RAINCOAT 

One afternoon, while perusing Soundcloud, I serendipitously happened across Jet Airess, a DJ and producer from Borneo. More specifically, she’s from Sarawak, one of two Malaysian states that share the island with five Indonesian provinces and the nation of Brunei. As such, her music is influenced by club rhythms from all over the world, as well as Sarawakian and Borneon sonic traditions. Her page’s description articulately self-identifies the genre: “Harmonics and Hardness… T

“The pinnacle of Gucci Mane’s work… the ultimate rap-pop crossover that poised him for a mainstream breakthrough…” —Five anonymous contributors, http://genius.com/Gucci-mane-lemonade-lyrics Full disclaimer: I was not an immediate fan of “Lemonade” when it first came out. No, like any freshman in high school, I was busy finding myself musically, so my morning bus rides were devoted to 80s hair metal, shitty pop punk, and Breathe Electric. In fact, I hadn’t really thought of “L

I met up with womyn warriror Aerienne Russell, known to LA locals as folksy sweetheart Kitchen Hips and a co-creator of feminist DIY-space Gal Palace. She shares with me what it's like being a solo-female artist living and performing in LA and running the powerful DIY space and community that she has created alongside her roommates in her own living room. --Lauren Lauren Moon: Hi Aerienne, thanks so much for joining me! How's your day been so far? Aerienne Russell: Good! I wo

Rad//Lab is proud to present a secret surprise track (only available here!) from LA-based singer-songwriter Olivia Buntaine's soon-to-be-released album Eclipse! "Little Mouth is not actually about someone with a little mouth. Her mouth is pretty big, actually. Little Mouth was a voice we used to do for each other where we scrunched up our mouths all tiny and said silly things in a high voice, mostly when the other was sad or scared. Little Mouth often came out when we got too

Relationships have songs. Whether it’s a song that tells the tale of your last fucked up relationship or that album that reminds you of how much you love someone or even the only playlist you could listen to while crying in your bed late at night. These intimate moments with songs create a personal and often private soundtrack to our lives. My soundtrack is predominately painful; relationships have ruined so many albums for me. Part of this has to do with how my relations

Braces: Blonde, Canadian. We met when I was 12 and you sat in front of me in the camp orchestra. We kissed, my first, at night by the infirmary when you were picking up your acne meds. You had me at accutane. "Great Romances of the 20th Century" Taking Back Sunday (Today this is, truly, unlistenable) Oboe Face: Set the precident for my future relationships. You asked me out and I wasn't sure, and 3 months later I'm crying on the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk to the Killers albu

It starts quietly, but immediately you know it’s the building kind of quiet: picture a singular spotlight on a stage, singer and guitar comfortable in the big space, gentle fingerpicking chords and soft crooning emanating gently from that warm beam of light. You are nodding along, smiling a little. “But I’ve been anywhere, and it’s not what I want/I wanna be still with you…” There is a lull, and a subsequent eruption. The stage explodes, the air is flooded with loud craggy gu

Since completing this mixtape a few weeks ago, I've written upwards of twenty drafts of this particular essay. My first attempt discussed my tendency to play out romantic first-meeting scenarios in my head during moments of solitude. My second described my mixed emotions about Tinder. One just said "skaljsdflkjasdf." None of them were quite right. I've been wondering why I'm having so much trouble writing about love, and why I feel so conflicted about my earlier drafts.

My first encounter with a heart-stopping debut album was in 7th grade. My dad handed me a crumpled paper bag as I crawled into his beat-up car one day after school and said, “Here, check this out. Just something I picked up for you today that I thought you’d like.” I reached into the bag and pulled out a copy of The Strokes “Is This It.” Because the record had been out for a few years, the album cover wasn’t the salacious glove-on-ass artwork that everyone remembers, but r