Quarantine With

All credit to DEVIN TOWNSEND – the general disarray of the pandemic has done nothing to hamper his high levels of productivity, both releasing new material online and hosting a number of livestreams throughout the last year. As the second official release in his Devolution Series (itself a catalogue of both quarantine activities and material from the vaults), Galactic Quarantine documents one of those aforementioned livestream concerts. Making up for the understandable cancellation of the Empath Vol. 2 tour – one intended to focus on the heavier side of Townsend material – Galactic Quarantine sees ‘Hevy Devy‘ accompanied by a fierce trio of metal musicians to deliver a semi-live performance of metal that skirts mostly between prog and extreme…

South London singer-songwriter Tom Misch released a great album last year in collaboration with Yussef Dayes called What Kinda Music—his first major release since 2018’s Geography. Today he’s returned with the first new music of this year in the form of classic covers spanning several decades and a few new originals. “I’ve always been able to make feel good music regardless of whether I’m feeling good” said Misch in a press release. “Perhaps that’s set me in good stead for where we are now.” He reimagines James Blake’s “The Whilhelm Scream,” Solange’s “Cranes in the Sky,” Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” and Crystal Waters’ “Gypsy Woman.” For the final cover, “Parabéns,” he worked with the originator, Brazilian jazz and bossa nova legend Marco Valle. The three new tracks from Misch are the opener “Chain Reaction,” then “For Carol” featuring Tobie Tripp, and closer “Missing You.”

Pavement were one of the most successful indie-rock bands of the ‘90s, an era dominated by groups that were never quite sure what to do with commercial success. Pavement’s “hits” add up to “Cut Your Hair” off 1994’s Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain. The remaining choices are a random assortment of the band’s casual greatness. Singer Stephen Malkmus delivered an uncomfortable reluctance with singing that wasn’t sure of itself, while his lyrics mocked himself, his band, and the world that only became more absurd the more it paid attention to the band’s scattershot genius. There are few albums that better capture what the early- to mid-‘90s sounded like to young college grads. Rock music plays an important part in the band’s obsessions.