MUSIC
First Aid Kit: The Lion's Roar
Christina Lee
01.23.12
First Aid Kit's sophomore LP, The Lion's Roar, is music for what ails you. Hailing from Stockholm, sisters Johanna and Klara Soderberg deliver some of the most compelling Americana this side of––well, shit––Wichita.
Los Campesinos! Hello Sadness
Christina Lee
11.14.11
Faux-Welsh rockers Los Campesinos! release their third album, Hello Sadness, and Christina Lee gives her read of a geography peppered with the gouges and striations and lacunae of their maturing consciousness. And if you want to read more, try their quarterly fanzine(!) Heat Rash.
Dinosaur Jr.'s You're Living All Over Me from Continuum's 33 1/3 Series
Nick Attfield
06.13.11
In this excerpt from the latest in Continuum's 33 1/3 series, Nick Attfield reaches for the truth of Dinosaur Jr.'s 1987 album You're Living All Over Me only to learn how lyrical ambiguity can put a live rabbit in a man's mouth. Attfield is usually found at Oxford specializing in the cultural and political contexts of 19th and 20th century German and Austrian music. You can also read the opening chapter of Attfield's book on the 33 1/3 blog.
As We Here: Destroyer, Kaputt (double-LP vinyl issue)
Jeff T. Johnson
03.04.11
Jeff T. Johnson reviews the double LP release of Destroyer's Kaputt. More than a recount of Dan Bejar's usual brilliance & heavy thoughts on a record of smoother than usual vibes - with this special edition, we look inside the songster's ellipses: "If most lyric sheets disappoint because they banalize the vocals, Kaputt’s sheet is a fair representation—or recollection—of what goes on on the album," Johnson riffs alongside/through Bejar.
Everyday Magic: On Julianna Barwick and The Magic Place
Brian Howe
02.11.11
At a club in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Brian Howe chats over burritos with Julianna Barwick, a singer with a voice of angelic proportions, who can do it all it seems harmonically with one throat, one diaphragm and a loopstation (no band, at least no plans for one yet she says). Having already titillated critics with a pair of albums, her latest, The Magic Place, out February 22 on Sufjan Stevens' Asthmatic Kitty label, is also reviewed here to high marks.
Van Dyke Parks' Song Cycle, an excerpt from the 33 1/3 series
Richard Henderson
10.19.10
It's hard to summarise the surreal variety of Van Dyke Parks' career. He worked as a child actor in a film starring Grace Kelly, arranged the song "Bare Necessities" for Disney's Jungle Book and perhaps most famously co-wrote and arranged The Beach Boys' long-shelved, ambitious concept album SMiLE. Along the way, he has collaborated with innumerable musicians, including The Byrds, Frank Black, Joanna Newsom, Laurie Anderson and Bob Dylan. He has also appeared in an episode of Twin Peaks and Robert Altman's film version of Popeye. His own albums have often tackled unusual, quintessentially American themes, such as Brer Rabbit and Japanese-U.S. relations. It seems likely that wittingly or unwittingly you have encountered Parks somewhere. Richard Henderson delved into his Parks' first solo album Song Cycle for Continuum's 33 1/3 series.
Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps): Animal Collective's Oddsac, John Zorn's Astronome, and Candian Hipster Comic Opus Ivory Tower
Christian Williams
09.28.10
These three DVD releases have their origins with the work of musicians but each one mutates into something hard to define. Christian Williams explains about the canoeing undead, how to masturbate with a pepper mill and Gandhi's approach to the art of chess.
Daniel Nester Reviews His Friend Eric's External Hard Drive
Daniel Nester
09.16.10
Like Janus, the two-headed Roman god who could see the future and the past, Daniel Nester, author of How to Be Inappropriate, both eulogizes the record stores that appear in his recurring dreams and reviews his friend Eric's external music hard drive. Bands discussed include San Diego math-rockers Thingy, Terence Trent D'Arby, Gary Numan, David Pajo's Aerial M, two-tone ska, Sun Ra, Judas Priest, post-Sony Prince, Ultravox and Judy Collins. In a way this is a follow-up to Dutch cut'n'paste pop star Solex's recent review of her own Pandora station, the music is reviewed not as albums, but in the way we now most frequently experience it—as streaming sound or blocks of data.
Repetition with Variation: The Sound of an Electronic Summer -- Tobacco "Maniac Meat," The Books "The Way Out," Autechre "Move of Ten" and Matmos / So Percussion "Treasure State"
Jeff Rovinelli
08.30.10
In Ray Bradbury's Dandelion Wine, Douglas says to his 10-year-old brother Tom: "You realize that every summer we do the same thing over and over. . . like making dandelion wine, like buying new tennis shoes, like shooting off the first firecracker of the year, like making lemonade, like getting slivers in our feet, like picking wild fox grapes. Every year the same things, the same way, no change, no difference. That's one half of summer, Tom." But the other half of the summer, they soon realize, is things you do for the first time. Jeff Rovinelli of Tiny Mix Tapes takes on four of this summer's most interesting experimental electronic music albums, looking at the limitations of having an established sound and the possibilities for expanding, altering and incorporating new methods within that.
Enough, enough, enough, enough enough: Perfume Genius' Unlearning
Claire Donato
08.28.10
Often appearing bare-chested in his homemade music videos and promo photos, 26-year-old Mike Hadreas, who performs under the name Perfume Genius, seems to have become something of an internet gay pin-up icon. At the same time, it's an appropriate image to represent his vulnerable, emotionally volatile songwriting, which has attracted praise from captivating bay area songwriter Xiu Xiu and British band Los Campesinos! Through his music, poet Claire Donato investigates how repetition — in storytelling, memory and melody — can soothe a traumatic past.
Solex vs. Pandora: Elisabeth Esselink Reviews Her Own Pandora Station
Elisabeth Esselink
07.06.10
Dutch musician Solex a.k.a Elisabeth Esselink reviews her own Pandora radio station. Solex's sample-based albums are not to be missed. Low Kick, Hard Bop is filled with thwarted, fractured jazz, while on The Laughingstock of Indie Rock she samples and duets with recordings of a man she'd never met who sent her his accapella rendition of the entire White Album. Esselink is also a former record store owner, which made her seem an ideal person to evaluate Pandora — a company that, after years of losing money hand over fist, has recently become one of the few entities in the music industry to turn a profit. Solex also has a new album out - Amsterdam Throwdown, King Street Showdown, a collaboration with Jon Spencer of the Blues Explosion and Christina Martinez of Boss Hog, featuring this stylin' video.
Kelis Has Gone All Fourth Of July On Us Mofos
Bradford Nordeen
07.04.10
"Nothing I'll ever say or do will be as good as loving you," croons Kelis on "4th of July (Fireworks)" from her new album. Francis Scott Key couldn't be prouder, were he not some gross ramshackle of bones. Darling diva (and should be bigger, capital D, Diva) Kelis is releasing a new album this week in the States, on the heels of America's Independence Day anniversary (been out in England a month, the LP). Bradford Nordeen looks back on a somewhat checkered career, like a bare knuckled butterfly pretending to be a moth to the fame flame…(ok blame us for that lame analogy). Nevermind…All hail Kelis! Torch the neighbors' houses with bottle rockets!
Wolf Parade: Expo 86
Mark Gluth
06.29.10
5 years ago Wolf Parade released Apologies to the Queen Mary to wide acclaim and instant classic status. It was an album that was as good as the hype and, more importantly, resonates as well to this day. They've since released a second album, and co-front men Dan Boeckner and Spencer Krug have also had careers with their own side projects. Today their third album, Expo 86, emerges to a vastly changed musical landscape. Is a world full of ever changing micro genres and scenes within scenes ready to care again about something as old fashioned as Indie Rock?
When Disco Was the Soundtrack to Martial Law: David Byrne, Fatboy Slim and Imelda Marcos
Luis H. Francia
05.04.10
During the 1970s, disco was wildly popular in the Philipines. Imelda Marcos had a dance floor complete with mirror ball built on the roof of the presidential palace and when visiting New York made appearances at Studio 54. Fittingly David Byrne's double album musical biography of Imelda is backed by the clubby beats of Norman Cook/Fatboy Slim. While Luis Francia finds much to like in the music, he asks whether the project called for a darker edge. Is Here Lies Love an epitaph for Imelda's tombstone or for those of the unknown numbers killed by the Marcos regime?
And Now for Something Less Funky: A Fan in Search of Joanna Newsom's Elusive New Epic
Brian Howe
04.23.10
Brian Howe finds Joanna Newsom's latest, expansive offering most generous and yet somewhat unusual to digest. In fact, Howe believes her two-plus hour and three-disc album may not be completely digestible at all. That's not to say Newsom isn't providing tasty musical numbers to gorge upon. Rather, sometimes one's final say may require a readjustment that only a personal viewing can do.
Josiah Wolf: Jet Lag (Anticon)
Chelsea Martin
03.10.10
On the most recent WHY? album frontman Yoni Wolf sings, "I know saying all this in public oughta make me feel funny/but you gotta yell something out you'd never tell nobody." After five years as a backing multi-instrumentalist in his brother's band, Josiah Wolf, a classically trained drummer capable of some incredible riffs, is speaking his mind in his first solo album. Through a multitude of overdubs, Josiah played all of instruments on this sonic exploration of the dissolution of his 11-year marriage. Chelsea Martin, author of Everything Was Fine Until Whatever, interviewed Wolf and finds much to praise in the album but wonders whether the anxiety over the novel being supplanted by the memoir has its parallel in music.
A Boy Named Xiu
Mark Gluth
02.27.10
Xiu Xiu’s first album, Knife Play, felt new, an eye opening reconfiguration of so many thoughts, desires, and influences that it sounded like music you’d heard before, the way a platypus looks like an otter. As their career has progressed over a multitude of releases and side projects they have both refined and expanded their sound and lyrical obsessions. Dear God I Hate Myself, their latest full length, is available now. Mark Gluth is the author of a new acclaimed novella, The Late Work of Margaret Kroftis, on Akashic’s Little House on The Bowery series.
Best of 2009, Musically Speaking
Mark Gluth
12.29.09
Seems Limewire might have been a darling again in 2009, but If you could actually afford to buy any music this year, here are some of the best albums you might have grabbed up as suggested by Mark Gluth, resident of the PANW (Pacific Northwest as he explained to us) and author of the awesome new novella The Late Works of Margaret Kroftis. From Sunset Rubdown to Sunn O))) here we go...
Notes from the Brink - Reintroducing The Love Language
Brian Howe
11.14.09
Brian Howe gets a rather full scoop on a band that, while still on the rise, has already been pegged with a storied mystique and an expected sound. Call the eponymous The Love Language a debut of lo-fi heartbreak if you must, but frontman Stuart McLamb and company have whipped up music some say is as big as Big Star, as anthemic as Arcade Fire or as classic as a Guided by Voices gem, and LL brings it with a patchwork wall of sound that only makes one wonder what the next, perhaps more refined, Merge Records LP will bring. But no pressure folks, really...Yeah right.
Arthur Russell Revived: Hold On To Your Dreams
Thom Donovan
10.25.09
We've seen a major reexamination, recently, of the work of the late, esteemed, multifaceted musician Arthur Russell, through a biopic film, a record label dedicating to releasing unreleased, rare and reissued material, and a new biography in the bookstores; the poetic brilliance of Arthur Russell is alive and well for a new generation. Thom Donovan looks at the entire scope of the Russell revision on the heals of the biography by Tim Lawrence, Hold On To Your Dreams.
The Flaming Lips get Embryonic
Mark Gluth
10.13.09
The Flaming Lips have a new album out today, with a title that harkens either a new beginning or return to roots. You can guess which, but the main figuring problem (if we haven't already) is do we opt for the $40 furry super rad version, the $13 Itunes or local indie store deluxe cd version, the $8 Best Buy basic version, rip it from a friend, or like one would as a deadhead, just get a tape of one of the live shows. Mark Gluth ponders here in fact why more don't follow this band in a caravan like those Phishheads do (the Lips have got their own carnivalesque show on, but way, way better). So read up, then listen, it's a doozy. Here's Embryonic.
Levon!: Levon Helm, The Dirt's Gone Electric
Brian Howe
09.16.09
Brian Howe raises a glass to Levon Helm of The Band, a man Howe describes as "the only genuine Southerner in a band that mythologized the American South... He was part Paul Bunyon, part Atlas." A true Southerner indeed; Helm often found himself displaced from the land that raised him, and just as often distanced by the dichotomy of his version of the South from what the South had come to represent in his time. Howe fashions a brief, but fitting tribute.
Sunset Rubdown - Dragonslayer
Mark Gluth
07.19.09
Quebecois maestro Spencer Krug of the indie avatars Wolf Parade and Frog Eyes also heads up the narrative minded (and now pretty much band-like) unit Sunset Rubdown, which has just released its fourth album, Dragonslayer. Mark Gluth, keeper of the blog Joyful Thing and author of the upcoming book The Late Work of Margaret Kroftis from Akashic Books' Little House on The Bowery series, reviews.
Dinosaur Jr. - Farm
Grant Weber
06.27.09
While Beyond may have thrown everyone for a loop that one of the nastiest divorces in rock history was suddenly caput (it was like Burton had returned to Taylor again, and the chemistry was off the charts) - Farm, Dinosaur Jr.'s latest shows maybe there's no surprises anymore, except that Mascis and crew keep proving louder, stronger and lovelier that they are one of rock's greatest bands...ever. Take out them earplugs son, let the damage wash beautifully over you. Grant Weber reviews.
James Blackshaw's New Classic
Brian Howe
05.19.09
James Blackshaw is one of Michael Gira’s (of Swans and Angels of Light fame) dashing young gods. That is to say - well at the least - he’s on Gira’s Young God Records label. And as Brian Howe serendipitously concurs, for such a relatively young man, Blackshaw’s music is mythical in its reach, with an uncanny ethereal timelessness to it. Here Howe reviews the new record Glass Bead Game, which is out officially next week, along with a Blackshaw collaboration from 2008, Brethren of the Free Spirit’s The Wolf Also Shall Dwell with the Lamb.
Busdriver: The Avatar of 'Less Yeses, More No's' in the Era of 'Yes, We Can'
Ben Bush
04.10.09
If Obama's historic ascendancy and the recent month long bull run has extended November's sense of euphoria of 'yes we did' and that all is well again in the world, just remember there are still some Cassandras out there, dissenters like Los Angeles based hip hop artist Regan Farquhar, a.k.a. Busdriver. But don't pigeonhole him because as he put it himself, “I’m against everything.” Controversial true, but with lyrics belted so lightning fast, he's tagging all the bases and then some. Busdriver is interviewed and profiled here by Ben Bush.
Only Connect: Some Modern Folk
Timothy Cushing
09.12.08
There's a folkload of new folk springing forth again in America, a renaissance you might say; as it happened in 60's with Guthrie and Dylan and Baez and so on, so it is again, if however tweaked. Timothy Cushing looks at a sample of these new musicians that he, a musician himself, particularly connects with: the Avett Brothers, Ian Thomas and Langhorne Slim. Art By Danny Jock.
A Supposed Return of Disco pt. 1: New York's House of Slightly Less Jealous Lovers
Nick Sylvester
05.29.08
Is disco back in New York? Or did it ever leave? Nick Sylvester covers the flashing floor from Blondie and Sylvester to Holy Ghost, the Rapture and LCD Soundsystem trying to find the answer. Cover art by Danny Jock.
Hallelujah and Hail Satan
Mark Asch
04.25.08
It's not unusual for a rock musician—like Robert Johnson playing the blues—to have sympathy for the Devil. Mark Asch takes us to the crossroads, where Black Sabbath, The Mountain Goats's John Darnielle, and the Man of Wealth and Taste himself commune.
Tom Fischer is Dead (but still giving interviews)
Adam Ganderson
04.07.08
Though he may blog now at a site called fischerisdead, Hellhammer founding member Tom (Warrior) Fischer, one of the originators of the black metal sound, is still very alive and talking. Adam Ganderson catches up with Fischer on the cusp of the launch of a book about Fischer's short lived, legendary band.
Forget the Hits: Here is Animal Collective
Ross Simonini
01.31.08
Ross Simonini will walk a mile (or drive all the way to Utah) for an Animal Collective show. Why? Not to sing along to the hits, because the AC homies don’t play those. But they do give their all nonetheless, and always something new, on the petri dish canvass some call a stage.
Supergroup in Reverse: The Afterlife of cLOUDDEAD
Ben Bush
11.13.07
Ben Bush tracks the big bangish explosion of what was once a taut singularity, the eclectic hip hop supergroup cLOUDDEAD, and the future of its former mates Yoni Wolf, David Madson, and Adam Drucker. Bush argues that the music that has followed in the aftermath is a heap more complex and interesting than the original structure.
Ignition, Orbit & Landfall: A Liars Synopsis
Brian Howe
10.18.07
Brian Howe writes the LP narrative thus far of one of Brooklyn's defining bands, Liars, a group defined by their undefinable music. Liars (now spread between L.A. and Berlin) are starting to make some sense. With a driving, almost pop-oriented new album that's more coherent than anything they've done prior, Liars have once again fooled us all. What's in that name anyway, Liars? Has it ever sounded so sweet?
John Cage's 95th
Mike Powell
09.20.07
...birthday that is. Mike Powell attended a memorial for the legendary composer at NYC's Kitchen this September 5th. While he forgot to bring us back any of Yoko's flowers from the event, he did deliver us a nice reflection on it.
The Braffing of Daft Punk or...
Nick Sylvester
08.19.07
Editing Nick's piece, I had to ask him what "Braffed" meant. He replied in an email that "to be Braffed is a sideways reference to Garden State and Zach Braff and 'The Shins will change your life' line - any overly dramatic preordained significance given to a piece of art's power to transcend." Alas, this piece is Sylvester's response to some Braffing he read concerning a recent Daft Punk show.
CocoRosie: The Adventures Of Ghosthorse And Stillborn, a review
Brandon Stosuy
05.19.07
CocoRosie blends music boxes and creaky Victrolas, speak-and-spells and rainbows, a rooster's cacaphony with hip-hop, track suits and moustaches with pill-box hats. They also have a new record, The Adventures of Ghosthorse and Stillborn, out on Touch and Go. Brandon Stosuy takes a break from heavy metal to review it here.
The New Big In Japan: Interview with Keith Rocka
Zoey Mondt
03.28.06
Zoey Mondt talks to DJ Keith Rocka of Sea Otter about the MySpace music phenomenon, Bjork by proxy and living in L.A..
MUSIC: Interview with Mikey Heppner of Priestess
Richard Parks
03.11.06
Richard Parks (normally a banjo and mandolin kind of man) talks to Mikey Heppner of the Canadian band Priestess about French mistranslations and the supposed cohesiveness of the Montreal scene, and is inspired to accompany his interview with some illustrations of classic hard rock poses. Photos by Parks as well.
Review: Rip It Up and Start Again
Trinie Dalton
02.27.06
Trinie Dalton reviews Simon Reynolds' Rip it Up and Start Again: PostPunk 1978-1984 and takes issue with the term "Post-" but ultimately finds that Reynolds' phenominally detailed book rescues the term for the better.
The Psychedelic Bible
Trinie Dalton
01.05.06
Trinie Dalton reviews Steven Krakow's obsessive psychedelic music magazine Galactic Zoo Dossier.
The Rambler
Michael Louie
11.17.05
This piece is coming a little late, but Mike Louie and I have been in transit, not unlike the members of the Bay Area supergroup Universe, aboard the goodship Rambler - with their utopian portable star music for the masses.
Nautical Almanac and the Baltimore Noise Scene
Tim Kabara
10.13.05
Baltimore native Tim Kabara defends his town and the music that makes it stand out.
Interview: Kevin Drew of Broken Social Scene
Jason McBride
09.09.05
Jason McBride talks to Kevin Drew, one of the members of Broken Social Scene about Tolkien, Goonies, first sex and heroes.
Interview with Neung Phak (AKA Mono Pause etc)
Ben Bush
08.05.05
Ben Bush catches up with Peter Conheim and Mark Gergis of the experimental semi-faux Asian pop group Neung Phak, Mono Pause, and other enigmatic musical projects
Interview with Carl Newman
Brandon Stosuy
07.21.05
From the New Pornographers to A.C. Newman, Carl Newman is one of rock's most fiery and proficient talents. Brandon Stosuy finds the Canadian in San Francisco and talks to him about everything from burritos to Borges.
Review: Richard Greene's: "Shufflin"
Richard Parks
07.21.05
Richard Parks, a classic languages and bluegrass music enthusiast who often describes himself (incorrectly) as a drunk 5 year old girl, reviews the work of one of his friends and favorite artists, Richard Greene, fiddler extraordinaire.