Genres

Whats This Playlist All About? The Danish noise punks rise back up to the surface after four years of silence with a new single—the scuzzy, sludgy saga "Catch It"—and some inspirations in the form of “luxurious rockers, serenades, howlers, and cruisers."What Do You Get? Bookending the set with two of their own moody doozies, Iceage take several left turns here. Karen Daltons haunting banjo-pickin’ sidles up next to T. Rexs sax-kissed glam rock, CANs funkiest groove, and heady avant-garde journeys from artists like Pharoah Sanders and Sun Ra. Still, each song has its own strangeness—and timelessness—that somehow connects them all.Greatest Discovery: The slithery, nimble guitar layers and urgent rhythms of "Feeling High" from Japanese psych-rockers Les Rallizes Denudes.Whats the Best Way to Listen to This Playlist? Lying on your bed, headphones secured, lights off, lava lamp flowing, slightly dazed and confused.

Danish rock outfit Iceage are constantly evolving, moving from the goth-inflicted punk of their early records towards a bigger, more luxurious sound of their 2018 album Beyondless. The one through-line is a bleary passion that permeates every chord theyve played since forming in 2008. Guitarist Johan Suurballe Wieth recently created a playlist of his favorite guitarists for the Dowsers, and, predictably, its a diverse, unpredictable assortment. Below is his annotated list.Pete Cosey on Miles Davis’ “Dark Magus, Wili (part 1)”This guitar to me, sounds like an ancient instrument used to scare off prehistoric beasts. Charles Bullen on This Heat, “A New Kind of Water”This Heat has since I discovered them in my early teens, been something I listen to frequently. And it still leaves me in awe, the weaving of sounds incompatible, becomes something so solid. Charles Bullens playing is something that will always keep my mind puzzled.Joanne Robertson, “Wildflower” “Wildflower” is, in my opinion, an underrated piece of work. Some of the most honest guitar music in newer date. Abner Jay, “Cocaine”A box with strings.Johnny Thunders on New York Dolls’, “Jet Boy”However tactless and appalling a guitar solo can appear. No ones got shit on him. Joni Mitchell, “Song To A Seagull,” “The Pirate Of Penance”This brings my mind to what the medieval times in America would look like.Johnny Echols/Arthur Lee on Love, “A House Is Not A Motel.” Many things could be said about the guitars of this band and the songs they play. What comes to mind for me is, what great fun it must to play this song.Peter Peter Scneidermann on Bleedergroup, “Sunrise, Amber Green”I pay great homage to this man. Peter is one of the people that has had the greatest impact on the way I view and play music. As a teen I would watch Bleeder at any chance I got. Later in life Peter has become a dear friend, and someone who has taught me all the tricks in my arsenal. He is hands down the best guitar player I know. Check out his breakdown for each track below.Loren Mazzacane Connors, “A Possible Dawn”With someone who stands behind such vast and diverse body of work as Loren Connors ,it can be hard to navigate. But honestly I find joy in all aspects of his music. A tightly knit organic carpet of sound. James Williamson on Kill City, “Night Theme”I wish I wrote this riff.Ron Asheton on The Stooges, “1970” No comment needed.James Blood Ulmer on Odyssey, “Church”It sounds like someone who has never touched an instrument before, but is an apparent natural. Equally afraid and pleasantly surprised. Lindsey Buckingham on Fleetwood Mac, “The Chain”As I said earlier about guitar solos, I will apply again. He makes that one note work.Jimi Hendrix on Band Of Gypsys, “Machine Gun” I cant deny that I am text book fan of rocknroll in many ways. As cheesy and cliché as it may seem, this was the first song I ever played on my record player. I could continue this list into infinity, but it would become an old song quickly. Therefore I leave you with this.

Every group has its breakout star, and for Atlanta rap trio Migos, Quavo has long been their Beyoncé. But as they rose to new commercial heights in 2017 with the chart-topping single “Bad and Boujee,” the spotlight shifted to another member, Offset. And that left Takeoff—who doesn’t appear on “Bad and Boujee” or the group’s hit Calvin Harris collaboration, “Slide”—looking like the odd man out. Takeoff even had to defend himself to an interviewer at the BET Awards, motioning to his impressive jewelry and asking, “Does it look like I was left off ‘Bad and Boujee’?”But Takeoff (a.k.a. Kirshnik Khari Ball) is nobody’s weakest link. In fact, he’s arguably the best MC in Migos, with a flair for vivid word choices and a distinctively raspy voice that contrasts with his uncle Quavo’s buoyantly melodic delivery. And he’s held down the chorus and first verse on some of the group’s hits, including the recent “T-Shirt” and 2014’s “Fight Night,” which was the highest charting Migos single before “Bad and Boujee.”Takeoff’s hoarse bark often recalls Rick Ross on the group’s most ominous trap anthems like “WOA” and “Cross the Country.” But the way he bites down on consonants with a percussive flow reminds me of Memphis legend MJG, another skilled rapper who was sometimes overshadowed by his partner 8Ball. And he’s displayed a facility for more light-hearted tracks like “Playa Playa,” and even made up for his absence from “Slide” with an appearance on Calvin Harris’ equally smooth “Holiday.” Takeoff released his first official solo track “Intruder” in 2017, and it’s an encouraging glimpse at how capable he is at holding down a song without the help of Quavo and Offset.

Though he may not have been present at the birth of Detroit techno, Carl Craig exerts a huge influence on that scene. He was the founder of seminal label Planet E Communications, was the co-creator of the Detroit Music Festival and is responsible for some of the most eclectic and well-known tracks from that scene. Hes also a very eclectic remixers, as this playlist from Jess Harvell at Beats demonstrates. From Throbbing Gristle to Junior Boys, the picks have a random quality to them, but Craigs signature oddball soul provides a common thread.

Like R&B, indie rock is a genre whose current iteration bears zero aesthetic relation to its original incarnation. In fact, indie rock holds the rare distinction of being perhaps the only genre that has gradually mutated into the complete ideological inverse of everything it once stood for, while still retaining its name. As an alternately tuneful and experimental offshoot of hardcore, indie rock began as a fuzz-blasted assault on both the sleek veneer and materialist values of glossy 80s mainstream pop, but these days, its sometimes difficult to tell the difference between modern indie rock and the smooth sounds emanating from your parents favorite Lite-FM station. So how the hell did we get from the circle-pit fury of Black Flag to the artful adult-contemporary pop of Bon Iver? This playlist attempts to chart a linear, song-by-song course through three and a half decades of knotty aesthetic evolutions.Each track here is a link in a chain, one that built upon the innovations of its immediate predecessor and subtly pushed the ball forward into new directions. The leap from the snow-blind squall of early Dinosaur Jr. to the delicate pop of Elliott Smith isn’t quite so dramatic when you consider the ways Pavement, Sebadoh, and Guided by Voices squeezed melody from noise in the interim. And likewise, the chasm between the orchestral pomp of Arcade Fire and the gleaming synth-pop of M83 seems less daunting when you look at how bands like Animal Collective and Dirty Projectors melted down indie rock’s molecular structure with digital textures and R&B beats.These days, the term "indie rock" has effectively been rendered meaningless on both a musical and philosophical level, given that once-rigid aesthetic divisions have dissolved and every artist on the totem pole is now a slave to streaming stats. So let this playlist serve as a lifeline and anchor to an era when a band could really be your life, and not just an algorithm-generated background soundtrack to one.

Valentine’s Day can be a tricky affair, but when it comes down to it, no roses, chocolates, or wining and dining can compare with how you set the mood once you make it to the bedroom. If your special someone finds comfort in the woozy romanticism of James Blake or the lush surreality of Beach House, you may want to casually flip this playlist on. Clocking in at just over an hour, it’s got a little bit of old and new as it eases into its seductive spell with the sexy skulk of FKA twigs and Massive Attack, then gets straight to the point with Lana Del Rey’s silky confession “Fuck it I love you” and Billie Eilish’s hesitant heart-tugger “i love you.” Just before the mood gets too serious, though, we kick back into a throbbing groove with The xx, Caribou, and Four Tet, wrapping it all up with a wistful indie lover’s anthem that offers up the most apt of final words: “I like it all that way.”

This is a track of the day. Be sure to subscribe to The Best Songs of 2018 (So Far)for regular updates.There are an increasing number of second acts in indie rap. Little Brother’s Phonte recently returned with his strong new album No News is Good News, and Kool Keith reunited with Dan the Automator and Q-Bert for their thankfully batshit indie synth-hop opus Moosebumps: An Exploration Into Modern Day Horripilation. There’s also been plenty of chatter about Mos Def and Talib Kweli reuniting for a sophomore Blackstar album, produced by Madlib. Still, the return of Jean Grae is surprising. When indie rap was really popping in the late 90s and early 00s, she was always a bit of an outlier. To state the obvious, she was one of the few females in hip-hop’s boys club, and unlike her counterparts in mainstream hip-hop, she didn’t position herself of a hyper-stylized, endlessly sexualized ubermensch. She was emotionally neurotic, with a thematic palette and persona that was more straight-forward, more real. She was also a supremely technically gifted emcee; her bars stood up next to the rhymes-for-days, meat-and-potatoes emcees of that scene. But, despite this, she never achieved the success or acclaim she deserved.But it’s 2018 now. She’s changed and so have we. It’s seems a little aspirational to say that we as a culture are more inclusive and tolerant when Trump is president, but certainly there are pockets that have opened up to be more accepting of different voices, hip-hop among them. Grae is still doing Grae, but Everything’s Fine -- her recent collaboration with Detroit rapper/producer Quelle Chris -- is the most conceptually adventurous work she’s ever done. It’s also perhaps the most outward looking. Yes, she’s still wrestling with her own competing impulses and trying to reconcile her own conflicting internal narratives, but she’s also doing this in the context of the shitstorm that’s raging outside (Trump, police shooting, etc).“Gold Purple Orange” is an obvious standout track from the album. The beat has a droopy, loopy quality and sounds like the hip-hop equivalent of a giant, stoned sloth. It’s the perfect backdrop for Quelle Chris’ loose, punch-drunk flow and intoxicatingly ironic raps that examine racial and gender stereotypes: “Everybody black dick gotta be long...Every Jew, golden rule, gotta save bills...Every young nigga gotta deadbeat daddy.” His verse kicks off the song, and is a nice counterweight to Grae’s verse, which is both more structured and more personal. She’s the frizzy hair, bookworm” who’s an “immigrant children watchin Buckwheat late night” and listening to “Depeche Mode, Big Audio-o Dynamite.” This leads to an “identity crisis” and “coming later, vices.” It’ deeply autobiographical, and also pretty self-critical, but this is part of her process. Later, she’ll conclude that “With difficulty comes learnin” and “I aint got to be nothing for you but me.” Despite the new collaborators, focus and sonic veneer, this is archetypically Grae -- difficult, honest, and dope.

Though the term is tossed around a lot, there’s really no such thing as a “one-hit wonder.” If the criteria were simply having one Top 40 Billboard hit, then blink-182, Gorillaz, Janis Joplin, and Jimi Hendrix would all be considered one-hit wonders. Even artists that produce only one successful single can have a profound musical impact beyond that song. And there must be at least one power-pop enthusiast out there who knows every Fountains of Wayne song—or at least one besides “Stacy’s Mom”—by heart. Still, we all know what the term “one-hit wonder” generally implies. It’s an artist that produces one massively popular song that completely overshadows all other aspects of their career, whether it lasts for one album or several decades.This playlist consists of one-hit wonders in the post-millennial indie-pop realm. The majority of these groups adhere to the strict definition of the term, having produced at least one single that landed in the Billboard Top 40 charts. But researching this playlist yielded some surprises about artists that I incorrectly assumed only had one recognizable song. Foster the People has actually had a bunch of hit singles, though only “Pumped Up Kicks” has reached No. 1. Noah and the Whale has had several songs chart in the UK, but “5 Years Time” is the only song that resonated elsewhere. Of Monsters and Men has had other successful singles, but “Little Talks” is the only one that has breached the Billboard Top 40. And The Ting Tings were going to be included on this list, until Wikipedia informed me that the band actually had a handful of other singles that charted in the US besides “That’s Not My Name.”Aside from Fountains of Wayne, the most obvious one-hit wonder on this playlist is Gotye. “Somebody That I Used To Know” was a huge No. 1 hit in at least 10 countries, and is likely stuck in your head now that you’ve read its name. But does anyone even remember “Eyes Wide Open,” Gotye’s single released before “Somebody That I Used To Know,” and his only other song to chart in the US?The truth is that someone out there definitely knows that song, and also considers a few other Gotye songs “personal hits” to them the same way, say, Louis XIV’s “Finding Out True Love Is Blind” is to me—it may never have been a literal chart hit, but it was a smash single in my heart. That’s the tricky thing about calling artists one-hit wonders: They never truly are. In the world of indie-pop, however, that distinction isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Not having hit songs gives you more cred, anyways.

This playlist collects new music that The Dowsers’ Maura Johnston has fallen for in her workaday life as a music writer and her semi-professional life as a DJ for WZBC, Boston Colleges independent radio station.One of the most pleasant surprises of 2017 has been my personal rediscovery of a few labels that began putting out high-octane indie pop decades ago, and continue to release sweetly catchy records today. Elefant Records out of Madrid has been plying its wares since 1989, and La Bien Querida, the project of Bilbao-born Ana Fernández-Villaverde, hits all the high spots of the genre on "El Lado Bueno"—warm opening chords, hooks that split the difference between agitated guitar pop and hopping synth pop, Fernández-Villaverdes assured vocal serving as a guide. Matinée Recordings, which launched in 1997, is still at it as well; their high-quality roster of artists includes The Last Leaves, whose lineup includes three-fourths of the beloved Australian outfit The Lucksmiths and whose debut single is made for long walks in autumns fading daylight. This months slate of songs is full of delights from new artists (Chicagos Varsity, Los Angeles Blushh) as well as super-confident statements from veterans like Julie Doiron (of Erics Trip) and Beck.

Psychedelic music emerged in the mid-60s as a mutant offspring of the British Invasion and American garage rock, but has since morphed into so many different forms that it is more accurate to describe it as a feeling than a sound. Be it the the brain-melting feedback of Jimi Hendrix or Ty Segall, the dreamy reveries of Spiritualized and Tame Impala, or the heady, head-nodding beats of Flying Lotus and J Dilla, psychedelica is hard to pin down—but you’ll know you’re hearing it when you feel your mind altering. Heres our curated guide to the best head music to help you chase the rush, including our genre-spanning psych playlist (at right) and links to past Dowsers mixes for even deeper trips.

INDIE PSYCHPsychedelia never dies, it just keeps getting weirder. Animal Collective threw down the gauntlet with 2004’s Sung Tongs, their childlike, free-spirited update of psych rock, and a generation of indie artists have taken up the challenge. From Deerhunters fearsome ambient punk to Zombys scrambled dubstep to Ariel Pinks wounded daydreams, the youngest generation continues to push music inward.Recommended Listening:Animal Collective’s Outer LimitsDreamy Noise Sounds: The Best of Kranky RecordsNew Tropics: The Modern Los Angeles Underground

PSYCH PUNKThe common myth about punk is that it formed in opposition to bloated 70s rock, and rejected Pink Floyd and anything associated with psychedelia. But the truth is that plenty of punks, such as restless hardcore purveyors Black Flag and volatile noiseniks the Butthole Surfers, not to mention punk-adjacent acts like the Jesus & Mary Chain and Dinosaur Jr., looked back to the ‘60s when deciding how to expand their sound and beguile their fans.Recommended Listening:When Punk Got WeirdPsychedelia in the ‘80sThe 50 Best Shoegaze Albums of All Time

PSYCH FOLKIn the beginning, psychedelic music was associated with guitar gods like Jimi Hendrix and waves of feedback. But that big bang was soon followed by generations of artists—from 60s Greenwich Village folkie Karen Dalton to Bert Jansch and his 70s British folk group Pentangle to modern dreamweavers like Devendra Banhart— who used acoustic guitars, pared-down arrangements, and dexterously plucked melodies to pull the listener into their headspace without the need for amplification.Recommended Listening:Way Past Pleasant: A Guide to Psychedelic FolkReligion, Rock, and LSD: A Brief History of Jesus Freaks

PSYCH ROCKWhen rock first got psychedelic in the 60s, the most obvious proponents were self-professed freaks like Jimi Hendrix and Frank Zappa. But nearly everywhere you looked, you could find someone trying to access their inner mind via some radical noise, from cult acts like Love and The Fugs to icons like The Beatles and Pink Floyd. Since then, every generation since has found their own way to look inside, from the Dream Syndicate in the ’80s, to Slowdive in the ’90s, to My Morning Jacket in the 21st century.Recommended Listening:Bad Trips: The Dark Side of the ‘60sSpace Rock: A Cosmic JourneyHow Psychedelia Reclaimed Modern Rock

PSYCH JAZZAt its mid-’60s moment of origin, psychedelia immediately found a natural host in jazz. After all, both are concerned with evoking a feeling and a mood, and following inspiration wherever it leads—from the spiritually searching compositions of Alice Coltrane to Mulatu Astatke’ slippery Latin-flavored explorations to Flying Lotus dedication to feeding brains with jazz-damaged trance whispers.Recommended Listening:The Black Experimental Music MixtapeChampions of Ethiopian GrooveThe Best of Brainfeeder

PSYCH FUNKPsychedelic music has traditionally been used as a way to explore the inner workings of your mind. But if you take off the headphones, its also a great way to explore your body on the dance floor. Soul, funk and R&B have a long tradition of making music that rocks the hips and the third eye at the same time, from Eddie Hazels righteous riffing on Funkadelic’s Cosmic Slop to Dâm-Funks alien synth-funk bangers.Recommended Listening:A Deeper Shade of Psych SoulThe Afrofuturist Impulse in MusicInto the Nite: Synth-Funk Fantasias

PSYCH RAPPsychedelic music has drifted into every form of music, and since any worthwhile hip-hop producer keeps their ears open, its only natural that it’s became part of the mix. Revered producers J Dilla and Madlib have made hip-hop tracks that oozed with so much mood and shimmer that they didnt even need MCs to rewire the listeners brain, while the genre’s heady offshoot, trip-hop, has been obliterating genre lines and listeners’ minds for more than two decades.Recommended Listening:Great (Post-Donuts) Instrumental Hip-Hop TracksBehind the Beats: Madlib and DillaBest Trip-Hop Tracks

PSYCH-TRONICAWhy settle for rocking minds and rocking bodies when you can do both at once? From the Chemical Brothers to Neon Indian to Boards of Canada, many of the most cutting-edge electronic-music producers spend equal amounts of time focussing on booming beats as well as keyboard lines, sine moans, and digital gurgles designed to tickle the mind. And if you need to rest after a night out, theres plenty of trippy ambient chillout tracks for that as well.Recommended Listening:Essential Acid House TraxThe Art of Psychedelic Disco-RockThe Best Electronic Shoegaze