Reviews

Made over five years, mostly in homes around New York, Emily Reo's Carpark debut sets depression, sexism and grief to ten vocoder-pop songs built as earworms.

Grimes made her debut in GarageBand in about six weeks, named every song after Dune and put it out on 30 cassettes. The limits are the point, and the problem.

Iglooghost's debut never repeats a bar. It took him more than a year and a toll on his health, and it is as tiring as it is inventive.

Mac DeMarco made his first full album alone, on eight tracks of tape in a Montreal apartment, and dropped the slowed-down croon. It became his breakout.

Marissa Nadler and Cave In's Stephen Brodsky made Droneflower over three years in home studios. It is short and dark, and a Guns N' Roses cover is its peak.

MisterWives' first release, cut largely in a Bronx bedroom: six bright pop songs about a lost friendship, a breakup and someone imagined better than they were.

Kevin Barnes cut of Montreal's 12th album to tape with a new band in three weeks. The method works; too many songs stop where their models stop.

Phil Elverum spent fifteen months in a former church in Anacortes and split the results in two. Clear Moon is the clear half, and the more patient one.

Before they were Finom, Sima Cunningham and Macie Stewart made this six-song debut on one shared drum kit and found their sound in a question about hocketing.

Ovlov's second album came five years after Am, built from songs Steve Hartlett mostly wrote in 2016. The short songs land; the six-minute closer runs long.

Paul Banks dropped the Julian Plenti alias, demoed every part himself and made his first album under his own name with Interpol's old producer, Peter Katis.