And now for something completely deviant. Robert Christgau hit the nail on the head when he wrote of the Swans’ early music, “Not only isn’t it for everybody, it isn’t for hardly nobody.”

Swans emerged from the NYC No Wave scene and made music that was brutal, ugly, remorseless, minimalist, grinding, unmelodic, and had all the charm of a very dangerous piece of industrial machinery. And the question I’ve always asked myself is, “Who could possibly like this stuff?”

Not because I think their early music is bad music, per se. I happen to think it’s good music. I simply can’t listen to it, because it’s some of the least user-friendly music I’ve ever been subjected to. And I can’t help but wonder what makes a person WANT to be subjected to it. Swans frontman Michael Gira once said, “Swans are majestic, beautiful looking creatures. With really ugly temperaments.” I get the temperament part, but I’m wondering about the majesty and beauty.

Is there beauty in the purity of purpose? Because the Swans’ music is pure, there’s no denying it. Gira talked about the “bludgeoning, single-minded violence of the music.” “Single-minded” is the keyword there. Single-minded, as in no concessions whatsoever. And can there be majesty in music that grinds you into the mud like the tread of a King Tiger tank? Can beauty be ugly? Can majesty be brutal, monstrous?

I’ve been listening to Swans’ 1984 “Young God” EP, largely because the four songs on the EP are at least three more songs than I’m psychologically prepared to listen to at one time. And I’m a NOISE ROCK GUY. The part of me that wants to survive the experience laughs when I listen to it, because it’s so over-the-top ugly, I begin to suspect the whole thing is an inside joke, shtick. Or conversely, if it isn’t a joke, it’s so over the top it’s funny, whether the band is in on the joke or not.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Beginning today, fans can pre-order the Guts World Tour Book commemorating multi-Platinum, three-time GRAMMY® Award-winning artist Olivia Rodrigo’s worldwide tour. Pre-order the book HERE. Rodrigo performed to over 1.6 million fans over the course of 100 sold-out headline shows in 64 cities on her acclaimed Guts World Tour and headlined 18 festivals around the globe, culminating in Montréal at Osheaga Festival.

Available exclusively on Rodrigo’s store, Guts World Tour Book offers a behind-the-scenes look at the tour and Rodrigo’s creative process with exclusive photos by Paula Busnovetsky, Miles Leavitt, Jesse DeFlorio, Rahul Bhatt, and Jess Gleeson. The 100+ page hardcover book with a custom die slip case also features a timeline tracing Rodrigo’s chart-topping album Guts and the subsequent tour, a comprehensive itinerary, setlist, photos of special guests and fans, details on stage and video design, and a personal note from Olivia. Exclusive extras include a double-sided Guts World Tour fold-out poster, trading cards, and two sticker sheets.

The GutsWorld Tour found Rodrigo playing 100 sold-out headline shows in 64 cities across more than 21 countries. Adding Rodrigo’s headline performances at 18 festivals around the world, the tour reached a total of 75 cities, 27 countries, and five continents. Her team will be using special cases from flight case manufacturers to bring all sound equipment. Olivia donated over two million dollars from her net proceeds from the Guts World Tour to charities around the globe. The donation was distributed via Rodrigo’s Fund 4 Good—a global initiative committed to building an equitable and just future for all women and girls through direct support of community-based non-profits that champion girls’ education, support reproductive rights, and prevent gender-based violence.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Available on all streaming platforms now, UMe celebrates the legacy of one of the most quietly influential bands in history, Mother Love Bone, by reissuing the Seattle, WA group’s newly remastered edition of “Shine” EP and their seminal full-length debut Apple, originally released August 14, 1990, complete with the original bonus tracks on CD and LP.

This reissue is a testament to the enduring impact of Mother Love Bone’s music and a must-have for any serious music collector. On September 26, both “Shine” and Apple will be available in multiple physical configurations, including CD, standard black vinyl, or limited-edition color vinyl variants available exclusively at independent retailers, Discover, and The Sound of Vinyl. A limited-edition, newly remastered Japan-exclusive Mini-LP/SHM-CD that includes both the “Shine” EP, as well as the debut full-length album Apple, will also be available on October 10. Pre-order HERE now.

The CD version of the “Shine” EP includes “Capricorn Sister (Album Version)” as a bonus track, which is not included on the LP. The “Shine” vinyl formats feature a 4-song track list repeated on both sides and are available in three options: standard black vinyl, a limited-edition “Purple Haze” vinyl, and a limited-edition “Skyblue” vinyl LP.

Fully remastered for the 35th anniversary, Apple is officially being released for the first time since 1990. The CD version includes two bonus tracks not included on the vinyl format: “Gentle Groove” and “Mr. Danny Boy.” At the same time, the vinyl formats will be available in standard black vinyl, a limited-edition “Red Alert” color vinyl, or a limited-edition “Apple Habanero” color vinyl.

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Remembering Bill Evans in advance of his birthdate tomorrow.
—Ed.

The vinyl refreshing of the Original Jazz Classics series by Craft Recordings continues with Waltz for Debby by the Bill Evans Trio. Recorded live at the Village Vanguard with Scott LaFaro on bass and Paul Motion on drums, it documents the most celebrated of pianist Evans’ numerous three-piece bands, a union cut short by LaFaro’s untimely death by car accident a mere ten days after this recording was made. The circumstances deepen the record’s stature, intensifying the mystery of what might have been, but the music’s brilliance endures on its own merits. It is a top-tier masterpiece.

Amongst his many creative strengths, Bill Evans excelled at the trio, a tricky configuration when the instrumentation is keyboard, bass and drums, as too often a pianist will dominate the proceedings with autopilot lyricism with the bassist and drummer falling back into the role of support instead of interacting as equals.

Due to the piano trio’s proliferation over time, the above statement can easily be wielded with malice. It’s a flat fact the sheer volume of the recordings in the style can be intimidating of not fatiguing, particularly if the thrust of a recording leans toward standards and ballads in a straight-ahead bop framework. The speculation is that if the approach is too accessible in its exploration of tradition, the sounds will be lacking in the substantial.

As a distinguished extender of jazz tradition, Bill Evans complicates this premise with gusto. His music as a leader spills forth with a warmth unlikely to ruffle the feathers of anyone other than the moldiest of figs or the most obstinate of avant-gardists, and yet his playing is incredibly vigorous in its relationship to composition, improvisation, and interaction.

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PHOTO: DEAN CHALKLEY | Gina Birch has been creating groundbreaking sound and images for nearly five decades. Best known as a founding member of the pioneering post-punk band The Raincoats, Birch helped shape a musical vocabulary that was raw, self-determined, and unconcerned with the rules.

Formed in 1977 with Ana da Silva while at Hornsey College of Art, The Raincoats became a touchstone for artists from Kurt Cobain to Bikini Kill—valued as much for their fearless experimentation as for their songs. Birch’s creative life has always extended beyond The Raincoats. She’s made music with Dorothy and The Hangovers, directed videos for New Order and The Libertines, and built an amazing visual art practice consisting of video work and painting. Her piece “3 Minute Scream” was part of the Tate Britain’s “Women in Revolt!” exhibition in 2024, and her work has been shown in galleries worldwide.

Her solo work, produced by Youth of Killing Joke, includes 2023’s I Play My Bass Loud and her latest release, Trouble (2025), all in stores via Third Man Records.

Radar features discussions with artists and industry leaders who are creators and devotees of music and is produced by Dylan Hundley and The Vinyl District. Dylan Hundley is an artist and performer, and the co-creator and lead singer of Lulu Lewis and all things at Darling Black. She co-curates and hosts Salon Lulu which is a New York based multidisciplinary performance series. She is also a cast member of the iconic New York film Metropolitan.

Retro-eighties Euro-synthpop lifestyle got you down? Skinny tie suddenly feels like an albatross around your neck? Tired of listening to Gary Numan’s “Cars” in cars? Howard Jones beginning to sound as dull as a blizzard-forced stay at an Erie, Pennsylvania, Howard Johnson? Maybe it’s time to move on to something new and completely different, by which I mean the Mongolian folk metal band The Hu!

Because what could be cooler than a bunch of bona fide Mongolians combining throat singing and traditional Mongolian instruments like the morin khuur (horsehead fiddle), tumur khuur (Jew’s harp), baigali tovshuur (lute), and tsuur (end-blown flute) with electric guitars and drums to produce a sound that will cause you to throw that cheap synthesizer (you were never going to form that Soft Cell tribute band, Soft Sell, and you know it) and gleefully blow the speakers Land of the Eternal Blue Sky style!

How to describe the music of the Hu (which is pronounced “who” and means “human beings”), who joined forces at the Mongolian State Music and Dance Conservatory and decided to try their hand at heavy metal, which, not too long before, had actually been banned in the world’s most sparsely populated sovereign state?

Well, imagine the portentous guitar crunch of Metallica (sans the frilly playing) combined with in-your-face vocals that incorporate old Mongolian war cries and poetry in the Mongolian language, although you’d be excused for sometimes thinking they’re singing in Finnish. Then throw in some cool morin Khuur to give them this almost Kansas feel. And they have a catchy pop edge too, which is in full display on “Triangle.”

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s non-violent political activism, influential peace and protest anthems, and the couple’s early years in New York City, following their migration from the British countryside to the cultural hotbed of Greenwich Village, which reinvigorated them as artists and galvanized them as activists, will be explored and celebrated in a massive new 12-disc boxed set and digital collection entitled Power To The People (Super Deluxe Edition), releasing via Capitol/UMe on October 10, one day after John would have been 85.

Produced by Sean Ono Lennon and his 5x GRAMMY® Award-winning team, who together took home the 2025 GRAMMY Award for Best Boxed Set Or Special Limited Edition Package for the innovative and elaborate, bar-raising boxed set, John Lennon’s Mind Games – The Ultimate Collection (Super Deluxe Edition), Power To The People (Super Deluxe Edition) is an exhaustive, lovingly compiled 123-track collection, including 90 never-before-heard and previously unreleased tracks, that chronicles John and Yoko’s most political era.

The set spans from Plastic Ono Band’s 1969 Bed-In anti-war anthem “Give Peace A Chance,” to a new version of their pivotal and polarizing 1972 album, Sometime In New York City, and that year’s historic One To One Concerts at Madison Square Garden in NYC—John’s only full-length concerts after leaving The Beatles and also the last concerts John & Yoko ever performed together. It also boasts a wealth of unreleased demos, home recordings, jam sessions, live cuts, unique mixes, and much more.

“That Madison Square Garden gig was the best music I enjoyed playing since The Cavern or even Hamburg,” John Lennon told NME in 1972. “It was just the same kind of feeling when The Beatles used to really get into it.” “The One To One concert was our effort in Grassroots Politics,” writes Yoko Ono Lennon in the Preface to Power To The People. “It embodied what John and I strongly believed in—Rock for Peace and Enlightenment. And this one in Madison Square Garden turned out to be the last concert John and I did together. Imagine Peace. Peace is Power. Power To The People!”

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | To celebrate two decades since its initial release, King Creosote’s landmark album, KC Rules OK, will be reissued on September 26, 2025 and will be made available as a 1LP white vinyl and a 2CD Deluxe edition. The collectible white vinyl will be the first time this album has been available on vinyl since its original 2005 release.

Originally released in the UK on September 19, 2005, KC Rules OK quickly became a fan favourite, solidifying King Creosote (aka Kenny Anderson) as a unique voice in British indie folk. The album spawned several notable singles, including “Bootprints,” “Favourite Girl,” and “678,” all of which showcased Anderson’s distinctive songwriting.

The 2CD Deluxe edition pulls together a collection of B sides, songs and remixes, many from the fabled Chorlton And the Wh’Earlies unreleased promo CD including four songs that are completely commercially unreleased and are currently unavailable digitally. KC Rules OK was King Creosote’s debut album for Warner Music, and in December 2009, ranked #6 in The Skinny’s “Scottish Albums of the Decade” poll.

Regarding the 20th anniversary reissue, Anderson says, “I’ve reached a point in life where nearly everything good is in the rear view mirror. When in spring 2005 the Earlies adopted King Creosote to record a 4 track EP for “Names On Records,” the brief outlined a look back on a decade’s worth of unreleased homespun recordings, dig up a few gems worthy of polishing. Two heavily flawed diamonds—‘Marguerita Red’ and ‘Bootprints’—were buried deepest below several failed bands and a 2:1 in late 80s Electrical Engineering.

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Celebrating Bruce Thomas on his 77th birthday. —Ed.

Before Elvis Costello became the dullest Renaissance Man of the Western World, gadflying about with the likes of Burt Bacharach, the Brodsky Quartet, some Swedish mezzo-soprano whose name escapes me at the moment, the Netherlands’ Metropole Orkest, jazz pianist Marian McPartland, T-Bone Barnett, the London Symphony Orchestra and others, including for all I know the Men’s Choir of Barracks 22 of the Toksong Political Prison Camp in North Korea, he was a punk fellow-traveler and one of the angriest young men in England this side of Johnny Lydon.

Everybody grows up, but do you have to grow up to be a sophisticated dabbler and bore? In Costello’s case it was the Paul Weller Komplex times ten, and when it came to wanton genre-hopping, Elvis made Neil Young look like a piker. Even the early Costello was a hybrid of sorts—a singer-songwriter in spirit, a punk in attitude. The Village Voice’s Robert Christgau summed this up by comparing him to Jackson Browne in his review of Costello’s 1977 debut My Aim Is True, then turning around and complimenting him on his snarl come the following year’s This Year’s Model.

Costello famously recorded My Aim Is True with, yes it’s true, a California-based country rock act (Clover, whose members would later go on to play, variously, with Huey Lewis and the News, the Doobie Brothers, and Lucinda Williams) as his backing band. A very singer-songwriter thing to do, that, but by the time he got around to recording This Year’s Model (again with Nick Lowe as producer) he recruited a band of his own that could produce music to mirror his adamantine misanthropy (and some would say misogyny).

Costello would never be a true-blue punk—too much clever wordplay and a musical vocabulary that pre-dated the Sex Pistols—but he was a punk in spirit, much like the 1966 Dylan. Indeed, “Like a Rolling Stone” is a template of sorts for Costello, with its catchy wordsmithing, laser focus on the personal and themes of (to use words Costello would himself employ and would stick to him like glue throughout his career) “revenge and guilt.” Unlike the post-protest Dylan, Costello was not apolitical—his disgust extended to goings-on in Great Britain, but rarely went in for punk sloganeering. No anarchy in the UK for the former computer operator from Bootle.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | My Morning Jacket will celebrate the 20th anniversary of their acclaimed 2005 album, Z, with a very special new Deluxe Edition, arriving via ATO Records on Friday, October 3. Pre-orders/pre-saves are available now.

Remastered from the original master tapes, the Z 20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition will be available digitally, on CD, and as a 3LP set on pink, coral, and blue-colored vinyl, highlighted by 14 key outtakes from singles and film work, previously unreleased material, demos, and more, including the new single, “Where To Begin,” premiering today at all DSPs and streaming services.

Written especially for Cameron Crowe’s 2005 film Elizabethtown—set in Kentucky and partially shot in MMJ’s hometown of Louisville—“Where to Begin” was among the first songs recorded by the band with then-new members keyboard player Bo Koster and guitarist Carl Broemel, the latter on stone-country pedal steel guitar. “That was one of the coolest things,” says My Morning Jacket singer-guitarist-songwriter Jim James, “that Carl could play pedal steel. We’d never had that before.”

To further commemorate the 20th anniversary of Z, My Morning Jacket have slated a number of very special shows that will see them performing the landmark collection in its entirety. The Z 20th Anniversary shows will take place as part of previously announced dates on the upcoming second leg of their MY MORNING JACKET “is” ON TOUR, including Morrison, CO’s Red Rocks Amphitheatre (August 15), Los Angeles, CA’s Hollywood Palladium (August 19), Brooklyn, NY’s Brooklyn Paramount (October 16), Chicago, IL’s The Salt Shed (October 26), and Atlanta, GA’s Fox Theatre (November 1). Tickets for all five Z – 20th Anniversary shows are on sale now.

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Composer, bandleader, saxophonist, and label-owner Jon Irabagon is in the midst of a massive 2025, and there is still over a third of the year left to unravel. Irabagon’s recent achievements will get some dished assessments in the paragraphs below, but on August 15, Someone to Someone by his acoustic quartet PlainsPeak will see release on his own Irabbagast Records. A newly assembled group of old friends, PlainsPeak is inextricably rooted in Irabagon’s current Windy City digs.

To begin, ‘twas back in February that Server Farm, a beautiful monster of a record featuring music written by Jon Irabagon for a ten-piece band of the saxophonist’s choosing (Irabagon, violinist/vocalist Mazz Swift, trumpeter/flugelhornist Peter Evans, guitarists Miles Okazaki and Wendy Eisenberg, keyboardist Matt Mitchell, acoustic bassist Michael Formanek, electric bassist Chris Lightcap, drummer Dan Weiss and vibraphonist/electronics wrangler Levy Lorenzo), and more specifically a double quintet of sorts, was released, or better said, unleashed into the atmosphere.

Recorded March 12, 2023 in Big Orange Studio in Brooklyn, Server Farm is compositionally rich and ambitious and something of a breakout record for Irabagon on a compositional front, as it is also a conceptually daring rumination on the presence of AI in our individual and collective consciousness. At its sonic core Server Farm is a stunning blend of acoustic, electric, and electronic instrumentation enlivening compositions written with the assembled players in mind.

It’s followed by the as yet digital-only release of Axiom Five on May 1 of this year, although the two pieces that comprise the set were recorded on April 24 of 2024 at the performance venue The Stone in NYC by Irabagon, bassist Mark Helias, and drummer Barry Altschul (the Irabagon Trio), plus pianist Uri Caine and trombonist Ray Anderson. Across Axiom Five’s lengthy improvs (the first 37+ minutes, the second shorter but still sizable at 15+), the generational (OG New Thing meets Downtown NY meets contempo creative) and geographical (essentially Chicago meets NYC) potency is very satisfying.

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