Album Review: Melody’s Echo Chamber – Melody’s Echo Chamber
I often cite myself as a lover of French music, but what I really mean is that I love old French music: the swarm of Yé-Yé girls that penetrated pop music in the…
Album Review: Dinosaur Jr. – I Bet On Sky
Dinosaur Jr. has come a long way from their first, raw album You’re Living All Over Me. While some will undoubtedly claim that the band has never been better than this energetic and…
Video: The Helio Sequence – “Hall of Mirrors”
The Helio Sequence has just released their fifth studio album Negotiations. We first wrote about “Hall of Mirrors” when it was made available for download last month. The video premiered today, telling a…
Album Review: The Fresh and Onlys – Long Slow Dance
The opening riffs and vocals of “20 Days and 20 Nights,” the first song on The Fresh and Onlys new album, Long Slow Dance, will undoubtedly call to mind 80s staples like The…
Akron/Family Live at Red 7
For whatever reason—conflicting schedules or inopportune timing—I have not seen Akron/Family perform in probably five years. Though the band’s basic focus on folk influenced experimental music remains, the band has evolved into a…
Album Review: Deerhoof – Breakup Song
Immediately, staccato blasts of stuttering distortion emanate from the speakers. Opener “Breakup Songs” (yes in the plural although it’s a single song, as opposed to the singular noun in the album title, Breakup Song, though an…
Album Review: Cat Power – Sun
I have absolutely no qualms about calling Cat Power’s new album exactly what it is: a masterpiece. Sun marks the first album of completely original material in more than half a decade from Cat…
Album Review: Mount Eerie – Ocean Roar
Much of what I wrote about Mount Eerie’s recent release Clear Moon holds true for the album that can be considered its counterpart, Ocean Roar, out today on Mount Eerie’s only constant member Phil…
Video: John Cale – Face to the Sky
Alternating shots depict either a disheveled John Cale or a red scarf draped dancer sprawled across a checkerboard floor. In both scenes, each performs their own strange trance-like dance. After a bizarre rotating…
Album Review: Wild Nothing – Nocturne
Jack Tatum’s project Wild Nothing’s new album Nocturne invokes darkness, the night and the moon with frequency. It’s an apt muse, since the album often sounds like luminous orbs reflecting light in the…
Album Review: Dan Deacon – America
Dan Deacon’s America opens with a barrage of sound that contains a centerpiece of carefully mixed bouncing clicks that returns to a full-on, face-pummeling force before giving way to the album’s most pop…
Album Review: Cate Le Bon – Cyrk 2
The guitar tone on opener “What is Worse” from care le bon’s new ep Cyrk 2 is awesome. I’ve heard le bon’s voice described as haunting, but when it breaks the mix a…
Album Review: Bill Fay – Life is People
The release of Life is People, Bill Fay’s first studio album in 40 years, represents the culmination of an increasingly exciting journey for the songwriter. The story of the forgotten music legend has…
Album Review: Why? – Sod in the Seed EP
Why? fascinates in their ability to truly fuse genres. They aren’t just making hip-hop for an indie rock audience or collaborating with rap stars. Rather, they give careful attention not only to beats…
Album Review: Koko Beware – Something About the Summer
If you thought surf rock was dead, look no further than Koko Beware’s new album, Something About the Summer, for some convincing evidence to the contrary. On Something About the Summer, Koko Beware…
Album Review: Dots Will Echo – Sober is the New Drunk / Stupid is the New Dumb
Listening to a two-person band for the first time can be challenging; an inevitable doubt rises regarding the group’s ability to deliver like larger bands. But that expectation only makes discovering Dots Will…
Album Review: Dirty Projectors – Swing Lo Magellan
With Swing Lo Magellan, Dave Longstreth and Dirty Projectors have created a pitch-perfect, percussive masterpiece that perfectly toes the line between captivating experimentation and traditional pop music. If you do your Projectors homework,…
Artist Profile: Paul Benson of Motorbikes and Ever Ending Kicks
During my recent trip to the Pacific Northwest and my attendance at the Anacortes Unknown Music Series, I had the privilege of catching a set by Motorbikes, a music project by Paul Benson…
Fort Union’s Self-Titled Album Out Now, New Songs Streaming
As promised, all this week, we are bringing you content centered around the music of the Pacific Northwest after our recent trip to the area. Seattle/Portland’s Fort Union is an up-and-coming band that…
POP INTL: On The Map – France’s Noir Désir
In France most aspects of alternative culture are still defined as being “rock ‘n’ roll” or “pas rock ‘n’ roll,” an anecdote that tends to make my American friends, who are used to…
Album Review: Chain & The Gang – In Cool Blood
Almost 25 years after he helped start Nation of Ulysses, every subsequent project involving singer Ian Svenonius (The Make Up, David Candy, Weird War, etc.) has been consistently defined by his oversized, agitprop-fueled…
Album Review: Mission of Burma – Unsound
Mission of Burma’s recording and performance efforts from the late 1970s and early 1980s have long been an invaluable influence for what has become indie and alternative music. The band’s decision to get…
Album Review: Deep Time – Deep Time
One couldn’t begin to talk about Austin’s music scene and not mention the wonderful contributions of Jennifer Moore. I was immediately charmed by her voice when I first heard the now defunct Voxtrot’s…
Album Review: Twin Shadow – Confess
Through all of the promotional material surrounding Confess, the second full-length release by Twin Shadow, it isn’t hard to imagine George Lewis Jr. as a modern day Ponyboy Curtis. Donning a worn-out leather…
Video: Spiritualized – “Little Girl”
“Little Girl” is the second single from Spiritualized’s acclaimed Sweet Heart Sweet Light. The Vincent Haycock directed video follows “a young female runaway who steals her dad’s money and motorcycle to escape the…
Album Review: A Place to Bury Strangers – Worship
The peripheries of A Place to Bury Strangers seem to have as large – or even larger – a profile as the band’s music itself. Vocalist/guitarist Oliver Ackermann helped found boutique effects pedal…
Album Review: The Daredevil Christopher Wright – The Nature of Things
The recent explosion of folksy music onto the indie scene has been paired with some interesting exploration of vocal harmonies, and The Daredevil Christopher Wright has been in step with this trend. That…
Album Review: Friends – Manifest!
After releasing singles “I’m His Girl” and “Friend Crush” last year, Brooklyn, NY’s Friends garnered massive attention- their jangly 90’s-inspired pop and self-directed lo-fi videos began appearing just about everywhere. It’s no surprise…
Album Review: The Tallest Man on Earth – There’s No Leaving Now
The Tallest Man On Earth created high expectations for himself with his first two albums and with his skilled live performances (if you haven’t, watch his NPR Tiny Desk Concert from after he…
Album Review: Mystery Jets – Radlands
Mystery Jets’ back catalog is full of upbeat, fun tracks: the kind of indie tunes that get you moving. With Radlands, Mystery Jets add another dimension to their music and expand on their…
Album Review: MV & EE – Space Homestead
MV & EE’s latest offering, Space Homestead, is hardly an album full of contradictions. For as ramshackle as it is, there’s no sound or instrument that seems unexpected or out of place. Still,…
Album Review: The Hive Dwellers – Hewn from the Wilderness
Calvin Johnson has made a 30 plus year career out of his endearing impulsivity and his do-what-feels-right mindset. The earliest Beat Happening songs sounded as if they might be totally improvised or at…
Album Review: Gemma Ray – Island Fire
In listening to Gemma Ray’s newest album, Island Fire, out now on Bronzerat, the word chanteuse comes to mind. Perhaps misrepresentative, since the album isn’t loungy at all, but it is a collection…
Album Review: Shannon Stephens – Pull It Together
Shannon Stephens’ new album, Pull It Together, out now on Ashmatic Kitty Records is a folk-rooted, blues-leaning effort full of soulful melodies and sparse, aching guitar riffs. With her superb singing ability, Stephens…
Album Review: Jonti – Sine & Moon
While promoting Jonti Danilewitz’s debut album Twirligig at the end of 2011, Stones Throw made available a compilation of the artist’s older material called Sine & Moon Mix. The South African-born Australian resident’s…
Album Review: Mount Eerie – Clear Moon
Prolific songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer Phil Elverum has donned both the monikers Mount Eerie and The Microphones as recording aliases over the years, also tampering with the spelling of his own given name…
Album Review: Beach House – Bloom
With Bloom, Baltimore’s Beach House has achieved the pinnacle of musical accomplishments, issuing what is arguably the finest record of the year so far, and is likely to remain so. However, Bloom is not…
Album Review: Maps & Atlases – Beware and Be Grateful
Maps & Atlases have been a slowly productive quartet throughout the past half-decade, releasing a handful of EPs and only one full-length, Perch Patchwork (2010). Now, the group brings us their sophomore LP…
Album Review: I Break Horses – Hearts
I Break Horses are upfront about their influences. They list My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive and Jesus and Mary Chain on their website and are signed to Cocteau Twins’ Robert Gutherie’s Bella Union label. …
Album Review: Father John Misty – Fear Fun
Over the past six years, Josh Tillman has directed a quietly prolific career, releasing seven albums while holding down responsibilities as the drummer of the wildly successful band Fleet Foxes. Tillman’s eighth album…
Album Review: Craft Spells – Gallery EP
In 2011, California-native Justin Vallesteros released his debut album, Idle Labor, under the name Craft Spells. Craft Spells is one of many bedroom solo projects to recently join the ranks of New Wave…
Album Review: Reptar – Body Faucet
It isn’t often anymore that I encounter a band with fans as enthusiastic as Reptar’s, and if you’ve ever attended one of their live shows, you know why. Graham Ulicny (guitar and vocals),…
Album Review: Toro Y Moi – June 2009
June 2009 is a retrospective of songs recorded around the same time as Toro Y Moi’s acclaimed debut Causers of This. The assemblage of ten tracks feels like anything but a collection of…
Album Review: Lotus Plaza – Spooky Action at a Distance
When you have a band with a member as prolific and celebrated as Bradford Cox of Deerhunter and Atlas Sound, it’s hard to remember there are other pieces that make up the unit….
Album Review: Allo Darlin’ – Europe
Following the highly successful release of their debut album in 2010, Allo Darlin’ embarked on a yearlong tour across the US, UK, and Europe. It was during this intense period of time that…
Album Review: Hospitality – Hospitality
Hospitality’s self-titled debut album employs indie-pop sensibilities, infectious hooks, and dynamic rhythms to achieve a well rounded and convincing first effort. Hospitality has been long anticipated in some regards, since the band formed…
Album Review: Shearwater – Animal Joy
Austin based, genre-fusing indie outfit Shearwater has again produced one of the finest albums of the year, or the past few for that matter. Claiming that Shearwater is inaccessible (as some might) is…
Album Review: Tennis – Young and Old
Opener “It All Feels the Same” from Tennis’s new effort, Young and Old, accurately pinpoints the potential dilemma for any band facing the dread of the sophomore slump. The question of how to…
Album Review: Gotye – Making Mirrors
Gotye’s 3rd full-length album, Making Mirrors, gives listeners more reason than ever to proclaim the talents of creative force Wouter “Wally” De Backer. Even so, the Australian waves from the album’s first single, “Eyes…
