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The NBA’s punishment for Phoenix Suns and Mercury owner Robert Sarver has come under plenty of scrutiny. The league announced earlier this week in the aftermath of an independent investigation into numerous allegations of racism and sexism that Sarver will be suspended for a year and receive a fine of $10 million.

Adam Silver came under fire for how he tried to justify the decision, namely why Sarver is still allowed to own the team. In the days following, LeBron James, Chris Paul, and Suns minority owner Jahm Najafi have all spoken out against the extent of the punishment, with Najafi saying that Sarver should resign. And now, Sarver is coming under even more pressure to leave the team, as the Suns’ jersey sponsor made clear it will not renew its partnership with them if he’s around beyond this season.

“PayPal is a values-driven company and has a strong record of combatting racism, sexism and all forms of discrimination,” the company’s president and CEO, Dan Schulman, said in a statement. “We have reviewed the report of the NBA league’s independent investigation into Phoenix Suns owner Robert Sarver and have found his conduct unacceptable and in conflict with our values. PayPal’s sponsorship with the Suns is set to expire at the end of the current season. In light of the findings of the NBA’s investigation, we will not renew our sponsorship should Robert Sarver remain involved with the Suns organization, after serving his suspension.

While we strongly reject the conduct of Robert Sarver, we remain supportive of the team, its players and the experienced and diverse talent now leading the organization, including Head Coach, Monty Williams, General Manager, James Jones, Assistant General Manager, Morgan Cato, and Senior Vice President of People and Culture, Kim Corbitt.”

PayPal became the team’s jersey sponsor in 2018-19.

The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.

If Sampa The Great was a man, her new album As Above, So Below would already be in the conversation as one of the top five rap albums of the year. As it is, I have to be Thanos in this situation and do it myself; Sampa’s new album doesn’t just deserve to be considered one of the top five rap albums of 2022… it is.

In hip-hop, we – in the royal sense, as in “all of us, more or less” – tend to do this thing where we hype up a new female rapper to a certain point, then immediately look for ways to understand her effort, talent, and skill by only comparing her to her female peers. This most often expresses itself as “beef,” e.g. Foxy vs. Kim, Cardi vs. Nicki, Megan vs. Nicki, Nicki vs. basically every woman with the temerity to pick up a mic and rhyme in front of people and get even a little bit popular for doing so.

And you know what? That’s so boring. Rap gets compared to basketball a lot, but it isn’t actually a competitive sport. Aside from a degree of breath control and verbal dexterity, there isn’t much athleticism involved. Rappers are basically talking, occasionally a little faster than normal. There’s no inherent reason to separate the men from the women, as we do the NBA from its counterpart, the WNBA. Ms. Minaj doesn’t need to dunk or guard someone who can.

An unfortunate byproduct of the tendency above is that we then often divide women into classes in a way that actually does generate unfair competition. Because we are so often trying to compare them, we tend to classify them as one of two types. You already know what I’m referring to here. The popular women, who make the streetwise, booty-shaking, strip club anthems, and the traditionalists, who supposedly dress modestly and adhere to the old-school ideals of bars-first “real hip-hop.”

But this leaves too many women, whose styles aren’t so easily classified, out of the conversation. Women like Sampa, whose biography is so unique among rappers of all genders. Born in Zambia, she was later raised in Botswana, then lived in California while studying music for visual media. She later moved to Sydney, Australia, where she got a degree in audio engineering and started her rap career in earnest, infusing her music with the diversity of sounds that have surrounded her since childhood as she shifts from earnest, thoughtful rhymes about her experiences to devastatingly direct battle raps as brash and bold as those of the staunchest rap purist’s.

As Above, So Below is her most complete work yet. With roots stretching throughout the diaspora, tapping traditional instruments and contemporary styles like the South African genre of kwaito, it’s every bit as ambitious and expansive as Beyoncé’s 2020 musical film Black Is King, but with a thread of authenticity that Sampa comes by naturally as a result of her upbringing. The musicality is on the same level as that of Little Simz’s 2021 album Sometimes I Might Be Introvert, itself a criminally overlooked gem from that year that deserved more.

Gliding easily from triumphant African hip-hop on “Never Forget” to thumping, futuristic trap peppered with tribal chants on “Mask On,” As Above is every bit as adventurous musically as offerings this year from the likes of Kendrick Lamar and her Loma Vista labelmate Denzel Curry, who makes an appearance on the lead single “Lane.” Sampa rhymes and sings with the sort of gravity that pulled listeners to Lamar’s effort, but trims the unwieldy and grating moments that made that project so polarizing on its release in May.

Yes, we can attribute the difference in responses to other reasons; Sampa spent the last few years in her home country as a result of the pandemic, Americans have largely been reticent to embrace hip-hop from overseas, and Sampa is on an indie label, which limits her promotional release. On the other hand, it seems like every two weeks, there is a new viral sensation bubbling up from the depths of TikTok to become Rap America’s latest sweetheart. The point is, we shouldn’t even be able to make an argument that gender contributed to rap fans’ relative nescience of Sampa’s virtuosity.

Because, even with all those other potential arguments, there’s no reason we aren’t breathlessly dissecting the bars on “IDGAF” or hailing “Let Me Be Great” as a potential Grammy winner. African artists are more popular than ever here; Burna Boy, Wizkid, and more have broken out as legitimate pop stars. Rap’s spotlight on women – albeit, only a certain type of women – is brighter than ever. As Above is every bit as musically dynamic and artistically challenging as any other hip-hop album. And we are going to start the discussion.

As Above, So Below is out now via Loma Vista Recordings and Concord. You can stream and purchase it here.

Jeffrey Dahmer is a real-life American horror story, so it’s fitting that Ryan Murphy is the one to tell his story. Netflix has revealed the first trailer for Dahmer – Monster: the Jeffrey Dahmer Story, a limited series from Murphy starring Evan Peters as Jeffrey Dahmer, the “Milwaukee Cannibal” who killed — and occasionally devoured — 17 victims between 1978 and 1991. “What do you do in there?” Dahmer’s neighbor, Glenda Cleveland (Niecy Nash), asks him in the creepy trailer above. “The smells. Power tools going all hours of the night. I hear screaming coming from your apartment.” As an apology, Dahmer gives her a gift: a sandwich filled with meat. What kind of meat? It ain’t pork.

Anyway, sorry for ruining your lunch today. My bad.

Here’s the official plot synopsis:

From the Emmy award winning creator of American Crime Story comes Dahmer – Monster: the Jeffrey Dahmer Story. The series examines the gruesome and horrific true crimes of Jeffrey Dahmer and the systemic failures that enabled one of America’s most notorious serial killers to continue his murderous spree in plain sight for over a decade.

Dahmer – Monster: the Jeffrey Dahmer Story (a hyphen and a colon in the title should be reserved for Mission: Impossible movies only) premieres on Netflix on September 21.

That I didn’t greet Confess, Fletch star Jon Hamm with a far too informal, “you did it, you brilliant maniac, you actually did it!” when he logged onto our recent Zoom call is, I think, a personal triumph of restraint. For 30+ years Hollywood has tried and spectacularly failed to find a way back to Fletch, teasing us all with the possibility of talents like Ben Affleck, Kevin Smith, Bill Lawrence, and Jason Sudeikis stepping into the role.

As a fan of the franchise (the Gregory Mcdonald novels and Chevy Chase ’80s movies), I have risen and fallen with the lifecycle of these rumors — the buzz, the silence, the death, the glimmer of hope lighting the way for the next contestant. But now it’s here (on VOD and in select theaters), a rebirth for the smilingly sarcastic investigative reporter who leads with his wits even when they back him into a tough situation. How did Hamm, director Greg Mottola, and the rest of the team do it? Well, it starts with not being beholden to the most famous iteration of the character or being intimidated by the many failed attempts that came before.

I spoke with you at Comic-Con in New York a few years ago, and at the start of it, there was a blank piece of paper on the table. I cracked a joke, you doodled something quickly, everybody laughed, and we got on with it. But afterward, you walked away and one of the other writers literally jumped on the table to grab the sketch and was like, “I am taking this home!”

I wish I knew what I had scribbled.

I just hope it’s mounted over her fireplace or another place of prominence.

I hope so too.

So, the history of trying to get Fletch off the ground is so long. It almost feels like it was cursed. I didn’t believe this was actually real until the end credits. Was that history of failed efforts intimidating?

No, is the short answer. If you look back on how long it’s been since the original film came out and then the sequel came out, we’re talking well over 30 years, and a lot can happen and a lot has happened, not only to our industry but how movies are made, how they’re distributed, how they’re sold, how they’re everything. And then you sprinkle a little pandemic on top of all of it, and the amount of obstacles that had to be overcome are various and sundry and impressive. So I was happy that we got to make it. I had been a fan of the books, I had heard rumblings of certain people going to try to reboot the franchise and this person and that person, and it never happened for whatever reason. I don’t know why.

I knew that once we got the rights and they fell to me, and Bill Block from Miramax said, “We really want you. We want to make this thing,” I knew that we could put together a team that would make the best version of it. And that’s what I feel like we did. We made a Fletch for the 21st century. We successfully reintroduced this character much more based on the character that existed in the books. And hopefully in success, we’re going to get a chance to make as many more of these as there are novels, and there are quite a few novels left. I know we have a lot of love from the Gregory Mcdonald estate, that was always nice to hear that they were excited about what we were doing. And yeah, I enjoyed doing it, so I’m looking forward to getting a chance to do more.

Why this specific book as the jumping-on point?

It’s funny how kind of perfectly this book actually fits the kind of circumstances. Fletch is basically retired, he’s living in Europe, he’s writing about an obscure Western artist, and he’s sort of pulled back into the game. He doesn’t want to do it, but he has to. And of course, things spiral rapidly out of control and into heightened comic insanity, and that’s what we like. So the setup was right there, like, “Well, let’s pull him back into the game, and now here we are.” That was kind of why we picked it, and the rest was that the story’s interesting, it took place in an interesting city. It obviously takes place in the ’70s in the book, which we thought briefly about, “Oh, maybe we make it a period piece. Maybe that’s more fun.” And then we were like, “No, let’s just make it in the here and now. We’ll just adapt it in a real way.” Which proved to have some challenges.

The wonderful thing about Gregory Mcdonald’s writing is that he is very cognizant of weaving in kind of social commentary into his stories. So the social issues of the day in the ’70s weren’t exactly the same as they are in the 2020s, but that was easy enough, I suppose, to adapt. I’m glad I didn’t have to do it, but Greg is very adept at doing that, and he was able to bring in the absurdity of Instagram influencers and bring in the realities of ride-sharing and what have you into this story and make it very modern, and also make it very approachable for a new generation.

I’d read how you shoplifted some of the Mcdonald novels back in the day, and I’m curious how you identified with the character then versus how you identify with him now.

Obviously, reading the books as a teenager in the ’80s, Gregory Mcdonald was still alive, he was still actively writing the books, they were still kind of being made, and you were much closer to that era. And I was certainly much closer to that era, although I would’ve been a kid back then. So there’s a little bit of a different connection to it, but the majority of it was they were funny to me then and they’re funny to me now, and I can understand in a more mature kind of grown-up way why they’re funny. Part of that is, what I think I really got more of [from] the character now, is the understanding that this guy is a liver of life. He’s a curator of experiences, we might say, and he’s very present in every room that he is in and taking people in, and he’s a good judge of character and he’s funny and he’s sophisticated, and he also enjoys a good poop joke or what have you.

So there’s a lot of sides to him, and he’s fascinating and he’s fascinated by a lot of things. I think that those are compelling things to watch on screen. I think when you have a character like that and you’re willing to go the distance in telling those stories, you can come up with a pretty rich environment to tell stories, and when you surround them with the phenomenal actors that we have in the film, it’s even more fun.

The charm of Fletch is really his ability to weave in an insult in a surgical way, just mock someone without them really catching it.

One thing that we really were cognizant of, and we really, really wanted to make sure we explored in the film, was that Fletch never punches down. The object of his derision is never somebody that is just fighting to keep it together. It’s always the kind of hoity-toity kind of ridiculousness. And that’s a pretty great comedy tradition that goes back to the Marx Brothers and The Three Stooges. Anybody that’s a little too big for their britches deserves a good take-down. Fletch does it with words, and I think that that’s part of what makes him very sophisticated and funny and part of what hews very close to my own personal sense of humor.

Did you feel any specific pressure to bring the funny a little more to meet expectations for fans of the original films as well as fans of the books?

Well, what we really didn’t want to do was stumble into doing an impression of either Chevy or of those films. I was perfectly happy to leave all of those choices that Chevy and the filmmakers in the ’80s made in the ’80s, because first of all, very, very little of that is from the book, that’s all Chevy’s stuff. And honestly, to me, it would sort of feel like stealing. It just didn’t sit right on me. We didn’t need the wigs and the teeth and the funny voices and the names, and the thises and the thats. We wanted to forge our own way, and we did. I think that that’s the choice that we made, and I think that that’s the right choice.

I think even if you look at the difference between the first film and Fletch Lives, they’re trying to catch that original lightning in a bottle, and it doesn’t really hold up as well as the first one does. So it’s a tricky balance to do, especially when you’re redoing it after so many years. You look at Top Gun, the same thing. They waited this long to make that film because they wanted to do it the way that they knew it would resonate. And so that’s why we chose the path down which to travel on this one, because we knew if we did it the right way, it would resonate.

The timing of this release is perfect for you to host SNL again, if you got the chance to host again, would we ever see Sergio The Sexy Sax Man again? Because my God, it’s one of my favorite things.

Well, I will say that I worked with a camera assistant on a film recently who is related to Tim Cappello, who is the original Sexy Sax Man from The Lost Boys, and he sent me an autographed picture and a bunch of stuff and I felt very honored by that. He seems like a very nice guy. I don’t know. I remember when Andy Samberg and Jorma and Akiva wrote that sketch, I was like, “Well, this is never going to make it to air,” and boy did it. So I don’t know. I’d love to host the show again. I love that show so much. I work so much that finding a free week is very hard, so that’s kind of the thing I’ve been running into, but yeah, anytime they call, I tend to drop whatever I can do and run, because I love being a part of that world.

‘Confess, Fletch’ is now available on VOD and in select theaters.

As the Pennsylvania Senate Race enters the final stretch, John Fetterman is making Dr. Oz own the “cheap shots” that his campaign took at Fetterman’s stroke. The Pennsylvania lieutenant governor was hospitalized during the primary, and he has not shied away from thanking his wife, Gisele Fetterman, for noticing the signs of a stroke and saving his life. After taking it easy during the summer, Fetterman has made an increased number of public appearances.

However, when it came time to schedule a debate, Fetterman was transparent about how he still suffers from lingering auditory issues that are improving. This opened the door for Oz’s campaign to make another attack on Fetterman’s stroke and question whether he’s fit for office. During a recent appearance on Alex Wagner Tonight, Fetterman said he’s taking the campaign barbs in strike because they’re nothing compared to almost dying. Via Mediaite:

It was very bracing to face the fact that I could have died. And thinking about that, reflecting on that, that the fact that a father of three young children and a wife, and thinking of all those things. I promise you that is 10 times bigger and 10 times harder than the cheap shots that Dr. Oz has chosen to choose in his campaign.

While Fetterman understands that his health was eventually going to dragged into race, he called out Oz for trying to distance himself from his own campaign over the stroke comments.

“He needs to own those kind of words because a doctor choosing to mock someone who is recovering from a stroke, I don’t believe demonstrates that he’s lost his way,” Fetterman said. “In fact, he has never had his way.”

As for a debate between the two candidates, it’s on. Not only has Fetterman agreed to a date, he’s actively promoting the event on social media to counter the narrative from Oz’s campaign that Fetterman is afraid to take the stage with Oz.

(Via Mediaite)

The leading The Bear pair recently reignited their on-screen dynamic in what turned out to be one of only a few crowd-stirring Emmy moments — when Chefs Jeremy Allen White and Ayo Edebiri appeared onstage — at this year’s ceremony. Season 2 of the sleeper FX show (now streaming on Hulu) is in the works, but it won’t premiere tomorrow. In fact, we don’t know when The Bear shall return, but we do know that people have questions about what will happen after The Beef becomes The Bear and, more importantly, whether Carmy will get busy in between (or even during) his shifts.

Now, everyone’s familiar with White’s work on Shameless (spending over a decade in the same role will do that), but what of his co-star, who portrays sous chef Sydney? Ayo’s been all over the place to promote The Bear, which she actually doesn’t find sexy, but here’s where else you can find her while waiting on Season 2:

– Stand-up comedy: Ayo’s got some improv under her belt, but her onstage sets are also solid, and she’s been featured on Comedy Central. Here’s a delightful clip of how she describes feeling disillusioned after finding out that her 20s experience was nothing like The Sisterhood Of The Traveling Pants.

– Other roles: Ayo can be seen heard on Netflix’s Big Mouth, where she picked up the role of Missy while replacing Jenny Slate following a casting controversy.

She also portrayed Hattie (a ghostwriting, hustling maid who wore the hell out of this dress) in a recurring role on Apple TV+’s Dickinson.

– And finally, Ayo’s very well-versed in podcasting land. She co-hosts the Iconography podcast, but she’s also a delightful guest elsewhere. You should pop over to Penn Badgley’s Podcrushed podcast, where Ayo recently discussed many things unrelated to The Bear. That includes all the awkwardness and humiliations of growing up, including first periods and crushes and missing out on a Leonardo DiCaprio thing. Actually, that last point is a bullet dodged because almost everyone is too old for Leo these days. Besides, we’d rather see Ayo on The Bear Season 2.

(Via The Cut)

Death Cab For Cutie’s new album Asphalt Meadows is out today, after a bunch of great singles, some of which required some walking and a QR code. Last night, they celebrated by bringing the title track to Jimmy Kimmel Live!.

Their performance is meditative and thoughtful as leader Ben Gibbard dances and sings like an animated narrator telling a story as the bright guitars provide a colorful backdrop. It’s a vibrant slice of their new album that is sure to inspire watchers to check it out to hear more.

About the release of Asphalt Meadows, the band said in a statement, “The day that for so long felt so far away is finally here. Our new album is out, and we could not be more relieved and thankful. We made it. We found our way through a very dark time and have arrived with a record that is a reflection of everything we’ve done and everything still to come. We hope you love Asphalt Meadows as much as we do — it belongs to you now. We can’t wait to see you at all the shows ahead. As always, thank you for listening.”

Watch their performance of the title track above.

Death Cab For Cutie is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Mumford & Sons leader Marcus Mumford released his debut solo album Self-Titled today, which features a new collaboration with Phoebe Bridgers called “Stonecatcher.” As the song’s first verse builds, Bridgers appears as backing vocals on the chorus — so subtly that might have gone unnoticed, if she wasn’t marked as a feature. Still, her voice serves as a stunning compliment to Mumford’s folk track. “Oh, my God, we’re here again / It all slows down to lines in the sand,” Bridgers sings alongside him.

“We’ve had lots of conversations which have been really helpful to me over the years,” Mumford recently told NME about how their collaboration came to be. “I asked her whether she’d be down to come and hear something and whether she wanted to sing on it. I played her where ‘Stonecatcher’ was at and she goes, ‘Dude, did you get the word ‘heinous‘ into a song?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ She was like, ‘I’ll sing on it!’”

During the interview, he also notes that he’s been friends with Bridgers “for a very long time,” which makes the duo seem like an obvious choice to work together.

In addition to Bridgers, Mumford enlisted a few other singers for his debut album. Clairo appears on the tense-feeling “Dangerous Game” and Brandi Carlile helps him close out the record as a longer presence on “How.”

Listen to “Stonecatcher” above.

Self-Titled is out now via Capitol. Get it here.

Not to be all #oldguy, but when I was a teenager in the ’90s, music discovery was only for the most devoted. If you wanted to find music that wasn’t on the radio or MTV, you had to know the right people or have the right siblings or, at least, know the right places to look. I’ve written before about how Pearl Jam was a great band to follow if you were interested in expanding your music knowledge because they wore their influences on their sleeves and were keen on highlighting up-and-coming artists that they appreciated. Associations like this were crucial for young people just looking for a way in.

This was how a freshman in high school could get into a band like Pavement. I remember seeing them perform on TV as part of the Tibetan Freedom Concert, alongside artists like Pearl Jam, R.E.M., Radiohead, and the Beastie Boys. It would inspire a trip to Blockbuster Music while in Houston that summer — probably the most pivotal record store visit of my life — where I picked up Radiohead’s OK Computer (I was already a fan of The Bends) and Pavement’s Brighten The Corners. These two albums would alter my musical taste for the coming decades and my love for both bands has never really diminished.

Unfortunately, I got into Pavement too late to see them live (too young for the first Coachella or to make my way into LA to attend concerts on my own), but I was elated when they reunited in 2010, my first year working as a professional music writer. I was able to catch their first American reunion show, a Coachella tune-up in Pomona, and their final one, Matador’s 21st birthday party in Las Vegas. And while I’ll remember both of those shows for how massive the moments felt — especially for a band that couldn’t be more unassuming on record — many at the time noted, particularly towards the tour’s end, that there was a sense that leader Stephen Malkmus was disengaged.

And it’s not completely surprising. Malkmus rarely revisits Pavement material as a solo artist, he’s spoken openly about feeling like he’s outgrown the material, and the band members are hardly the “band of brothers” that many of their longstanding peers claim to be. Where Malkmus can still have a decent career as a musician, the majority of his bandmates returned to normal jobs after Pavement, and a reunion tour where they could play venues bigger than at their height had life-changing implications. It was a ton of pressure for the bandleader, and one he didn’t seem to relish.

Now, as the band commences in their pandemic-delayed second reunion, things appear much different. Sure, the financial implications remain. But witnessing the band’s first show in 12 years at the Fonda in Hollywood this past May, as well as the proper theater show at the Orpheum last week, something was clearly different. Maybe it’s that the stakes are a bit lower. After all, this isn’t a tour playing Coachella and the Hollywood Bowl. They’ve opted instead for friendly spaces like Spain’s Primavera Sound festival and multi-date runs at mid-sized venues. And, a second reunion feels more for the diehards than the casually curious. The audience on these nights wasn’t just friendly and forgiving, they were already won over.

But it also feels like a change has occurred in the attitude of the band. Malkmus, for one, is clearly having… fun? His faux rock star poses are nothing new, but they don’t feel begrudged. Whether he wants to be on stage, singing these songs, we may never know. But as far as anyone can tell, this is five guys — Malkmus, secondary songwriter Scott “Spiral Stairs” Kannberg, hypeman/Pavement incarnate Bob Nastanovich, and rhythm section Mark Ibold and Steve West, not to mention new touring keyboardist Rebecca Cole — that are playing equally for the fans and for themselves, to prove that they can still wrestle magic out of these decades-old songs.

Take a look at their recent setlists and you’ll see a band hellbent on honoring their history and diving into the depths of their legend. They’re not only playing the “hits,” but they’ve opened up their songbook to deep cuts not heard on their last reunion tour, and many not played since the original runs for the albums they appeared on. At the Fonda, this meant getting not only the suddenly massive “Harness Your Hopes,” but songs like “Embassy Row,” “Transport Is Arranged,” and “Type Slowly” — all cuts that I fell in love with that summer in 1997 and that the band hadn’t played live since that year. At the Orpheum, they offered “Stop Breathin’” and “We Dance” for the first time since 2010, having managed to play a handful of shows without returning to those classics. The next night, the glorious “Pueblo” was played for the first time since 1996.

Any conflict that Malkmus feels about these songs has faded to reverence, as the band finally seems willing to accept how much this music means to their fans, and how much it could mean to his fellow bandmates if he fully bought in. Malkmus even went as far as to (somewhat jokingly) apologize for lyrical flubs, explaining that at least we “get the gist.” Pavement’s biggest in-band advocate, Nastanovich, was quick to respond: “It’s Pavement, for Christ’s sake.”

And maybe that’s the heart of why these shows were, well, moving. Pavement is a band of notorious slackers, who Beavis once yelled at for not trying, and here they are in their 50s, well, not slacking at all and seeming to try their hardest, performing two-hour sets packed with as many songs as possible. Their faithful fanbase could act their geekiest in this safe space, practicing little interpretive dances and yelling Malkmus’ delightfully nonsensical poetry back at him, with each line somehow striking as genius when plucked out to stand alone. For these nights, Pavement was not only active but thriving, sounding great and embracing the moment. The world felt like a better place because of it.

This summer’s Indiecast episodes have leaned banter heavy thanks to a slow trickle of review-worthy indie albums. But this week, it seems like every indie band got together to give the people want they want: an all-meat Indiecast episode. On this week’s episode, hosts Steven Hyden and Ian Cohen review four albums: The Mars Volta‘s self-titled LP, Death Cab For Cutie‘s Asphalt Meadows, Whitney‘s Spark, and Young Jesus‘ Shepherd Head.

In the Recommendation Corner this week, Ian gave a shout out to Top Shelf Records. The indie record company announced this week they were royally screwed over by their main distribution company abruptly shutting down, and founder Kevin Duquette said all their inventory is being held in limbo. Ian also urges listeners to check out a new joint project by Philly bands They Are Gutting A Body Of Water and A Country Western. Meanwhile, Steven recommends Daniel Romano, a very prolific Canadian musician who put out eight albums in 2020 alone ranging from folk to punk rock.

New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 106 here or below and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can submit questions for Steve and Ian at [email protected], and make sure to follow us on Instagram and Twitter for all the latest news. We also recently launched a visualizer for our favorite Indiecast moments. Check those out here.

Some of the artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.