The Lacking Permanence

Listening to Fantastic Negrito is like lifting the lid on a simmering pot to a wonderfully exotic yet very familiar blend of spices.

A sparse yet not simple outing for this member of the Dead Milkmen, including some truly folksy stuff like the title track and “Cool Water”, and surprisingly sophisticated original tracks delivered in the same man-and-his-acoustic guitar aesthetic.

Bill Callahan has been wandering the halls of music for quite some time now, his deep voice and aimless arrangements a constant hypnotic presence.

In order to locate the psychedelic rainbow treasure trove that is Joey Joesph, you will have to navigate and defeat countless auto-corrects.

The paper bag sounded unusually loud as the pair passed it back and forth, sharing the dried apricots as they waited in line for the exhibit to open. Once again, their contact was to be intercepted in the gift shop, according to the dossier that they had found taped under the back seat of the Combi. The ornithologist scanned the sky for any migratory species, though they really should have known better. The magistrate felt at ease with the assignment; this was their first visit to Ankara, but the premise behind the Ulucanlar Prison Museum was quite familiar.

The first wave of UK punk crested and shrank back, but the Mekons are still thrashing and foaming.

It’s easy to suspect Ray LaMontagne came from a recently unearthed time capsule documenting the folkie scene of half a century ago.

The extremely productive Messer Chups hails from St. Petersburg, Russia, and is currently going through some very heavy surf.

Sometimes you just need a pounding beat and a shout-along chorus, and this is something Naked Giants truly excel at, throwing in plenty of inventive twists and turns to keep the whole thing from collapsing into a steaming pile of riffs.

It’s been 45 years since Chrissie Hynde initially hit her stride with the Pretenders, and she hasn’t slowed down for anybody since.