Lav's Music Corner

Review by Lavender: The Weather Station is the project of singer-songwriter Tamara Lindeman and she's been releasing albums since the late 2000s. She had her breakthrough of sorts in 2021 when she signed to Fat Possum and released Ignorance,  an album that achieved both more popularity and more acclaim than anything she had done before. I thought that record was fine, just okay, and I didn't really understand all the hype. Which is why I was even more surprised to find her quieter and far less acclaimed follow-up a year later completely irresistible. With subtle performances and infectious songwriting her 6th album How Is It That I Should Look At The Stars  was by FAR my favorite so far and in conjunction with a few good singles leading into Humanhood , I was excited to see her build on her sound.  Humanhood led off with the single "Neon Signs" which I absolutely loved at the time and still do. It has the uptempo pep of tracks on Ignorance  but the songwriting and pe...

Review by Lavender: FKA Twigs is a massively acclaimed singer-songwriter whose experimental takes on R&B have manifested through three studio albums up to this point. While her records LP1 , Magdelene, and (spoiler alert) Eusexua  are all great, she also has an array of mixtapes and EPs worth diving into. These projects can all be used to trace her development from R&B experimenter to full-on genre-bending auteur. 2019's Magdalene  experimented with space and quite much more than anything she'd released before and while Eusexua  has its moments of reservation. by comparison, this is an album that much prefers stuttering drum loops and and fluttering synth flourishes to chilling silence.  Given that tease it's unfortunate the only place to start with the album is its astonishing lead single and title track. "Eusexua" drew comparisons to Magdalene 's lead single "Cellophane" and it's easy to see why. Both songs are astonishing in their beau...

jasmine.4.t is a British singer-songwriter who was announced last year as a new signee of the Phoebe Bridgers-led Saddest Factory record label. You Are The Morning  follows a trio of singles that dropped last year and features Phoebe Bridgers' entire group, boygenius, on production throughout the record as well as occasional backing vocals from the trio. I was extremely excited for the release of the album after loving all of the singles and this style of indie-folk and singer-songwriter music in general. Delightfully, Jasmine didn't disappoint. When I say my expectation were high for You Are The Morning  I mean it, because the album's three singles are an astounding bunch. Lead single "Skin On Skin" is a wonderfully written tune that's able to convey some unique sensations with the physical descriptions in its lyricism. It's also the moment where I first fell in love with Jasmine's subtle but beautiful singing and when the song rushes into its surpris...

Lil Baby Lil Baby is an Atlanta rapper whose music I've never particularly cared for. I have stuck my neck out twice to at least pay him a little bit of love on a pair of collaborative projects. That included his breakthrough Drip Harder  alongside Gunna in 2018 and his album The Voice Of The Heroes  alongside Lil Durk a few years later. But as far as his own studio albums go I can't say I've enjoyed any of them a bit. Hit completely flavorless style and AI-generated lyricism almost do enough to mask just how unpleasant his voice is to listen to, almost. But on WHAM  he takes a risk or two that pays off, not enough to make the album good but enough to make it marginally more enjoyable than some of his others.  This is gonna be a quick review, because if you've ever heard any Lil Baby music before you already know exactly what most of this album sounds like. Let me bring up some of the highlights though. "Dum, Dumb, And Dumber" has been one of the breakthrough ...

Bad Bunny is one of the singular biggest stars in all of music and when he drops, a substantial portion of the world pays attention. That became the case more than ever before in 2022 when his album Un Verano Sin Ti  took the world by storm and also won over critics with some of his most compelling and beloved songs to date. That was less the case with last year's nadie sabe  a record that I along with most fans and critics felt was a bit of a letdown as a follow-up. But now right at the dawn of 2025 Bad Bunny is back, with what very well could be his best crop of tracks to date.  If you're surprised to hear me say that it's probably because I didn't love the album's lead single El Club  last year. The track is all about Bad Bunny being in the club but still stuck thinking about whatever his ex is doing. My biggest problem is that neither of its two distinct instrumental styles really do much for me and the dime switch it makes between them definitely needed another...

Ethel Cain is a singer-songwriter who broke through a few years ago on the back of Preacher's Daughter,  her lengthy debut album. The record trafficked in a Southern Gothic style that often reached harrowing climaxes and featured lyrical content darker than many of her contemporaries, yet Cain managed to become a breakout star on the back of the record regardless. Now 3 years later she's back with a sophomore album that seems deliberately designed to leave much of that audience behind. Trading out her more conventional styles of songwriting and production form a grueling droning 90-minute follow-up that will put anyone's commitment to her style to the test.  The first taste of the controversy that would eventually befall this record came on its lead single "Punish." I liked the song, though I wasn't head over heels for its format as a long, plodding durge with dreary vocals singing creaky refrains. It's better within the context of the album where the song...