Posts Tagged ‘music’
Magnetic Man
Magnetic Man

The press in England is currently hyping dubstep, a mix of dub reggae, grime, garage, classic rave, techno and soul, as the most innovative sound to come out of British dance clubs in a decade. Magnetic Man, a trio of producers and songwriters from Croydon—ground zero for the dubstep movement—are currently the face of dubstep, […]

RYAT
RYAT

All bands dream of creating sounds that can’t be pigeonholed. Philadelphia’s RYAT (pronounced riot) has done it with an innovative blend of electronica, jazz, pop and modern experimental music. Their dense asymmetric rhythmic textures, swirling multi-layered vocals, unexpected shifts in tempo and cryptic lyrics, produce music that inhabits an intoxicating twilight zone between sweet dreams […]

I’m From Barcelona
I’m From Barcelona

Emanuel Lundgren’s Wall of Sunshine Emanuel Lundgren had no intention of starting a 29 member group when he began recording his upbeat pop tunes in 2005. The band came together as the result of a series of unlikely events. “A few years ago, I’d accumulated five weeks of vacation time,” Lundgren recalls from his home […]

Bill Carter
Bill Carter

The U2 Connection Bill Carter has had a long and varied career as an assistant director, bartender, adobe mason, firefighter, commercial fisherman, photographer, journalist and filmmaker. In 1993, he landed in Sarajevo during the Bosnian War and joined The Serious Road Trip, an unofficial aid organization that delivered food to children affected by the war. […]

Echo Lake: Drowning in Reverb
Echo Lake: Drowning in Reverb

On their debut EP, Young Silence, Echo Lake’s expansive, hypnotic music is quietly overwhelming and completely irresistible. Bandleader and producer Thom Hill has created a sound that moves smoothly between icy, hissing guitar fuzz, keyboard textures denser than the atmosphere of Jupiter and tidal waves of psychedelic noise. When the delicately indecipherable vocals of Linda […]

Joy To The (Music) World
Joy To The (Music) World

Photography by Cathryn Farnsworth In many ways, Marla Joy is a throwback. Channeling artists like Janis Joplin and Aretha Franklin, she sings with a power and rawness rarely heard anymore. In stature, she’s diminutive, which makes the magnitude of her voice and stage presence truly surprising. She’d fit in seamlessly at Woodstock or the Chelsea […]

Holy Fuck
Holy Fuck

Unholy noise from Toronto After a few unsteady gigs, Holy Fuck exploded out of Toronto’s indie rock scene in 2004 with a sound that blends driving rock rhythms with wailing synthesizers and a grinding pulse generated by a 35mm film synchronizer, broken toy keyboards and an array of effects pedals. Their music mixes elements of […]

5 minutes with Maus Haus
5 minutes with Maus Haus

As a self-proclaimed “Craigslist band” with Brian Wilson, Aphex Twin, spaghetti westerns, Tortoise, Dr. Octagon, Tom Waits, Captain Beefheart, ‘80s synth-pop and Miami bass among its myriad influences, San Francisco’s Maus Haus finds tension at the core of its experimental pop music. After the band—consisting of multi-instrumentalists Joseph Genden, Jason Kick, Joshua Rampage, Aaron Weiss […]

No Age Grows Up
No Age Grows Up

Post-punk role models of tomorrow As L.A. post-punk/noise rock duo No Age was recording its third album, Everything in Between (released September 2010 on Sub Pop), drummer/vocalist Dean Spunt was going through a difficult stretch. “I was breaking up with my longtime girlfriend, I had family members that were sick, and I had a, I […]

Neighborhood Vibe With a Hi-Fi Sound
Neighborhood Vibe With a Hi-Fi Sound

Audyssey’s SoMA Inspiration South of Market, SF—It’s late in the afternoon and the streets of this San Francisco neighborhood brim with an eclectic mix of individuals who are, once again, reinventing a modern urban landscape. Nine-to-fivers filter into watering hole hotspots for happy hour concoctions. Up and down the street, new restaurants buzz with managers […]

Reggie Watts
Reggie Watts

I first saw Reggie Watts perform at Rififi, a now-defunct nightclub in the Lower East Side. It was about a year ago, and I was there with a couple friends to watch a random line-up of comedians do their 15-minute sets. Everything was going along just fine until Reggie got up to do his thing. […]

Sarah Blasko
Sarah Blasko

Australian singer Sarah Blasko is an unlikely pop star. Her confessional songs are full of complicated feelings and tangled emotions, and her subtle vocal style owes as much to jazz and gospel singers as it does to any current diva. She croons her dreamy lyrics in a breathy voice, coming in before or after the […]

Phantogram
Phantogram

Josh Carter and Sarah Barthel, the duo who make up the group Phantogram, bring to the table a new sound, one that is filled with mystery and sex appeal. The undercurrent of hip hop beats, lilting vocals and intense emotional lyrics would bring any listener to their feet, swaying to the dreamlike tracks. Unlike most […]

Foster the People
Foster the People

Foster The People got together in LA less than a year ago. The band’s songwriter and front man, Mark Foster, had been doing solo acoustic gigs, but the songs he was writing needed some full band power. Everything clicked when he found drummer Mark Pontius and bass man Cubbie Fink. The first song they put […]

Fred Schneider & The Superions
Fred Schneider & The Superions

“I never thought I’d have a career as a disco singer,” says Fred Schneider, chuckling softly. Schneider’s backstage at Chateau Ste. Michelle Winery, a few miles north of Seattle. He’s getting ready to go on stage with the B-52s, the band he co-founded back on Valentine’s Day in 1977, but he’s doing phone interviews to […]

Blood Red Shoes
Blood Red Shoes

Blood Red Shoes may be England’s best looking band. The photogenic duo is guitarist Laura-Mary Carter, possessor of a dark, evocative beauty and blonde drummer Steven Ansell, a young man with a classic just-got-out-of- bed-at-four-in-the-afternoon rock and roll aura. Their appearance hasn’t hurt their meteoric rise to the top of Britain’s alt. rock scene, but […]

Campfires
Campfires

Jeff Walls hints at nostalgia when he speaks of his wayward musical beginnings: driving around the woods in western Michigan high, listening to The Gories and The Olivia Tremor Control. He has spent years accruing a collection of obscure tape recorders and cheap microphones, culled from thrift stores and garage sales, yet bought his first […]

Jónsi
Jónsi

In every genre of art, the difference between the good and the great is the level of balance one can achieve. The crazy with the restrained, the industrial with the organic, the esoteric with the mainstream: true artistry comes with knowing how to walk that fine line. In his new solo album, Go, Jónsi Birgisson […]

The Black Keys
The Black Keys

The Black Keys recorded their latest album, Brothers, at the legendary Muscle Shoals Sound Studios in Alabama. Aretha Franklin, The Rolling Stones, Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan all made records there, but the band wasn’t specifically drawn to the building because of its history. “Muscle Shoals isn’t the holy grail,” says Black Keys guitarist and […]

The XX
The XX

Veiled behind a thin layer of white smoke, garbed in head-to-toe black and breathing a cadence of soft vocals is the lovely British trio, The xx. Band members Romy Croft, Oliver Sim and Jamie Smith released their debut album, xx, in 2009 and have since been on a covetable tour that includes a slew of […]

Midnight Juggernauts
Midnight Juggernauts

The Midnight Juggernauts are constantly on the move, spokesperson for the Australian trio, Vincent Vendetta, perhaps more so than his bandmates. On the eve of the digital release of their second full-length album, The Crystal Axis, the Juggernauts have done a quick run around Europe, come home, only to have Vendetta turn around and fly […]

VV Brown
VV Brown

VV Brown causes ripples of excitement when she walks into a room. She’s beautiful, an inch shy of six feet tall and has a unique fashion sense some call “thrift store meets high couture.” The first single from her debut album, Travelling Like the Light, was iTunes’ Single of the Week in February, and she’s […]

Gogol Bordello
Gogol Bordello

Gogol Bordello doesn’t take the stage; they take over the stage. They dominate crowds with their blistering mix of punk, roots reggae, dub, metal, rap, flamenco, klezmer, salsa and Italian spaghetti western twang, anchoring it all in a muscular Gypsy rhythm that sounds like an Eastern European cousin of ska. “My inspiration comes from Ukrainian […]

Why Everyone’s Talkin’ About Megan Washington
Why Everyone’s Talkin’ About Megan Washington

Listening to a Megan Washington album is like turning over the last page of a captivating novel; you’re emotionally satisfied, inspired by raw talent and itching to repeat the process. At just 24, the Melbourne-based singer-songwriter, pianist and guitarist (who fronts the band Washington) has risen to the highest ranks of the Australian independent music […]


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