Staff Mixes

Im not sure if Duran Duran were a minor band disguised as a major one, or vice versa, but they did have a handful of really catchy songs, and playing a saxophone on a raft is a boss move. One thing is certain though: Metro UK is a pretty minor publication, and ranking "Ordinary World" over "Rio" is complete bullshit. Still, here are a few great tracks from this these 80s kings.

These days, metal’s eclecticism runs pretty deep, and in a climate where so much unrest is bubbling up to the surface, its gratifying to have all this music provide a place of refuge for those who want/need to look away from the news. Metal has always possessed a degree of defiance and attitude, serving as a counterpoint to a mainstream thinking. And now its added more ambience and a broader range of emotion. Its thought-provoking, ability-defying, and at times just a pure exorcism of rage—totally fitting for 2017.Check out the right-on-point sheer aggression of Full Of Hells "Deluminate," the interstellar sound of Mastodon soaring even higher on "Sultans Curse," and the continuing rise of Power Trip on "Executioners Tax (Swing of the Axe)." Our 2017 survey also includes buzzed-about up-and-comers like Code Orange, hardcore revivalists like Higher Power and Trapped Under Ice, heralded mainstays like Pallbearer, the oft mentioned (and must-hear) 83-minute opus by Bell Witch (pictured above), as well as smouldering southern crew Royal Thunder, and total wrenches in the machine like the spastic Pyrrhon. And those are just some of the many far corners metal stretched into this year. We also saw comebacks from Godflesh and Glassjaw, polarizing Grammy recognition for August Burns Red, and then glimpses of future releases from Windhand, Turnstile, Old Wounds, and Gatecreeper. Theyre all here in our round-up of this years best metal.

All my conversations with electronic-music heads have had a common theme recently: Everyone agrees that there was little consensus in dance music this year. It’s been that way for a while, really. Every year, there are more scenes running in parallel, fewer standout anthems that everybody can agree on. But this year, even dance music’s broad, diffuse overground felt scattered. Plenty of reliable figures kept doing what they do best—Four Tet and the Caribou side project Daphni turned out well-regarded albums, for instance—but aside, perhaps, from Bicep, there were few emergent artists with wide crossover appeal.The good news, though, is that there were plenty of pockets of brilliance across the underground, both in terms of micro-scenes and individual artists boldly blazing their own paths. In terms of the former, the most exciting was a nameless corner of the UK bass spectrum, largely headquartered in Bristol, encompassing labels like Hemlock, Hessle Audio, Timedance, Livity Sound, and Whities. Even here, there’s no single rhythmic signature or sonic feature that unites them all, the way there is with dubstep or techno. Instead, it’s a shared predilection for highly abstracted sound design, deliriously drawn-out patterns, and twisted arrangements that turn on a dime. Minor Science’s shuddering, jewel-toned “Volumes,” Mosca’s wild, whip-cracking Latin-dub raver “Peyote Stitch,” and Batu’s feverishly repetitive “Murmur” were all standouts here, alongside stellar tracks from Lanark Artefax, Airhead, Ploy, Hodge, Parris, and the artist known simply as Joe.If that’s the “scenius” end of things, the genius end was just as fruitful. Confidently sailing far beyond the known limits of Chicago footwork, Jlin continued to melt minds with her own brand of dazzlingly polyrhythmic, ultra-vivid, triplet-riddled club tracks. Laurel Halo, never one to repeat herself two records in a row, hit upon the strangest, squishiest sounds she’s conjured yet—an enveloping amalgam of funk, affectless electro-pop, and musique concrete. Errorsmith, designer of Native Instruments’ popular software synth Razor, put his creation through its paces on a head-spinningly intricate album of synthesized percussion and needling sound design that, despite its wanton experimentalism, is also one of the most giddily enjoyable records of the year. And as far as singularity of vision goes, few could touch Fever Ray, who returned from a eight-year absence with the brilliant, challenging, sometimes sexy and sometimes confounding Plunge. “IDK About You,” highlighted here, was one of its wiliest curveballs: a 160-BPM co-production with the young Portuguese batida producer Nídia Minaj (also included here with her own “Underground”) that put an unprecedentedly breathless spin on Karin Dreijer’s creepy, out-of-body pop.The link between electronic music and pop is practically as old as electronic music itself, but this year there were still artists who made the relationship feel fresh. The Korean-American singer/producer yaeji turned out a heady, low-lit fusion of house, ambient, and trap music. Sophia Kennedy, an American living in Hamburg, brought her experience writing music for the theater to an odd and deeply infectious album for DJ Koze’s Pampa label. And even TORRES, best known as an indie rocker, broke new ground on “To Be Given a Body,” the absorbing final track from her album Three Futures: It’s a captivating fusion of storytelling and wispy-yet-weighty ambient production, and I couldn’t stop listening to it this year, often cueing it up multiple times in a row. It’s an outlier on this list, but it also feels like a jumping-off point. Hopefully, 2018 will bring more songs like it—fresh energy and fresh ideas from artists way out on the margins of a deeply decentered genre.

Fortify your pulse with Philip Sherburnes regularly updated playlist of electronic tracks ranging from club bubblers to horizontal home listening.We kick off our latest roundup of the best electronic music with one of the fiercest club cuts to come around in a while: Jlin and Zora Jones’ “Dark Matter,” a bass-heavy beast of a track—part footwork, part d’n’b, all evil—anchoring Jones’ essential new Visceral Minds 2 compilation. It’s a good indicator of how outre things are going to get this month: James Holden (pictured) and The Animal Spirits’ “Pass Through the Fire” is a psychedelic-synth excursion from the experimental electronic mainstay’s new band project that has more in common with Terry Riley than with techno. And Peder Mannerfelt’s “Obey” finds the ROll the Dice member (and Knife/Fever Ray collabortor) revving his engines for a terrifying trip into hair-raising sound design.It’s not all such a white-knuckled ride, though. Four Tet’s “SW9 9SL” is as sleek and resonant a house track as he’s delivered in ages; Moritz von Oswald and Juan Atkins’ “Concave 1” is as enveloping as dub techno gets. And Destroyer’s sax man Joseph Shabason takes us out with “Aytche,” a gorgeous array of drifting synths, processed sax, and honest-to-goodness muted trumpet solo—just the thing to keep you warm as we begin our inevitable slide into fall.

There was a time when emo and indie were forced to sit at separate tables in the lunchroom. But volcanic new songs from the battle-hardened Brand New and Rainer Maria prove that genre tags are often too restrictive and willy nilly, and that its never too late for a band to express themselves via insightful lyricism and volcanic outbursts. And while we praise the emocore veterans for their standard-setting returns, take some time to breathe in the potent resurrection of shoegazing hardcore/proto-emo deities Quicksand, while also appreciating the stunning artistic growth Turnover has already shown.Elsewhere: Seven years after This Is Happening, LCD Soundsystem has returned with some of their more searching, epic songs, while R.E.M. guitar god Peter Buck and Sleater-Kinneys Corin Tucker have made sweet music together with Filthy Friends. And though his band cant seem to stick to a name, Oh Sees leader John Dwyer continues to prove himself one of the undergrounds leading lights.

In this recurring playlist, The Dowsers Mosi Reeves gathers new sounds and styles from across the hip-hop diaspora. Some are familiar, and others are personal favorites, but all reflect the state of rap as it is lived now.Every year brings a new culture war, and the dog days of 2017 have found us arguing over the alleged criminality of rappers like Xxxtentacion and Kodak Black, and whether listening to them amounts to tacit support. On their new projects, both men acknowledge their controversial reputation—and perhaps even ask for forgiveness. Elsewhere, Action Bronson rehashes his old Blue Chips mixtape formula, and makes a decent retail project in the process. And if you can’t be bothered with the drama surrounding the "lamestream," then there are vital indie voices like Milo and his densely literate art-rap.

Get warped with the latest tracks and trends in metalcore, post-hardcore, emo, pop-punk, and everything in between, as selected by The Dowsers Justin Farrar.

The triumphant return of Brand New—whose new single "Cant Get It Out" pushes deep into the modern-rock zone—is upon us. But dont sleep on Converges "Under Duress," a chilling slab of metalcore, or Blindwishs "Single Word"—post-hardcore blending soaring melodieswith pummeling heft.

The Black Experimental Music Mixtape is a monthly mixtape curated by music journalist and critic, Jordannah Elizabeth. Each month, Jordannah will bring the best of the most far out music from Black musicians in America and across the world.Black experimental music has no unifying characteristic beyond breaking the rules of contemporary Black music across genres. This month, SassyBlack’s intoxicating voice sits alongside Tomeka Reid’s otherworldly cello playing and The Veldt’s esoteric shoegaze. Meanwhile, Vagabon breaks the mold of what alternative rock should look and sound like; Valerie Joon explores out-of-body experiences on “Astral Plane”; 2Chainz refines trap on “Realize” in a way that encourages the maturity of the genre; and Zeal & Ardor meld American slave spirituals with heavy metal.

Fun fact: Adults spend at least one third of their waking hours daydreaming. Okay, like most stuff on the internet, that is not an actual fact, but it’s cool if it’s true (though it’s probably not). Anyway, to help you with your daydreaming, we’ve come up with a playlist full of progressive ambient, cloud-folk, blur-house, and other genres that we’re making up as we type this sentence. The playlist is also awesome for other activities, like sleeping, studying, getting high, and… uh… sorry, we lost our train of thought there for a second. But subscribe to the playlist here and check back for regular updates.

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.