Pitchfork

2 days ago | pitchfork.com | Kieran Press-Reynolds

I walk in and Julia Casablancas is baring her entire soul for a nearly empty room of three people. The space looks like a haunted classroom, the walls stacked with ladders, containers full of video cables and picture frames, folded-up cardboard, a clock with the wrong time. Wires and circuitry snake around and droop from the ceiling like they’re reaching out to tickle you; a cage redolent of an elaborate torture tool wobbles in the air.

3 days ago | pitchfork.com | Jeremy D. Larson

Little Richard would prop one leg up on the piano and bang chords with his foot. Jerry Lee Lewis would stand on the piano and stomp the keys. Pete Townshend would smash his guitar to bits. Jimi Hendrix would play guitar behind his head and pretend to have sex with it and then light it on fire. James Brown would pretend to faint then miraculously revive himself. Michael Jackson moonwalked. David Lee Roth did the splits in the air. Freddie Mercury wielded the top half of a microphone stand.

4 days ago | pitchfork.com | Philip Sherburne

James Holden discovered trance states as a child, hammering out repetitive chords for hours on the piano. For Wacław Zimpel, Polish folk music and American blues offered early glimpses of higher states of consciousness. Since those introductory ear- and mind-openers, the search for musical transcendence has guided both artists in their respective journeys.

1 week ago | pitchfork.com | Joshua Minsoo Kim

As dexter in the newsagent, Charmaine Ayoku conjures hushed acoustic ballads and down-home dance pop that draws from a similar well as Frank Ocean and PinkPantheress. Yet the Londoner’s new song, “Special,” is uniquely sublime: so confident in its breeziness, so generous in its feeling. Co-produced with Kurisu and SAIONTHEBEAT, it’s composed of little more than fluttering guitar figures and puttering beats—a serene atmosphere fit for daydreamers.

1 week ago | pitchfork.com | Walden Green

Like myself and, statistically, you, Lorde spends too much time online. “The liquid crystal is in my grip,” she intones on “Hammer”—her preferred term for the devices that fit in our pockets yet are somehow supposed to know everything. Throughout the final single and opening track from Virgin, the reluctant star scrolls through aura photography, astrology, past lives, and the divine feminine, on the prowl for some clarity or at least a good screw.