Pop Culture

Brixton’s The Windmill is easily the most discussed music venue of the decade. Its 150-capacity room nurtured an eccentric art rock community, birthing now-renowned acts Black Country, New Road, Black Midi and the Last Dinner Party. It sparked a wave of jazzy, multi-instrumentalist musicians worldwide, from English Teacher (Leeds) to Geese (New York City) to

Doveland invokes a place of pastoral calm, perhaps a lost corner of the American plains where folk songs might drift across the landscape. Django Django’s sixth album does eventually find its way there, but it takes a surprisingly circuitous route. Song titles like “Meteorite”, “Quicksand”, and “So Heavy” suggest something darker and more muscular. Yet

In his 2023 novel, Always Crashing in the Same Car: A Novel After David Bowie, Lance Olsen explored Bowie’s shape-shifting contradictions to present a kind of post-genre treatise on the unknowability of people and history. His new novel, An Inventory of Benevolent Butterflies, is another After book: A Novel After Henry Darger, who, unlike David

Recorded for $60 in an island country near the bottom of the globe, the debut single by New Zealand’s the Clean was an unlikely candidate for an international game-changer. A heap of jagged edges and jittery hooks, pushed along by a screechy Farfisa organ and shouts of “Tally Ho”, the song seems to revel in

It is a common saying that a film is only as good as its soundtrack. Among the most celebrated musical pieces in American film and television, those associated with the story’s antagonist often stand out. From Darth Vader’s imposing “Imperial March” in The Empire Strikes Back to countless Machiavellian numbers sung by Disney villains such

There is a stark narrative difference between the sudden shock of abandonment and the chronic condition of being an outsider. Superhero cinema typically prefers the former: tragic backstories are forged in loud crucibles of gunfire, catastrophic explosions, or cosmic bargains. Yet in Peter Parker’s recent cinematic trajectory, pop culture has stumbled upon an unusually candid

It is a common saying that a film is only as good as its soundtrack. Among the most celebrated musical pieces in American film and television, those associated with the story’s antagonist often stand out. From Darth Vader’s imposing “Imperial March” in The Empire Strikes Back to countless Machiavellian numbers sung by Disney villains such

There is a stark narrative difference between the sudden shock of abandonment and the chronic condition of being an outsider. Superhero cinema typically prefers the former: tragic backstories are forged in loud crucibles of gunfire, catastrophic explosions, or cosmic bargains. Yet in Peter Parker’s recent cinematic trajectory, pop culture has stumbled upon an unusually candid

Recorded for $60 in an island country near the bottom of the globe, the debut single by New Zealand’s the Clean was an unlikely candidate for an international game-changer. A heap of jagged edges and jittery hooks, pushed along by a screechy Farfisa organ and shouts of “Tally Ho”, the song seems to revel in

In his 2023 novel, Always Crashing in the Same Car: A Novel After David Bowie, Lance Olsen explored Bowie’s shape-shifting contradictions to present a kind of post-genre treatise on the unknowability of people and history. His new novel, An Inventory of Benevolent Butterflies, is another After book: A Novel After Henry Darger, who, unlike David

Doveland invokes a place of pastoral calm, perhaps a lost corner of the American plains where folk songs might drift across the landscape. Django Django’s sixth album does eventually find its way there, but it takes a surprisingly circuitous route. Song titles like “Meteorite”, “Quicksand”, and “So Heavy” suggest something darker and more muscular. Yet

Brixton’s The Windmill is easily the most discussed music venue of the decade. Its 150-capacity room nurtured an eccentric art rock community, birthing now-renowned acts Black Country, New Road, Black Midi and the Last Dinner Party. It sparked a wave of jazzy, multi-instrumentalist musicians worldwide, from English Teacher (Leeds) to Geese (New York City) to

Elena Pinderhughes is the most formidable and exciting jazz artist to emerge on the flute in a generation. Her mature debut as a leader might have been an event, but it sounds more like a mood. The buzz for this incredible improviser has been building for more than a decade. In 2016, she was named

Great Falls answered the question of where the sound of Kiss It Goodbye and Playing Enemy would have progressed, had these bands kept on going. Objects Without Pain, their 2023 full-length, capped that trajectory. A work filled with the urgency and directness of the darker side of 1990s hardcore, driven by emotion but not enslaved

The sound of the 2010s was still taking shape. Taylor Swift was moving toward pop dominance. Mumford & Sons was leading a folk revival. Obama-era indie rock was soaring like a Foster the People chorus. EDM was having a different kind of cultural takeover. Daft Punk‘s Discovery and Justice‘s rock ‘n’ roll-inspired dance beats laid

A movie hero can lose his innocence without losing his audience. Once we stop cheering his victories, we may become absorbed in his suffering. In the case of The Death of Robin Hood, our hero’s crimes remain, but our attention moves toward his exhaustion, his self-disgust, and the possibility that he might yet do one

The sound of the 2010s was still taking shape. Taylor Swift was moving toward pop dominance. Mumford & Sons was leading a folk revival. Obama-era indie rock was soaring like a Foster the People chorus. EDM was having a different kind of cultural takeover. Daft Punk‘s Discovery and Justice‘s rock ‘n’ roll-inspired dance beats laid

Conor Murphy’s project Smidley has always existed alongside Foxing, but since the band went on hiatus after 2024’s self-titled release, it has become his primary focus. Murphy Horse is Smidley’s first album in four years, born from the time Murphy spent sifting through feelings of joy and confusion after the decision to put Foxing on

The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore Taylor Swift Republic 25 September 2026 As a music writer, I may be biased in making the following assumption, but plenty of evidence supports it: Taylor Swift reads criticism of her own work. When asked about this matter in a 2014 interview with Jimmy Kimmel, the singer-songwriter replied,

“Many Years in the Making” is both the title of the first single from Syd Matters’ latest, A Gospel of Some Sort, and literally true since their last work, Brotherocean, was released back in 2010. Yet it feels like they just stepped out of the studio and into a Paris cafe for a break, then

The Iron Roses are pissed. They are as pissed as we all should be, and they channel that righteous anger into ten tracks of catchy, finger-pointing punk you’ll want to blast outside the polls next month. Some of the best political punk is coming from scene veterans this year, like Ultrabomb’s excellent The Bridges that

Cryptic Temple of Otherworldly Abhorration Sépulcre Invictus 16 October 2026 Sépulcre are entranced by death metal’s ritualistic potential. While many acts are rehashing the genre’s mechanics, the Brittany band instead embraces its aesthetics. Their full-length, Cryptic Temple of Otherworldly Abhorrations, is the pinnacle of their effort, a work that still stands firmly on the groundwork

We live at a historical juncture where the relentless acceleration of digital capitalism, mobile screens, and algorithmic content generation encompasses human consciousness. Digital media, streaming platforms, and artificial intelligence-generated feeds have fundamentally altered modern cultural consumption. As philosopher Byung-Chul Han observes, modern digital acceleration fragments human attention, offering a “frictionless” yet superficial engagement with reality.

Ryan Keberle is a virtuoso trombonist with a huge stylistic range. He is a jazz composer and improviser, but also a master interpreter of styles beyond mainstream jazz. Reverso, an international chamber ensemble he co-founded, transforms European classical music. His band Catharsis includes vocalist/guitarist Camilla Meza. He has toured with indie rocker Sufjan Stevens, and

We live at a historical juncture where the relentless acceleration of digital capitalism, mobile screens, and algorithmic content generation encompasses human consciousness. Digital media, streaming platforms, and artificial intelligence-generated feeds have fundamentally altered modern cultural consumption. As philosopher Byung-Chul Han observes, modern digital acceleration fragments human attention, offering a “frictionless” yet superficial engagement with reality.

Please don’t be among those who think that the public’s recent infatuation with Christopher Nolan’s 2026 film, The Odyssey, has anything to do with Canadian classicist, poet, and literary genre disrupter Anne Carson winning the 2026 Nobel Prize in Literature. That’s not how Nobel Prizes get handed out. Every October, the prizes established by Alfred

Ryan Keberle is a virtuoso trombonist with a huge stylistic range. He is a jazz composer and improviser, but also a master interpreter of styles beyond mainstream jazz. Reverso, an international chamber ensemble he co-founded, transforms European classical music. His band Catharsis includes vocalist/guitarist Camilla Meza. He has toured with indie rocker Sufjan Stevens, and

Singer-songwriter beabadoobee, whose given name is Beatrice Laus, probably wouldn’t consider herself a pop star, but she has the charisma and brand awareness of one. Although Laus’ sound has transformed across four records, a throughline of angst and resilience has remained. The singer’s homages to 1990s and 2000s rock repackage a brash sound for a

As we near the end of the year, many heavy hitters tend to gather between October and November. This month is no exception, with a mix of established acts and newcomers making an appearance. On the black metal side, Trolldom, the majestic/melodic vehicle of the ever-prolific Swartadauþuz, returns with their most complete work to date