Blood Orange loves voices. Singing, talking, whispering. Fragments of conversation, monologues, prayers. Anything. Because it’s not the voice itself, but rather the emotions behind it. Attitudes, fears, desires revealed through the slightest vocal inflection. Accents that reveal the community you grew up in. Blood Orange hears beyond the voice and sees behind the words to […]

“My God, I’m so lonely.” The first lines of “Nobody,” the lead single off Be the Cowboy, Mitski’s latest release, where alone, behind a piano, she pours out her soul and spills our secrets. That’s how it usually works with Mitski. She stretches her own vulnerabilities through songwriting often described as diarylike, though her words […]

An intimidating line of teenagers in streetwear, sporting tracksuits and rare sneakers, curved around Santa Ana’s The Observatory, slowly moving through security as they removed cellphones and forgotten chains from their pockets, staring at a group of teens in Hawaiian shirts as they bypassed the line for security and entered the venue with no hesitation. […]