Jenn Pelly

[Fred Thomas](http://fredthomas.blogspot.com/) is a recognizable name in underground music, synonymous with dedication to it. A native of Ypsilanti, Mich., Thomas’ roots are in the late-90s melodic punk band [Lovesick](http://harlanrecords.bandcamp.com/album/lovesick-a-discography-cd), but he’s best known as the ringleader of indie pop collective [Saturday Looks Good to Me](http://pitchfork.com/artists/3699-saturday-looks-good-to-me/), which has been churning out Motown- and girl group-inspired…

When [Meghan Minior](http://meghanminior.com/) and [Will Killingsworth](http://willkillingsworth.com/) scream in [Longings](https://longings.bandcamp.com/), it sounds like they’re exorcising a lifetime of unspoken anguish. The Western Massachusetts trio have found their considerable power at the blackened cross-section of cold post-punk lurch and direct, brutal rhythms. But it only remains so uncomplicated because of how desperately they sing. It’s these physical projections—about alienation, pa…

La Misma: "Kanizadi" Track Review - Pitchfork

Jenn Pelly talks with Oneohtrix Point Never’s Daniel Lopatin about the expansive extra-musical world he created to go along with his conceptual new album, Garden of Delete, in the latest episode of our “This Is How We Do It” podcast series.

At its best, punk still provides a powerful outlet for unheard voices. This year, two new bands—G.L.O.S.S. and Downtown Boys—stomped on the status quo while opening up spaces in punk for those who have often been shut out. By Jenn Pelly.

Frankie Cosmos: "Sinister" Track Review - Pitchfork

The New York composer is an electro-acoustic minimalist who pays special attention to the spaces around her. Her latest album, by turns grounded and disquieting, feels untethered and limitless.

Reissues of the L.A. band’s mid-’90s albums capture how they brought girl-group yearning, three-part harmonies, and virtuoso violin lines to the era of Sassy mag and 120 Minutes.

Last month, The New York Times ran an interview with Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner that so damningly revealed sexist and racist prejudices in his thinking that he was swiftly removed from the board of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which he co-founded in 1983. In the interview, Wenner shared his opinion that Joni Mitchell was “not a philosopher of rock’n’roll,” hence her exclusion—and that of any women musicians or artists of color—from his new book of interviews with famous white men. The…

“The riff! The riff! The riff! The riff!” At a nondescript Irish pub on Avenue A, Marnie Stern is delineating her sonic priorities. A couple hours before, we met up on the Lower East Side for a stroll past the former location of beloved indie basement-bar-bakery Cake Shop, where Stern played some of her earliest shows. Ludlow Street is so unrecognizable, though, that we have to laugh at our collective inability to even find the former Cake Shop. Among the artisan ice cream shops and vape-marts t…