10 Best Songs of Week: Let’s Eat Grandma, alt-J, Penelope Isles, Parquet Courts, and More

Sep 24, 2021 Mark Redfern (with Joey Arnone)

Welcome to the 36th Songs of the Week of 2021. Whereas last week’s list was a supersized Top 14, this week was a bit calmer, with 10 songs we particularly liked.

Sufjan Stevens and Angelo De Augustine on “A Beginner’s Mind”

Sep 24, 2021 Web Exclusive

Oh, the conversations, inventions, ideas, and discoveries one can enjoy when sitting with a friend, watching a movie. It may seem like an obvious or even commonplace experience to consider, but as one gets older, further and further removed from school and responsibility-less free time, it can be more and more difficult to just sit with a friend and watch a film. Not to mention during a global pandemic when it can be frowned upon socially and public-health-wise even to sit together with a pal. Yet, the simple act is exactly what the friends and artists, Sufjan Stevens and Angelo De Augustine, did in a cabin in Upstate New York recently. The result of which is a new 14-track record, A Beginner’s Mind, out today and inspired almost entirely by movies the two watched together, enraptured.

Lost Girls – Jenny Hval and Håvard Volden on “Menneskekollektivet” (The Extended Article)

Sep 20, 2021 Web Exclusive

There is a moment during Under the Radar’s Zoom conversation with Jenny Hval and Håvard Volden where the couple (who were in the same room together) unknowingly inhabit the exact same pose together on screen: rolling deep reflecting eyes with the left hand resting on the cheek.

Indigo De Souza on “Any Shape You Take”

Sep 10, 2021 Web Exclusive

“It’s been crazy,” laughs North Carolina singer/songwriter Indigo De Souza, regarding the critical acclaim for her second album Any Shape You Take. “It’s also the busiest I’ve ever been in my life.”

Ranked: The 10 Best Courtney Barnett Songs to Date

Aug 12, 2021

Courtney Barnett, the songstress from down under, has graced us with four studio albums, an EP and several singles since 2012, and her latest ones, “Rae Street” and “Before You Gotta Go,” both precede her upcoming LP Things Take Time, Take Time (which is due out November 12 via Mom + Pop Music/Marathon Artists). The 33-year-old singer/songwriter/guitarist from Melbourne, Australia, is less about dividing her discography into songs you do and don’t like, and more about grouping them into the ones you love and the other ones you really really love. Indie folk, garage rock, stoner soul, she does it all, and these 10 picks are only a taste to get you hooked on the rest and tide you over until the new album comes out. Speaking of, we’ll start with “Rae Street,” which is not officially on this list but gives you an idea of where Barnett is at now (and was #1 on our Songs of the Week list), as well as “Before You Gotta Go,” which just came out this week. Then there’ll be an honorable mention and the full Top 10. By Lily Guthrie.

Sharpe Festival 2021, Bratislava, Slovakia, 3-4 September 2021

Sep 09, 2021 By James Thornhill

​Under the Radar sampled the delights of Eastern Europe’s underground at the third edition of Sharpe Festival

Billy Joel – Reflecting on the 40th Anniversary of “Songs in the Attic”

Sep 14, 2021 By Austin Saalman

Coming off of the mainstream success of 1977’s The Stranger, which earned Billy Joel a spot at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 chart, as well as two Grammy Awards, the formerly struggling Long Island piano man was still hungry, but no longer starving.