First Listen archive
Listen First Listen: Laura Marling, 'Once I Was An Eagle'
May 19, 2013 – The folksinger takes a remarkable journey over the course of 16 hypnotic, subtly inventive songs.
Listen First Listen: Mount Kimbie, 'Cold Spring Fault Less Youth'
May 19, 2013 – The British beat-makers shed their electronics in pursuit of a sound designed to translate live.
Listen First Listen: Tricky, 'False Idols'
May 19, 2013 – Tricky's best album since the mid-'90s, False Idols is one of 2013's biggest surprises so far.
Listen First Listen: Sean Nelson, 'Make Good Choices'
May 19, 2013 – Eight years after Harvey Danger's last record, Nelson returns with a wonderfully catchy solo album.
Listen First Listen: Piñata Protest, 'El Valiente'
May 12, 2013 – The Texas band freshens traditional Mexican music with an ear toward punk energy and intense power.
Listen First Listen: The Handsome Family, 'Wilderness'
May 12, 2013 – The duo returns with an album about wildlife, with an emphasis on nature's capacity for destruction.
Listen First Listen: G&D, 'The Lighthouse'
May 12, 2013 – Georgia Anne Muldrow and Dudley Perkins engineer an idea-packed collision of funky, soulful sounds.
Read First Listen: Glenn Jones, 'My Garden State'
May 5, 2013 – The American Primitive guitarist wrote My Garden State while caring for his mother in New Jersey.
Read First Listen: Classixx, 'Hanging Gardens'
May 5, 2013 – At once, Hanging Gardens feels vibrant and vintage, unmistakably young and inexplicably nostalgic.
Read First Listen: Eluvium, 'Nightmare Ending'
May 5, 2013 – Amorphous and instrumental, Eluvium's songs suggest a sea of emotions: joy, sorrow, fear, love, awe.
Read First Listen: Music From Baz Luhrmann's Film 'The Great Gatsby'
May 2, 2013 – The soundtrack to Baz Luhrmann's film transplants Jazz Age sensibilities to the hip-hop era.
Read First Listen: Natalie Maines, 'Mother'
April 28, 2013 – The Dixie Chicks singer shows how her fearlessness blends with compassion and stunning vocal chops.
Read First Listen: Mikal Cronin, 'MCII'
April 28, 2013 – The multi-instrumentalist applies a beachy sparkle to 37 minutes of fresh, fun rock 'n' roll.
Read First Listen: She & Him, 'Volume 3'
April 28, 2013 – Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward's new Volume 3 seems to be floating through AM speakers at all times.
Read First Listen: La Vida Boheme, 'Sera'
April 28, 2013 – The inventive, politically inclined Venezuelan band has done well by doing whatever it pleases.