Pitchfork Media - Best New Music

Wavves: Wavvves

Tyler Grisham — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 05:00:00 -0400

One-man noise-pop project Nathan Williams has quickly moved from homemade cassettes to online buzz, and he delivers on his first widely released LP, which recalls No Age's basement punk but feels more insular, self-contained, and unsettling. [Best New Music]

Various Artists: Dark Was the Night

Scott Plagenhoef — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 05:00:00 -0400

Red Hot's latest all-star charity comp features 31 new and exclusive songs from Arcade Fire, Spoon, David Byrne, My Morning Jacket, Feist, Ben Gibbard, the Decemberists, Conor Oberst, Stuart Murdoch, Yo La Tengo, the New Pornographers, Cat Power, Antony, Bon Iver, and members of Sigur Rós, among many others. Yes, it's good. [Best New Music]

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart: The Pains of Being Pure at Heart

Ian Cohen — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 05:00:00 -0400

This new Slumberland band will be bracketed with other lo-fi/noise-pop peers, but it has songs that will appeal beyond the confines of subcultures: Anyone with a weakness for trebly, melancholy pop music will find a lot to like about this record. [Best New Music]

Antony and the Johnsons: The Crying Light

Marc Masters — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 05:00:00 -0400

On The Crying Light, Antony Hegarty remains fascinated with the transitions and overlaps between birth and life, life and death, this world and the next, but he expresses them in more universal, more direct, but no less rapturous terms than he did on his New York-tinted breakthrough I Am a Bird Now. [Best New Music]

Animal Collective: Merriweather Post Pavilion

Mark Richardson — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 05:00:00 -0400

On Merriweather Post Pavilion everything that's defined Animal Collective to this point is refined and amplified, resulting in an album (released tomorrow on vinyl and digitally, and in the next week or two on CD, depending on your location) that puts the group's quirky and forwardly expressive style in its most accessible light. [Best New Music]

The Very Best: Esau Mwamwaya and Radioclit are the Very Best

Scott Plagenhoef — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 05:00:00 -0400

Malawian-born, London-based singer Esau Mwamwaya teams with the European production team Radioclit for a hugely eclectic mixtape. While strong collaborations with M.I.A., Santogold, and Vampire Weekend include some surprising left turns, tracks that lean away from the familiar work even better. [Best New Music]

Deerhunter: Microcastle / Weird Era Cont.

Marc Hogan — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 04:00:00 -0400

Deerhunter's double-disc follow-up to last year's Cryptograms finds the Atlanta five-piece emerging from that album's ambient haze to construct delicate, imaginative pop songs that reorganize 4AD haze, off-kilter indie pop and crashing garage-punk into a singular call-to-arms. [Best New Music]

DJ/rupture: Uproot

Mark Pytlik — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 05:00:00 -0400

Jace Clayton, aka DJ/rupture, returns with another outstanding mix. While Uproot feels every bit as purposeful as minor classics Gold Teeth Thief and Minesweeper Suite, it's far more subdued and spacious. Combining dubstep, pulsing ambience, and orchestral flourishes on tracks from Ghislain Poirier, Shackleton, and Ekkehard Ehlers, Rupture doesn't just wade through music, he constructs an alternate history. [Best New Music]

Fucked Up: The Chemistry of Common Life

Ian Cohen — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 05:00:00 -0400

They may owe their roots to hardcore, but on their second album, Toronto-based six-piece Fucked Up reinvent themselves with power chords, rich overtones, and anthemic, arm-swingng choruses to create one of the year's most ambitious and uniting hard rock records. [Best New Music]

Mount Eerie With Julie Doiron and Fred Squire: Lost Wisdom

Matthew Solarski — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 05:00:00 -0400

Phil Elverum finds a perfect foil and vessel for his songs in Julie Doiron on this mini-album, which marries to great effect his meditations on life's Big Questions with her quiet revelations about the everyday. [Best New Music]