Under the Radar’s Black Friday Sale 2023 Extended Through Friday – 35% Off Subscriptions

Nov 28, 2023 Mark Redfern

Under the Radar‘s annual Black Friday Sale was supposed to end tonight, but we have now extended it through this Friday, December 1. This year we’re offering 35% off all print subscriptions and 50% off all back issues, including our current issue. Our 20th Anniversary Covers of Covers album on CD is 35% off (plus there’s a bundle with the 20th Anniversary Issue and Covers of Covers that’s 30% off). No promo codes are needed.

Modern Nature’s Jack Cooper on “No Fixed Point in Space” and a Culture of Collaboration

Nov 20, 2023 Web Exclusive

Four years and four albums into his Modern Nature project, Jack Cooper continues to look for ways to push himself and his fellow performers. Cooper’s latest album, No Fixed Point in Space (on Bella Union), moves further away from traditional rock music structures and the rules that go along with that.

My Firsts: Tim DeLaughter of The Polyphonic Spree

Nov 17, 2023 Web Exclusive

My Firsts is our email interview series where we ask musicians to tell us about their first life experiences, be it early childhood ones (first word, first concert, etc.) or their first tastes of being a musician (first band, first tour, etc.). For this My Firsts we talk to Tim DeLaughter of The Polyphonic Spree. He also threw in some answers to questions from our The End interview series on endings and death.

Egyptian Blue on “A Living Commodity”

Nov 20, 2023 Web Exclusive

Egyptian Blue released their long-awaited debut LP “A Living Commodity” last month, so Under the Radar caught up with founder member Andy Buss.

Under the Radar’s Top 100 Albums of 2022 Part 1

Dec 23, 2022

Are things back to normal in 2022? They are, aren’t they? Well not quite. In the past year we eased out of the pandemic, but COVID-19 is still around and still deadly to some (just look at what’s happening in China, now that their long national lockdown has lifted). The pandemic door has been left ajar, rather than fully closed. We put the chaos for the Trump administration in the rearview only for us to relive it via the very necessary January 6th Commission and the specter of the former president running again in 2024 (if he’s not barred from doing so or even in jail). And while Biden’s administration has been fairly steady and helped lead the Democrats to an unexpectedly strong showing in the midterm elections, over in the UK chaos has reigned with no less than three different prime ministers in one year (Liz Truss being the shortest serving prime ministers in British history), the death of the Queen, strikes across the country, and a recent poll having a majority of Brits admitting that Brexit was a mistake.

Those of us who grew up during the tale end of the Cold War and the beginning of perestroika have not been totally surprised that Russia has become a major adversary to the West again in the last decade, but it was still shocking when Russian President Vladimir Putin followed through with his threats to invade Ukraine. On top of the terrible toll on the Ukrainian people and its extraordinary President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the war has destabilized financial markets worldwide and helped lead to massive inflation, with all this talk from financial experts of a possible recession next year seemingly willing such a thing into existence.

After the last few years of the pandemic and all the political upheaval worldwide, the massive right and left divisions in this country and in others, it leaves one wondering if the events of every single year felt this monumental to our younger selves and to our ancestors. Certainly there have been other eras of even greater turmoil (World War II, the 1960s), but will things ever feel truly normal again?

Musicians continued to find their footing in 2022, with live shows and festivals pretty much back to normal and free of major COVID restrictions. Still, many musicians were finding it more expensive than ever to tour this year, in large part because of inflation, but also because of the unfair financial cuts some venues were taking of merchandise sales. With it being hard for indie artists to make much money from streaming or record sales in recent years, this year touring also became a less reliable source of income, with bands such as Animal Collective cancelling whole tours because they knew they’d lose money. 2022 also saw a slew of albums written and recorded during the pandemic, with some lyrics betraying their lockdown inspiration. Ben Gibbard, for example, sang about missing strangers on Death Cab For Cutie’s return-to-form, Asphalt Meadows, a lyric likely written at a time when interacting with strangers could prove deadly.

Asphalt Meadows lands at #12 on Under the Radar’s Top 100 Albums of 2022 list. Prior to June 2021, we had never even heard of the band that made it to #1 on our list, so meteoric was their rise. The rest of the list is filled with some familiar faces to be sure, but some other debut albums are peppered throughout our Top 100. To arrive at such a list, 23 of our writers and editors (including myself and my co-publisher/wife Wendy Redfern) submitted ballots of their 45 favorite albums of 2022, listed in order of preference from first to last. They were submitted via a Google Sheets spreadsheet that helped tabulate the eventual list. An album had to be picked by at least three or four writers to make the list (19 of our writers had our #1 album on their list and it was the clear winner of the vote, getting 100 more points than our #2). Then we worked out the Top 94 albums and held a separate vote to determine which albums should round out the bottom six, with our writers deciding between 21 albums that could make the bottom of the list. Some albums that almost made the list include (in no particular order) ones by GIFT, Tomberlin, Crack Cloud, Broken Bells, Skullcrusher, Sam Prekop and John McEntire, Just Mustard, Florence + The Machine, Warpaint, Cheekface, The Weeknd, Maggie Rogers, Craig Finn, The Orielles, and My Idea. Consider those honorable mentions.

As the next year dawns, I’ve already heard some January to March albums that will surely make our Top 100 Albums of 2023 list. It’s already shaping up to be another great year for new music. But it’s been exhausting living through history, so can 2023 please just be a boring year?

Dina Ögon @ Jazz Cafe, London, UK, November 16, 2023

Nov 26, 2023 By Irina Shtreis

Swedish psychedelic jazz quartet Dina Ögon played their first ever UK show earlier this month and Under the Radar were there to see it.

I Took My 10-Year-Old Daughter to See Her Favorite Singer Jessie Ware and Here’s What Happened

Oct 30, 2023 By Mark Redfern

Being a child in a space generally meant for, and currently filled with, adults can be both an exciting and unnerving experience. My father was a music photographer who especially loved jazz (while also capturing many rock legends with his lens) and I would often be the only kid at Ronnie Scott’s, the famous London jazz club, or the lone under-ager in the photo pit at a music festival, sometimes helping my dad load his film in an era before digital cameras.