Creative

Footer Legal

Main

NavBar

Sections

Topics

Become a subscriber today to get unlimited access

Thanks for reading!

Register to continue

Talkhouse

SSION is Cody Critcheloe, a New York City-based songwriter, musician, visual artist, and director.

SSION

Music

Best of 2020: Cody Critcheloe (SSION) Thinks Róisín Machine is Perfection

Oceanator’s debut full-length, Things I Never Said, sees NYC multi-instrumentalist Elise Okusami hyperbolically equating early adulthood malaise with apocalyptic destruction. The type of anxieties that form when thoughts bottle up and stress gets the best of you. Throughout the record, allusions to intrusive thoughts and depression-induced stasis are weaved in between references to falling skies, rolling fires, and the possibility of the world literally falling apart.
However, while Okusami’s emotional and physical solitude makes for a resilient foe, Things I Never Said is ultimately a record about finding comfort in the face of destruction, whether it be through appreciating the little things or forming a bond with someone you can mutually confide in about mental afflictions. There’s no concrete resolution to the album, but rather a vital reminder that love and friendship, both with others and herself, will always reign victorious in our darkest moments

Oceanator

Best of 2020: Oceanator Talks Jeff Rosenstock’s NO DREAM

Honus Honus (aka Ryan Kattner) has devoted his career to exploring the uncertainty between life’s extremes: beauty and ugliness, order and chaos. The songs on Dream Hunting in the Valley of the In-Between, Man Man’s first album in over six years and his Sub Pop debut, are as intimate, soulful, and timeless as they are audaciously inventive and daring.
(Photo Credit: Dan Monick)

Man Man

Best of 2020: Man Man’s Honus Honus Makes a Controversial Choice

Alex Edkins is the guitarist and vocalist of the Toronto-based punk band METZ. Their fourth album Atlas Vending is out now via Sub Pop.
(Photo Credit: Norman Wong)

Alex Edkins

Best of 2020: Alex Edkins (METZ) Loves Cindy Lee

Evan Weiss is a prolific Chicago-based musician, songwriter and producer known for his work performing and recording as Into It. Over It., and well as the bands Their/They&rsquo;re/There (featuring American Football and Owen&rsquo;s Mike Kinsella) and punk act Pet Symmetry. You can follow Into It. Over It. on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/intoitoverit" target="_blank">here.</a>
&nbsp;

Evan Weiss

Best of 2020: Into It. Over It Biked All Over Chicago This Year

Josh Gondelman is a writer and comedian who incubated in Boston before moving to New York City, where he currently lives and works as a writer and producer for Desus &amp; Mero on Showtime. Previously, he spent five years at Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, where he earned four Emmy Awards, two Peabody Awards, and three WGA Awards. In 2016, Josh made his late night standup debut on Conan, and he has also performed on Late Night With Seth Meyers and The Late Late Show with James Corden. Gondelman is the author of the essay collection Nice Try: Stories of Best Intentions and Mixed Results and the co-author (along with Joe Berkowitz) of the book You Blew It, and has become a regular panelist on NPR mainstay Wait Wait&#8230; Don&#8217;t Tell Me! In Spring 2020, Gondelman launched his own podcast Make My Day, a comedy game show. Josh has written for Fuse TV’s Billy On The Street and was the co-creator of the popular Modern Seinfeld Twitter account. He has released the comedy albums Dancing on a Weeknight, Physical Whisper (which debuted at #1 on the iTunes comedy charts) and Everything’s the Best, and his writing has appeared in prestigious publications such as McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, New York Magazine and The New Yorker. (Photo by Mindy Tucker.)

Josh Gondelman

Film

Revisited: I Guess a 30-Year-Old Beastie Boys Record Is My Best Friend Now?

LOMA is Emily Cross, Dan Duszynski, and Jonathan Meiburg.
(Photo Credit: Bryan C. Parker)

Loma

Best of 2020: Loma Got Really Into This Is England This Year

Black Pumas — the duo of frontman/songwriter Eric Burton and producer/guitarist Adrian Quesada — received three 2021 Grammy nominations recently, including two in the ceremony’s biggest categories, Album of the Year (for Black Pumas (Deluxe Edition)) and Record of the Year (for “Colors”). “Colors” was additionally nominated for Best American Roots Performance. The nominations are a thrilling culmination to a year that began with the duo attending the 2020 Grammys as Best New Artist nominees and has seen their star rise through massive streaming and radio success, multiple high-profile TV performances, and a passionate and ever-growing fanbase.

Black Pumas

Best of 2020: Eric Burton (Black Pumas) Loves Moses Sumney’s Grae

In 2015, the beloved Boston indie-rock band Krill broke-up. Actually, hold on, broke-up may be too intense of a phrase. They did stop playing shows in the fall of 2015, but by 2016, they put out a posthumous five-song EP, and a couple years after that, Krill reunited for a one-off show supporting their friends in LVL UP. So, there was no acrimony, Krill just kind of ended. But in 2019, Knot was born, which, depending on how you look at it, is kind of Krill and also kind of not at all Krill.
<div id="description" class="row">
<div class="large-12 columns">
In the simplest terms, Knot is effectively Krill’s final lineup with an additional musician added in, but it’s the particulars that highlight the differences between the two bands. In Knot, Krill bassist and vocalist Jonah Furman switches to guitar, Krill guitarist Aaron Ratoff handles both guitar and bass, Ian Becker is still on drums, and Joe DeManuelle-Hall, the relative newcomer, also plays guitar. In essence, Knot is a bigger, more ruminative version of Krill, but it’s also something that’s distinct unto itself. And on the band’s debut album, which is called Knot, too, it’s easy to see that Knot has a perspective all its own.
</div>
</div>

Knot

Best of 2020: Knot Was Super Into Guitar Records This Year

Deeper&#8216;s Shiraz Bhatti, Nic Gohl, and Drew McBride take a thoughtful and direct approach with their songwriting, yielding spry melodies and inventive structures. It’s a clever combination of jagged post-punk and refined indie rock. A tightly wound rhythm section teeters on the edge, but is anchored by intricate guitar interplay and saturated with an enigmatic spirit. Their first album, 2018’s Deeper channeled the anxiety of change in everyday life and navigating the unhinged political atmosphere. Run takes a more existential approach, reaching down past the emotion and staring back at the inner.
Backed by an astutely scientific cover of the John Maus rarity “Bennington”, Deeper sheds the searching bottled up in previous material, carving out an ambit distinctly their own. Brisk, pointed and efficient, and no note wasted, Run b/w Bennington, a new 7 Inch out in October 2019, sets the stage for the Chicago trio’s sophomore LP.
(Photo Credit: Brendan Carroll)

Deeper

Best of 2020: Deeper Talks the New Yves Tumor Record

Rahill Jamalifard is a DJ and the vocalist for the Brooklyn-based band Habibi. Her debut solo record, Flowers At your Feet, is out now on Big Dada.

Rahill Jamalifard

Best of 2020: Rahill Jamalifard Talks Jasper Marsalis and Jack Name

It’s hard to survive in the music business, but Peter Bjorn and John have done that and then some. The Swedish indie-pop trio have been triumphing via their pitch-perfect alchemy of varying sounds and styles for two decades now, and their ninth album Endless Dream is proof of the unique creative chemistry that Peter Morén, Bjorn Yttling, and John Eriksson have successfully worked with for so long. Every PB&amp;J album sounds liked falling in love with music for the first time, and the deceptively light confections contained on Endless Dream continue with the trio’s latest romance, the Endless Play EP.
(Photo Credit: Johan Bergmark)