FOR A DECADE, Angel Olsen, 33, has consistently made music and then toured it, taking breaks for only a few weeks before hitting the road again. Then the pandemic struck, and she was able to hit the pause button while still releasing an album. Her latest, Whole New Mess, arrived at the end of the summer—a collection of stripped-down versions of tracks off 2019’s All Mirrors (with the exception of the title song and “Waving, Smiling”). It’s indicative of her return to her roots and...

SAD13 Haunted Painting (Wax Nine) Sadie Dupuis is one of the most prolific songwriters out there, but unfortunately, still one of the most underrated. With any luck, Haunted Painting, her second solo album as Sad13, will change that. The Speedy Ortiz frontwoman returns with some of her strongest work yet, with guest appearances from tUnE-yArDs’ Merrill Garbus, Helado Negro’s Roberto Carlos Lange, and others. The songs “WTD?” and “Hysterical” are pure bops, with whimsical, synth-laden instrumentation that takes the edge off Dupuis’ incisive lyrics. Other tracks—“Ruby Wand,” “Market Hotel”—clock in...

BEVERLY GLENN-COPELAND  Transmissions (Transgressive)  “There are three challenges in my life. The first is being Black in a white culture. The second is being transgendered in a heteronormative culture. The third is being an artist in a business culture,” says Beverly Glenn-Copeland in a press release about Transmissions, a career-spanning collection of his beautiful and eclectic music. Born in Philadelphia, Glenn-Copeland left the U.S. to study music in Canada in the 1960s. In 1970, after dropping out of college due to discrimination, he released two mystical folk-jazz...

Austin, Texas' very own sister trio, Tiarra Girls, debuts their newest single “Can’t Stop The World,'' a cover song by none other than The Go-Go's. Working together as a band for a decade, these sisters have created their own brand of music, taking inspiration from Latin, pop, rock, blues, dance, mariachi — you name it. With gigs including the sought-out SXSW musical festival and Trans-Peco Festival, and now scoring a huge deal singing with Lucky Hound Music with producer Michael Ramos, this band is just...

Mickey Guyton is changing the country music world. On Wednesday, she became the first Black woman to ever perform solo at the Academy of Country Music Awards, which is in its 55th year. Guyton took this opportunity to sing her recently released song, "What Are You Gonna Tell Her?," live from the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville.  The song questions the listener about what they will tell their daughters in the face of harassment, abuse, and oppression. In the chorus, Guyton sings, “Will you just shrug...

Danny Denial Fuck Danny Denial (Cruisin)  The first track on Fuck Danny Denial drops you off at “Mercer Summit Block Party/Brand New Skirt,” a place where the stars align and the singer realizes that “everyone I love on Earth is here”—basking in the momentary bliss of feeling like part of a community. That sentiment never lasts forever, of course, as the emerging Seattle artist’s third album also journeys through anxiety, isolation, imposter syndrome, and heartbreak, as seen through the lens of a queer Black Scorpio. “Totally Fucked Up”...

Crescendos cascading in your ears, shrills of keys playing, ensemble of drum beats and eerie vocals rack up in your brain. No, you’re not on acid and listening to your popcorn ceiling telling you that you need to go vegan: you’re listening to Real Clothes’s Precaution. A Black queer musician based in Brooklyn, New York, Nico Fox, also known as Real Clothes (and a Leo) delivers a hauntingly beautiful album in the midst of a world riddled with a global pandemic and surviving extreme police brutality...

Eboni Harrington, a teacher at Lucy Addison Middle School in Roanoke, VA, is winning after recreating Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s hit song “WAP” in a music video for her incoming class. In efforts to ease pandemic anxieties surrounding the school year, Harrington made the music video to get her students excited for some "work and progress" this fall. In an interview with Yahoo Life, Harrington says, “Teaching gives me purpose… I truly enjoy inspiring and encouraging our future leaders of tomorrow. Their ‘aha’ moments are always...

KATIE VON SCHLEICHERConsummation(Ba Da Bing) For her latest album, Von Schleicher was inspired by a viewing of Hitchcock’s Vertigo, where she saw a subtext of an abusive relationship lurking beneath the film’s dominant narrative. Following its source of inspiration, many of the album’s tracks evoke a cinematic sensibility with sweeping chamber pop sounds merged with intimate lyrics that excavate buried trauma. Across the album ’70s and ’60s retro sounds are merged with a modern-day twist and an electronic edge. Some of the songs are shape-shifters that start...

IN HER AUTOBIOGRAPHY The Baddest Bitch in the Room (out September 8), music industry veteran Sophia Chang describes how she first developed the careers of the Wu-Tang Clan and A Tribe Called Quest, before developing her own body and mind through the practice of kung fu. Here, she lets us in on the music she used to get into the write frame of mind.    “I’d Do It All Again” by Corinne Bailey Rae This is the song I listened to non-stop after I lost both my father...