Under the Radar

One hundred and twenty miles north of New York City, Hudson, NY, sits quietly alongside the river with which it shares its name. Established in the late 1700s by merchants from Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard who needed an inland port for their whali

Noel Gallagher did not set out to save rock and roll. In fact, when he started writing the songs that would become Who Built the Moon? —his third full-length album with his High Flying Birds—he had no idea what kind of album he was making at all.

Britt Daniel shrugs at the word “reliable,” although it’s the one that comes up from time to time. Spoon is, by any measure, one of the most reliable rock bands around, if that reliability takes into account 25 years of constant experimentation and

Robin Pecknold comes from a breed of thoughtful, emotional Americana musicians who tread carefully with every word they offer. As the lead singer and songwriter of Fleet Foxes, Pecknold is well used to success. The Seattle-formed band were universal

“I’m not naive: I knew what I had done,” says Charlotte Gainsbourg of Rest , her fifth album, her first in six years, and first as a lyricist. Rest is an album fuelled by grief even in its most beautiful moments, something Gainsbourg has had

For Under the Radar’s 15th annual Artist Survey we emailed some of our favorite artists a few questions relating to 2017 and other matters. Visit www.undertheradarmag.com/artists/artist_surveys_2017 for even more surveys. The alt-right/neo-Nazi/KKK

Would you be open to having your phone and other technology implanted into your body in the future? Absolutely not. I’m paranoid enough as it is about my technology monitoring me, without it actually being underneath my skin. It’s bad enough that an

2017 saw sexual harassment and assault allegations against many men in the music industry, film industry, journalism, politics, and elsewhere (including Harvey Weinstein, Matt Mondanile of Ducktails and Real Estate, Brand New’s Jesse Lacey, Kevin Spa

Which Breakfast Club character are you most like and why? When I was a kid and watched this movie I always subconsciously aligned myself with John, Judd Nelson’s character who made rebellion and rejection of authority seem noble, and also really

America is angry, but Parquet Courts are here to provide a cathartic release.  “We were trying to convey anger and unrest, but not in a nihilistic way,” says Andrew Savage (aka A. Savage)—singer/guitarist for the New York-based, Texas-bred post-punk

“Absurd”—that’s the word Phil Elverum uses to describe the last year. In early 2017, he released A Crow Looked at Me , his universally-praised examination of the devastation brought on by the death of his wife, artist and songwriter Geneviève Cas

New Zealand singer/ songwriter Marlon Williams has no interest in being alone. While some long for solitude and the peace that it brings, it’s an unnatural state for Williams. When I ask if being alone scares him, Williams is quick to confirm. “[It’s

For a creative person, a shift in medium can open new channels of thinking. When Belle and Sebastian leader Stuart Murdoch temporarily stepped away from music to write and direct the 2014 film musical, God Help the Girl , the experience forever l

“For the next record we should get together in a room, play the songs, record them in a couple of takes, and then go out on the road and play it how it is. That’s what bands are meant to do, but we’ve never really done it,” says Dave Maclean, produce

You pour your heart into it. You dedicate hours, long nights, lingering years to it. You strive until your muscles and mind and emotions sear from the strain. And finally, when it’s in your grasp, and yet you still have to wrestle with it… well, then

Preoccupations’ drummer Mike Wallace once grimaced at the suggestion that the Calgary, Alberta band was part of a new guard in the post-punk/New Wave sound. Lead vocalist, bassist, and songwriter Matt Flegel finds this amusing but doesn’t mind the as

Alex Kapranos begins with a blank slate—an honest to goodness real blank slate. No preconceived ideas. No thematic direction. No cares or concerns for where Franz Ferdinand has gone in the past or where they’re expected to head in the future. The ban

In case Mike Mogis happens to be reading this, the Söderberg sisters, Johanna and Klara, want you to know they “adore” you. It was simply time for something different. Otherwise known as First Aid Kit, the Söderbergs partnered with producer Tucker M

The first time I try to call Ezra Furman in Belgium, I’m greeted by his voicemail: “This is Ezra, leave a message. Don’t be shy, it’s just you and me.” I was , in fact, hella nervous: the gender-fluid frontman had directed several incarnations of

A little ways south of his longtime home of Portland, OR, Colin Meloy has spent the past four years living on a five acre farmstead with his wife and two sons. Listed on the historic registry, the property dates all the way back to the mid-19th centu

For England’s Hookworms, putting their latest album together was a triumph. The five members of the band experienced enough to encourage them to throw in the towel. Lead singer Matthew “MJ” Johnson was at the center of the band’s bad luck—in 2015, hi

Listening to Yo La Tengo has always felt like coming home to a warm house in the country, filled with memories. A safe place to go, where variables don’t enter. Ira Kaplan, Georgia Hubley, and James McNew are fabricators of music that makes it feel a

A steep learning curve presents itself when your debut summits not only numerous year-end lists but is instantly immortalized on rankings labeled “Best Albums Ever.” For Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser, the duo known as MGMT, the release of O

When Merrill Garbus began work on Tune-Yards’ I Can Feel You Creep Into My Personal Life in January 2016, she had a difficult decision to make. How should an artist—especially one who tries to use her life and work to contribute to dialogs surrou

With over 2,000 handwritten pages, Lucy Dacus is currently on Journal #11. Since her days as a fifth-grader, the Richmond, Virginia-based singer/ songwriter has spent countless hours diligently documenting the minutiae of her everyday life. Even when

Gaz Coombes’ grin is unmistakable. The one time frontperson for Supergrass, arguably the most effervescent group of ’90s Britpop, is taking a break from rehearsals for an upcoming tour supporting his third solo album, World Strongest Man . Coombe

Not every punk ascribes to the “disco sucks” movement. In fact, Unknown Mortal Orchestra frontman Ruban Nielson dives right into such highly danceable grooves on the new album Sex & Food , despite New Zealand-born Nielson’s neo-punk roots in prio

Kayus Bankole, one third of the Mercury Prize winning Scottish band Young Fathers, is on the phone from the studio in Edinburgh where the reception is, in his own words, “pretty shite.” But he’s battling through to talk about the trio’s third album,

The third and final season of Netflix-original Love sees its protagonists—Gus (Paul Rust) and Mickey (Gillian Jacobs)—teeter constantly over the “will they, won’t they?” line. The rom-com is produced by Judd Apatow and created by married couple P

On the final track of Clean , the debut full-length album from Nashville’s Soccer Mommy (aka Sophie Allison), the ground opens up. Under the weight of the uncertainty and pain that Allison describes on the proceeding tracks, she imagines the grou

Springing forth from the fertile South London scene, Shame formed during a long and listless school summer holiday in 2014 and, by chance, ended up rehearsing at The Queen’s Head in Brixton. This infamous pub, which laid the foundations for what foll

Over Skype, Anna Burch often finishes her answers with an awkward giggle; as if she prefers gift-wrapping presents over opening them. The title of her excellent debut LP Quit the Curse strikes as a tongue-in-cheek bristle at romanticism and super

Sons of an Illustrious Father’s 2017 single “U.S.Gay” may sound like an anthem for young, marginalized queer Americans. After all, the track (which is featured on their new sophomore album, Deus Sex Machina; or, Moving Slowly Beyond Nikola Tesla

Picture the opener of Caroline Rose’s new album, LONER : you’ve been invited to an old crush’s party, and you can’t relate to anyone in the room. The chicks hang back against the wall with their cutesy shorts and other clothes you definitely can’

Courtney Barnett’s second full-length release starts in a dark place. Opening with the groan of a guitar being tuned, a soft gasp, and the growl of feedback, “Hopefulessness” is the sound of tension searching for a place to escape. “You know what the

At 3:32 of Pinned’s anthemic opening track, “Never Coming Back,” a single guitar tone with the deceptive appearance of an army decimating any enemy within its radius of destruction ties A Place to Bury Strangers’ past to its present. After four studi

On record, Orono Noguchi sounds so nonchalant that she almost seems bored of being in a band. In person, she’s nothing like that. We’re speaking in the middle of Superorganism’s first European tour and a packed day for Orono, the band’s lead singer,

To conclude, we ask Will Sheff of Okkervil River some questions about endings and death. Sheff is the singer/songwriter/main creative force behind the band, which formed in Austin in 1998 and has had various lineups over the years, with Sheff the sol