It’s Nice That + NTS Radio’s Black Impulse Playlist

The historic Nelson Mandela anthem, Kirsten Dunst in anime costume, a lot of NTS radio and more in our look at music this week

Our creativity-championing friends over at It’s Nice That have let the folks from Black Impulse on NTS Radio hijack their weekly mixtape—resulting in two hours of music, most of which you’ve probably never heard before. Heather Weil focuses on prog, heavy psych, 1970s and ’80s punk and hardcore. She explains, “These are three really difficult genres to make accessible.” Check out the selection of 30 …

Röyksopp feat. Robyn: The Girl And The Robot

The historic Nelson Mandela anthem, Kirsten Dunst in anime costume, a lot of NTS radio and more in our look at music this week

This week’s #PrivateJam comes from Saidah Blount at NPR Music Events, who chose the 2009 dark electro-pop jam “The Girl And The Robot.” Swedish siren Robyn lent her powerful vocals to Norwegian duo Röyksopp’s futuristic chord progressions and arpeggiated synths. “Until I heard this song, I didn’t get the all the Robyn hype at all,” admits Blount. “But with the help of the glorious Röyksopp, …

ListenUp: Record Store Day

Our look at the special releases and limited editions stemming from the vinyl-focused biannual holiday

The Replacements: All Shook Down Forming in the final year of the ’70s in Minneapolis, Minnesota, The Replacements ushered in the ’80s with their critically-acclaimed (if commercially unsuccessful) American indie rock sound. In 1990, a year before disbanding, they released the stripped-down album All Shook Down, which, likely due to the band’s cassette-tape obsessed fan base at the time, was never pressed on vinyl. For …