing piano since the age of six, her professional world has long revolved around how she sees — not hears — the world. As founder of Studio Hirons, a multidisciplinary creative agency specializing in art direction, illustration, and graphic design, she’s built a car

Photo Credit: Apela Bell By: Josh Kitchen / November 4, 2025 “Everything had been flipped upside down, my heart ripped out of my chest, and I didn’t know how I could keep living.” New Zealand singer-songwriter Janine has long made a name for herself through honest, reflective pop music—spanning introspective ballads to dance-driven anthems her fans can’t get enough of. But a year ago, she faced a devastating loss when her father suddenly passed away. In this new normal, she r