Essential Tremors

While to the casual observer it might seem as if New Zealand’s The Beths appeared seemingly out of nowhere in or around the summer of 2023, they’ve in fact been making their extremely catchy brand of indie pop for almost ten years now. The Auckland-based quartet’s most recent album, Straight Line is a Lie, was released last year by Anti-. We spoke to founding members Liz Stokes and Jonathan Pearce for this episode...

Colombia-born singer and musician Lucrecia Dalt began her musical career seemingly suddenly, at least when observed from a distance as a simple biographical factoid: as a civil engineer, she worked in a geotechnical company until giving it up to become a musician. While the exact details of that situation are likely considerably more nuanced, it nevertheless serves as a metaphor for her ambitious and ever-forward artistic inclinati...

Bassist Melvin Gibbs has played on many seminal records you’re very familiar with, and likely many you aren’t, almost 200 in total. Some of his better-known work includes playing with drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson, guitarist Sonny Sharrock, as well as Rollins Band, and Arto Lindsay. Although having played in stylistically varied projects, there is one constant among all them, which is Gibbs’ palpable presence, as...

Through his work in Uncle Tupelo and Wilco, Jeff Tweedy has played a significant role in the shaping of Americana and alternative rock since the early 90’s. The title of Uncle Tupelo’s highly influential first album, No Depression, both spawned a resurgence in music more widely described as “Americana,” as well as gave it its name. Later in his career, Tweedy and Wilco collaborated with Billy Bragg on the Me...

Adrian Sherwood is known for his work as a producer, and while that term brings to mind those who simply put their often-subtle imprint on the recordings in which they’re involved, Sherwood’s approach is distinctive and heavily informed by the Dub music which he worked to distribute and to play as a DJ in London in the 1970’s. He has brought that sensibility primarily, but not exclusively, to electronic and electr...

Brian Weitz, better known as Geologist from Animal Collective, is, like the other members of that band, a voracious listener of music from a huge span of eras, cultures, and geographical locations. As can be heard in both his contributions to that band as well as his solo work, it’s all left a mark, particularly in his live performances on hurdy-gurdy, which has roots in music from multiple cultures and points in history. A P...

As a founding member and lead singer of Galaxie 500, it could be said Dean Wareham was present at the Big Bang of American indie/alternative/college rock in the 80’s. The band spawned both a large fanbase as well as a nascent movement that embraced the same sensibilities of atmospheric-yet-stripped down, heartfelt-but-self-aware, Velvet Underground-inspired music that shaped underground music for the next two-plus decades. He...

Born and bred in Dublin, Ireland, Ian Lynch is a founding member of traditional Irish cum modernist folk band Lankum. A passionate player and supporter–as well as a keen historian–of traditional Irish music, Lynch, along with his bandmates in Lankum, bring a passionate and renewed sense of spirit to the idiom with rousing performances in which they employ traditional instruments that serve to both honor and also expand ...

Victoria Shen (also known by her performance alias Evicshen) is a San Francisco–based sound artist, experimental music performer, and instrument-maker whose work blends tactile audioworks with visceral live performance. Her practice engages deeply with the physicality and spatiality of sound, often through custom-built electronics, analog modular synthesizers, and hybrid sculpture-instruments.

Shen is perhaps best known for p...

A Norwegian musician, novelist, and interdisciplinary artist whose work defies easy categorization, Jenny Hval has built a reputation for music that blends experimental pop, spoken word, noise, and electronic textures—often paired with provocative lyrics exploring the politics of the body, gender identity, desire, and the intersection of art and intimacy.

Her critically acclaimed solo albums, including Apocalypse, Girl (2015)...

William Tyler is an American guitarist and composer known for his unique blend of fingerstyle guitar, ambient, and post-rock influences. Hailing from Nashville, Tyler's music weaves intricate, melodic soundscapes that are often both introspective and expansive. Critics have praised Tyler for his ability to evoke deep emotion through his instrumental work. Pitchfork described Goes West as "a stunning meditation on the American lands...

Keyboardist, songwriter, and founding member of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers Benmont Tench has been a cornerstone of one of the most beloved and commercially successful rock bands of the last four and a half decades. Known for his signature organ and piano work, Benmont has played on countless classic tracks not just with Petty, but also as a session musician for artists like Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Bonnie Raitt, and the Rolling...

Haley Fohr, who performs as Circuit des Yeux, is known for her hauntingly powerful voice and immersive, genre-defying sound. As Pitchfork put it, her voice is “a force of nature” that “pulses with raw emotion.” Her album -io, was hailed by The New York Times as “a deeply evocative exploration of loss, identity, and the self.” With a career marked by boundary-pushing work, Haley continues to redef...

As a member of Radiohead since its inception over 30 years ago, Colin Greenwood’s contributions to the group, both through his bass playing and songwriting, have helped them reach ever-higher levels of artistic and commercial prominence. A soulful, clever, and inventive bass player, his parts are always noticeable due to being highly composed and carefully considered, but never intrude on the song or call attention to themsel...

Critically-acclaimed composer and saxophonist Darius Jones’s playing has been described using adjectives such as “fearless,” “riveting” and “breath-taking” from publications ranging from Pitchfork, to The Wire, to the New York Times, and has received superlatives from many other publications, as well. Currently an Assistant Professor of Music at Wesleyan University, Jones has previously bee...

Japanese musician and composer Ikue Mori is widely known for her innovative work in experimental electronic music. Having initially gained recognition as a drummer for the avant-garde rock band DNA with Arto Lindsay in the late 1970s, she helped define the band's distinct sound. As her career evolved, Mori transitioned to using electronics and computers, exploring sound manipulation and producing intricate soundscapes that blend no...

As close to indie rock royalty as may exist, Ira Kaplan of Yo La Tengo–a band nearing its 40th year in existence that he founded with his partner, drummer Georgia Hubley in the mid-1980’s–has recorded 17 records under that name and influenced more bands than could be named here. Simultaneously considered critics’ darlings but also having established a wide, loyal, and sustaining fanbase, the band–ancho...

First coming to international attention after Brian Eno heard him playing in Washington Square Park in New York City in 1979, Laraaji’s calm, meditative, and deeply spiritual work was widely heard for the first time when his Ambient 3: Day of Radiance, record was released by Eno in 1980 as the third in his “Ambient” series. A collection of his early, previously unreleased work, Segue to Infinity,...