Tone Freq Studios captures pristine acoustics and emphasizes analog warmth, creating a tactile space that values collective experiences over the convenience of digital recording methods.
When you get it, you'll see a SongDNA card 'on supported tracks'. If you tap this, you can explore the writers, producers, and collaborators behind a song, see samples and interpolations that shaped its sound, and browse the covers it inspired.
"Honora exists in a strange place. It's essentially a jazz record, which will likely turn off RHCP fans. And jazz heads may approach the record with skepticism since Flea's day job band is often maligned by 'serious' music fans."
"It felt jarring and lonely, not exactly the comfort I was hoping for, but one afternoon I made a little voice memo while playing a piano mumbling the phrase....I wanna build a dream for you. That's when this whole thing kind of started. Like a little spark."
Lightris and his pal sero stumbled into a TikTok hit with 'Kwik Trip,' a feathery, jittery ode to the beloved Midwest gas station chain. In the video, they shimmy shoulders, top rock, and hit Stevedastoner's 'Uptown Downtown' dance in the snow as the handclaps rain down.
With Portland sextet Abronia, you sort of have to listen past the spectacle. Forget about the overtly Jodorowsky-Morricone vibes, the tenor sax and the pedal steel guitar, the contralto vocals, the gigantic bass drum, the legend of co-founder Eric Crespo's desert vision. What's really going on here?
Pitchfork is honored to host one of our favorite bands- Mandy, Indiana-to kick off our inaugural reader Q&A series. Starting right now, you can post your questions for guitarist and producer Scott Fair, and synth player Simon Catling to talk about their outstanding record, Fair's solo project set dressing, or whatever else you want to ask them about the joys and difficulties of music, Manchester, and making art.
R&B in the 21st century has been in a constant state of flux, tugged between safe traditionalism and blurry attempts at progression. For the last decade-plus that "progression" has seen R&B music become more indebted to trap records and the moody atmospherics of alternative bands like Radiohead, Coldplay, or My Bloody Valentine.
I have written before that while women are gloriously surging in academic, social, and career achievement, many young men are flailing. Pop culture pieces as well as academic dissertations are replete with accounts of male aimlessness and resultant disaffection and disengagement. They point out that the growing achievement gap and resultant maturational/responsibility gap between men and women are making young men progressively less and desirable to modern young women.
Natanya tears genres open and rebuilds them in her own image. Her drums swing loose and jazzy over heavy 808s; synths drift dreamily before snapping into gritty guitar riffs. Writing, producing and arranging all her own work, she weaves together neosoul silk, R&B groove, indie edge, and flashes of grunge, all carried by a buttery falsetto that nods to Aaliyah, Amy Winehouse, Janet Jackson and early Destiny's Child.
It's purely a creative space. There are no deadlines. There are no have-to's. It's just something I do for me. When you design a recording studio, the first thing you want to do is treat the room to make sure the sound is good, so you're getting an accurate depiction of the music as it was played or recorded.
I still have to go to the studio after this and I have to make a Mardi Gras costume for my son after the studio. Longest day ever. Just after 2:30 a.m., Rihanna can be seen hard at work in the studio, with the session going on well past 5 a.m.
Tim Zha is looking for the soul in the machine. While some might hear Auto-Tune as masking a singer's humanity, the London-based artist filters his vocals to highlight technology's inseparability with our notions of self. This is ground well-trodden by Afrofuturist techno pioneers, Atlanta trappers, and PC Music hyperpoppers; for Zha, Auto-Tune represents what he calls the "coincidence of human subjectivity and the networked machine system."
Inner Magic is the duo of former Chromatics guitarist Adam Miller and former Smashing Pumpkins guitarist Jeff Schroeder. They met in 2024 and bonded over their love of '80s UK indie legends Felt, krautrock and the Vinnie Vincent Invasion, and then decided they should make music together.
Designed by Korean up-and-comer Woojin Yang, Everglow is a handheld mini-keyboard that fits into any bag. The "musical sketchbook" of sorts allows artists to quickly jot down ideas when they're not in front of their instruments or computers. The sleekly-designed device comes with a generative AI-based sound system that allows them to iterate and develop a song on the spot, not just transcribe the initial tune.
Having already released two EPs under the moniker Georgia Gets By, 2024's Split Lip and 2023's Fish Bird Baby Boy, Georgia Nott (also of BROODS) has announced the project's debut LP, Heavy Meadow. We don't have more details on it yet, but earlier this week, she wrote on Instagram, "I have been imagining and growing this place for the last two years and to be on the cusp of beginning to share it with you all has me shaking with delight. More info forthcoming..."
Last May, Ty Segall released Possession, a sophisticated set of psychedelic bubblegum that featured a string section, saxophone, and surprisingly sweet melodies. "Live" "at" "the" "BBC," taped about a decade ago, may take recent fans of the L.A.-based garage rocker by surprise. Now in his late 30s, Segall's already released 17 solo albums. The prolific songwriter has a knack for abrupt swings, so no one should be too shocked.
But to anyone tracking the data over the past few years, it was inevitable. In 2022, Bad Bunny's Un Verano Sin Ti redefined the market, driving Latin music's streaming growth to new heights. It later became the first Spanish-language album nominated for Grammy Album of the Year. The takeaway is simple: When you have accurate, real-time data, you don't guess where culture is going, you know.
Thundercat has announced his fifth LP, Distracted, due out April 3 via Brainfeeder. It's his first album since 2020's It Is What It Is and most of it was made in collaboration with Greg Kurstin, with additional production from Flying Lotus, Kenneth Blume (fka Kenny Beats), and The Lemon Twigs. It also features contributions from A$AP Rocky (whose new album Don't Be Dumb Thundercat also contributed to), Willow, Tame Impala, Channel Tres, Lil Yachty, and the late Mac Miller.
Tiny Desk Radio co-hosts Bobby Carter and Anamaria Sayre present performances from the next generation of Americana music: Sierra Ferrell, whose sound is firmly planted in the roots tradition; Wyatt Flores, an Oklahoman "red dirt" country singer; and MJ Lenderman, an indie rocker who doubles as the guitarist for the band Wednesday. Sierra Ferrell: Tiny Desk Concert Wyatt Flores: Tiny Desk Concert MJ Lenderman: Tiny Desk Concert
The duo had originally confirmed their sophomore album Top of the Hills back in December 2025, but soon after, they announced that they had shelved the album due to exhaustion from touring. Now, Top of the Hills has been remade as FREE SPIRITS, and they've introduced a dramatic new narrative along with it; according to a press release, the duo underwent a 12-step healing program at a wellness center run by Sting, who they've enlisted as a collaborator and "wellness mentor."
Angel Marcloid is never one to let a mood pass her by. From the demented genre-slush of Fire-Toolz to the full-throated jazz fusion pastiche of Nonlocal Forecast, the Chicago-based artist's prolific, slippery oeuvre is the extension of a life lived in service of the id and the endless pursuit of new intuitions. "I have no idea what it's like to not know what music to make," she once explained.