Artist: Yeah Yeah Yeahs Album: Mosquito Label: Interscope Release Date: Genre: Rock Grade: B- RIYL: Black Lips, Blonde Redhead, PJ Harvey, The Strokes, TV On The Radio Key tracks: “Slave,” “Wedding Song,” “Under The Earth” Okay so, first things first: that cover art. Wow. Take a minute to process it. If this is… Read More
Artist: The Knife Album: Shaking The Habitual Label: Mute/Rabid Released: 9 April, 2013 Genre: Electronic, Experimental Grade: A RIYL: queer theory, radical anticapitalisms, contemporary art, Fever Ray, Bjork, Demdike Stare, M.I.A. (circa /\/\/\Y/\), Raime, Swans, tUnE-yArDs, Xiu Xiu Key tracks: “Full Of Fire,” “Raging Lung” What we talk about when we talk about… Read More
Artist: Torres Album: Torres Label: self-released Genre: Rock, alt-country, singer-songwriter Grade: B+ RIYL: Cat Power, EMA, PJ Harvey, Sharon Van Etten, Sinead O’Connor, Thalia Zedek Key Tracks: “Moon & Back,” “Honey” Take a look at that RIYL list above: a sampling of some of the best woman solo artists in rock since the… Read More
Artist: Justin Timberlake Album: The 20/20 Experience Label: RCA Released: March 19, 2013 Genre: Pop, R&B/Soul Grade: A RIYL: Beyonce, Frank Ocean, Hot Chip, Junior Boys, Michael Jackson, N*Sync, Prince, Timbaland, Usher Key tracks: “Mirrors,” “Strawberry Bubblegum,” “Blue Ocean Floor” In the world of pop music, seven years is a lifetime, and in the twenty-first… Read More
As physical record sales reach their nadir, iTunes and other less ubiquitous music applications have to look warily over their collective shoulder at up-and-coming streaming services like Spotify, Grooveshark, and Pandora, which are slowly draining even digital record collections of their meaning. Meanwhile, of course, illegal downloading continues to do major damage to the music… Read More
In my second semester at Middlebury, I attended the most emotionally intense musical performance I have ever had the good fortune to see. An audience of about 50 stood in a circle in the stark, entirely white main gallery of the Burlington City Arts Center (formerly Firehouse Gallery) on Church Street, watching with widened… Read More
It’s been 22 years, aka longer than my entire life, for legendary Irish shoegazers My Bloody Valentine to release a follow-up to Loveless, one of the greatest LPs of the 1990s/all time. Seriously — there are books about that album, probably thousands of bands directly inspired to start making music by that album, Sofia Coppola… Read More
Watch it here, courtesy of Pitchfork. See below for more details on the Knife’s comeback! Enjoy not sleeping ever again.
If you’re a fan of Swedish duo The Knife (Karin Andersson + her brother, Olaf Dreijer) — and, let’s face it, with 2004’s steel-drum-brandishing dancefloor crossover smash “Heartbeats” and one of the best, most stylistically innovative LPs of the 2000s (2006’s Silent Shout) to their name, who isn’t? — then you already know that it requires… Read More
Dear DJs, readers, listeners, et. al., Welcome to J-Term! Whether you’re living the Admissions-brochure dream (sledding on dining hall trays, partying every night, leaving the Snow Bowl only once a week to attend your workshop “The Lost Art of Italian Cupcake Decoration”), opting to “challenge yourself” by taking Orgo or a foreign language (lol…no), or… Read More
Big news from Toronto’s least friendly, most danceable goth duo, Crystal Castles (sorry, Trust — nice try!). Crystal Castles producer Ethan Kath and vocalist Alice Glass have been dropping hints about their third album for a few months now, but at last, they’ve provided the world with details. Out November 5 via Casablanca/Fiction/Universal Republic, the… Read More
