The Beatles’ Bizarro Boxing Day
On this day, after the one known so well as Christmas, The Beatles beamed a sloppy, surreal cult standout into holiday televisions, confounding many and captivating few.
music that matters
Happy Birthday, Loveless
It’s hard to believe that My Bloody Valentine’s epochal Loveless debuted 30 years ago. Few releases since have been as singular, riveting, exploratory, immediately identifiable.
Unhappy Halloween: COP26, DOOM
Hip hop legend MF DOOM passed away on a holiday that our superpowers would later converge upon a conference implementing an agreement to stop destroying Earth.
The Linda Lindas, Loud and Proud
You’re never too young to shock the world. Or change it. Los Angeles quartet The Linda Lindas have done both. Now they have a legendary punk label on their side to prove it.
RIP: The One and Only Shock G
Devastating. A visionary, a disciple, a legend. Cali’s finest. A heartbreaking year for hip hop. #RIPShockG
The Beatles Let It Get Back
Enjoy this holiday sneak peek of The Beatles: Get Back, knowing its reprogramming is all we have left of The Beatles, as the original fades.
Socially Distancing McCartney III
Fifty years after the passing of The Beatles, McCartney has again added his voice to our turbulent time.
Unhappy Halloween, Gravediggaz
Two presidential terms ago, I bowed deep before a momentous election to the Gravediggaz, hoping to exorcise eight years of apocalyptic Republican rule. Here we go again.
Cli-Fi: Toots’ Global Warning
The legendary Toots and the Maytals return after a decade of silence to ring the alarm on our exponential climate crisis.
Swervedriver’s Petroleum Daze
Three decades after its thunderous arrival, Swervedriver’s sonic legacy is in the history books. Unfortunately. It has to share space with climate crisis authoritarians
Goodbye, The Beatles (Again)
Fifty years ago, The Beatles tragically left us, after changing the world for almost a decade. And what they left us with, like much of what they made, sequenced the genes for the recombined culture to come.
Pearl Jam’s Destabilized Gigaton
The iconography of cli-fi sets Pearl Jam’s latest effort afire, as our exponential climate crisis fractures the prism between the personal and the political.
The (Blessed) Return Of El-P
Correcting an historical injustice, El-P’s singular, relevant back catalogue will finally return to the land of material and digital reality.
DJ Shadow Chronicles Our Pathetic Age
Givng thanks on Thanksgiving for the letters DJ Shadow has been sending, explaining why and where and how the music from his latest, perhaps greatest effort, Our Pathetic Age, was born.
Pixies’ Spooky, Surreal Long Rider
An evocative tale of a surfer who couldn’t resist the pull of our ocean —- to her doom. It’s a slashing anthem set to surreal visuals, filmed around the corner from where I am writing.
I’m Sorry, Kurt Cobain
A quarter of a century ago, I turned my back on our revolution. As the reprogramming accelerated, I slowed time by pursuing love. But it was not enough.
Swervedriver Returns To Raise Heads
One of the most underrated bands of the ’90s, Swervedriver restored its good, loud name in the ’00s and beyond. This weekend on the west coast, it performs full versions of its twin masterworks: Raise and Mezcal Head.
Cli-Fi: Soundgarden’s Fourth of July
For me, there’s only one song that explains the United States of America falling apart in the 21st century, and it is probably no cosmological accident that it is written by the late, great Chris Cornell and Soundgarden.
Cornell’s Promise Works to Protect Human Rights
Few artists have soundtracked my life like Chris Cornell. Now, from beyond an early, tragic grave, he warns Earth to rid itself of war before it is too late.
I’m Sorry, Chris Cornell
Today, I sit here stunned, sifting through press releases telling me what Chris — and Soundgarden, and Temple of the Dog, and Audioslave, and every other artist that Cornell’s widening influence deeply touched — have been doing for the last several years.
Mulatu Astatke’s Eternal Return
Few have sequenced the genes of future music as much as Mulatu Astatke, whose dizzying sonic explorations have skillfully skipped across jazz, soul, funk and much more. Those new to Mulatu of Ethiopia seeking a launch window might as well start with a new reissue of … Mulatu of Ethiopia.
Trans Am Checks Into California Hotel
Nathan Means of Trans Am has been a friend to Morphizm for many years now, as a contributor as well as an interviewee. Plus, his power trio shreds. Speaking of…
Sleater-Kinney and REM Make Filthy Friends
Members from two of my favorite bands of all time, from two of the most influential bands of all time, in a new band. Yes, please.
Consequence of Sound and New Musical Express Dig My Jello (Biafra)
It’s always a surreal blast when the past arrives in the present, especially if it’s my interview with the defiantly principled punk pioneer, Jello Biafra.
Sleater-Kinney Brings Power, Life to Paris
There aren’t enough ways for me to thank Sleater-Kinney for returning from hiatus, even if it was to a sleepy hyperreality still needing to be shaken awake with punk power and poetics.