Will Hermes
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The actor-cum-musician Will Oldham is a gifted, eccentric and fairly revered folk-rock singer-songwriter who, for twenty years, has made an art of working outside the mainstream. Now, with a book and some branding deals, he's dipping a toe in.
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Four of the Brazilian singer-songwriter's classic records are being re-released this week. Critic Will Hermes says that, while the music is steeped in a political climate of the past, they still resonate with the present.
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The latest album by Berlin-based electronic artist Pantha du Prince is a collaboration built around a decidedly nondigital device: a series of large church bells.
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The British group's moody debut carried the ring of 1980s post-punk. The grooves are magnified on its second album, and plenty of moments feel like straight-up club music.
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The duo, which sounds like Tom Petty after some Red Bull-and-vodkas, hones the scream to an art.
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Van Etten's new album, Tramp, is titled after the touring artist's time of essential homelessness. It's full of unresolved restlessness, infinite-loop longing and expansive vocals.
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The Brazilian artist's new album, Sem Nostalgia, is a tribute to the spirit of the traditional bossa nova movement in Brazil.
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The San Francisco band's latest is called Father, Son, Holy Ghost, but the reverence it displays is more musical than spiritual.
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Carll's new album gets its name from the military slang for abandoning a mission. But on KMAG YOYO and Other American Stories, the Houston country rocker sounds as committed as ever.
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Superchunk's new album, Majesty Shredding, fits the textbook definition of indie-rock: the pomp and spectacle of marketplace rock 'n' roll turned inside out to show the seams, revealing the men and women behind the curtain who aren't much different from the rest of us.