Three pins, and nearly every signal in this business passes through them.

The magazine is named after the cable: the microphone in the booth, the line to the desk, the DMX run that fires the lights. Studio, stage and rig share the same cable. Most magazines pick one of the three. This one covers all of it, because the people we read do too — the engineer mixing a record on Tuesday is on front of house by Saturday.

Around a hundred and sixty sources, in English, Japanese, Spanish, German, French, Chinese and Italian: makers and their release notes, reviewers who put a hand on the thing, studios and touring crews, the producers and collectives surfacing this month and the scenes they came out of. Synths and modular, plugins and DAWs, guitars and drums, microphones, monitors, PA and lighting. What the trade is talking about is counted and plotted. The editor's letter has just started; it will find its rhythm.

For each story: a headline, a short excerpt, one picture and the link out. We never reprint the article, and the picture belongs to the maker or the photographer. A German review appears in German and a Japanese one in Japanese, as the writer published it; the link goes to the original.

Nothing is sold on this site. When a link leads to a shop, it is the maker's shop, not ours.

← XLR MAG Archive

The Line of Best FitScenes

Superchunk surprise-release new winter EP featuring Wham, Magnetic Fields covers

11.06

]]> Superchunk have released Wintry Mix, a five-track festive EP, via Merge Records. it features an original song alongside covers of Wham!, The Magnetic Fields, and Galaxie 500.

News

Read at The Line of Best Fit ↗

One letter a week, starting soon.

Latest

Superchunk surprise-release new winter EP featuring Wham, Magnetic Fields covers

More from The Line of Best Fit on XLR MAG

ScenesVienna's Trauma Glow are back with new EP slated for January 2027 The Line of Best Fit

ScenesCharlotte Adigéry and Bolis Pupul reunite for ancestry-focused collab album The Line of Best Fit

Scenes2000trees lineup announcement so popular it crashes festival's website The Line of Best Fit

ScenesELIO signs to FADER Label, shares new single “PRIMADONNA” The Line of Best Fit

ScenesStar’s Revenge, SCAM, Crate, Maehem99, cosign and rainfield lead this week's New Music Discovery playlist The Line of Best Fit

ScenesShygirl's SWALLOW! is brutally romantic and often surprising The Line of Best Fit