Robin Hilton

So far, 2013 has been a year of impressive comebacks, with a number of veteran musicians returning after extended hiatuses. Electronic artists Daft Punk and Boards Of Canada are back with their first new albums in eight years. David Bowie is back with his first new release ...

Earlier this week, while we were prepping our list of favorite songs and albums of 2013 (so far), we asked you to tell us your own No. 1 track for the first half of the year. We got a ton of submissions and made a little ...

"Plastic Cup," the moody opening cut to Low's latest album, The Invisible Way, recalls a friend's substance abuse, a lifetime of dependence on others and a soul-crushing future of pointless drug tests. But in a strange new video for the song, director Ryley Fogg takes those themes in a ...

The latest video for the Canadian electro-pop band Young Galaxy is a study in stark, disturbing contrasts. "Here it comes again, the beautiful, warm weather," sings frontwoman Catherine McCandless, just as all hell breaks loose.

McCandless says the seemingly big-budget spectacle is meant to ask fans to rethink the meaning ...

When singer-songwriter Grant Olney started working on his latest album, Hypnosis For Happiness, he never imagined it'd take six years to finish. But after laying down the first tracks in 2006, Olney left for the U.K. and the Netherlands to pursue a Ph.D. in mathematics. After finishing a 300-page dissertation ...

We got a lot of thoughtful comments and replies from readers this week when we asked whether they really listen to full albums from start to finish. Much of the discussion focused on the ways we listen and what constitutes actually engaging with an entire album in a full-on ...

I sure do love albums. We all do. But it's gotten to be pretty impossible to give them the time they deserve. For starters, we can hear pretty much any song we want, by any artist, in any order, any time we want, anywhere. The whole world is one gigantic ...

Vermont folksinger Sam Amidon says he intentionally borrowed lines from older songs for his new mountain ballad "As I Roved Out." The result is an erratic narrative, played out brilliantly in an absorbing (and comical) new video about a

"What is it, banjo?" Amidon asks in the video, just ...

Exitmusic's Passages was one of 2012's darkest and most arresting ambient rock albums. Now, the band returns with an equally transfixing new video for one of the album's standout tracks, "White Noise."

The Gothic, gorgeously shot video shows Exitmusic's Aleksa Palladino and Devon Church as they slowly drift and ...

In the latest video from Seattle-based pop masters Telekinesis, for the song "Empathetic People," frontman Michael Benjamin Lerner ambles into an abandoned record-pressing factory and gets it running again. It's a curious glimpse into one of the last gasps of industry keeping music tethered to the physical world.

While ...

I'm always astonished when people (ie. Bob Boilen) tell me they either never dream or never remember their dreams. My dream world is so involved, vivid and comical I sometimes have a hard time remembering whether something actually happened or existed only in my unconscious imagination.

Music appears and takes ...

Matthew Cooper, who writes and records as Eluvium, has spent the past decade producing a vast and remarkable catalog of ambient and electronic music. Often amorphous and mostly instrumental, his songs suggest a sea of emotions: joy, sorrow, fear, love, awe. Cooper's seventh album as Eluvium, Nightmare Ending ...

As a kid I always assumed I'd listen to classical music when I got older. That's what my parents played all the time and what I assumed all grownups listened to, almost like a right of passage into adulthood.

It turns out that the older I've gotten, the exact opposite ...

The fans who jammed into the Belmont nightclub in Austin, Texas, to see The Flaming Lips this past March probably didn't know what hit them. The band was just weeks away from releasing a brand-new and highly anticipated record (The Terror). But instead of showcasing the new work, frontman ...

The songs of Yellow Red Sparks, a folk-pop trio based in California, are twisted tales told through cinematic, often epic orchestrations. In the group's spectacular and creepy new video, for the song "A Play To End All Plays," a couple's failed relationship is acted out like an old circus sideshow ...

This past week we lost one of the greatest album cover art designers of all time. Britain's Storm Thorgerson, who died last Thursday, was just 69 years old. He'd spent more than 40 years designing and orchestrating some of the most iconic album covers of all time. Even if you ...

When the three guys in the Louisiana band Brass Bed hit their late 20s, they came to realize some of life's unsettling truths: Youthful dreams are usually just dreams, the best-laid plans often end in failure or disappointment, and many of the promises of finding joy and comfort later in ...

Editor's note: NPR is moving from its longtime home of 635 Mass. Ave. in Washington, D.C. to new digs a few blocks away. All the planning and packing has made NPR Music's Robin Hilton a bit reflect-y on all the time he's spent with the old building.

There's ...

The new video for STRFKR's song "Beach Monster" is an absolute horror show disguised as a breezy day at the sea. The band members, decked out in matching Buddy Holly suits and glasses, play against an blank blue background while staring blankly into the camera. The scene is intercut ...

Singer and violinist Emily Wells was one of our favorite discoveries at last year's South by Southwest music festival. Her 2012 album Mama was a surprising and beautiful mix of hip-hop beats and strings, with folk-flavored pop arrangements. Now Wells is back with a re-imagined, all-acoustic version of Mama, with ...