British experimental pop group Micachu and the Shapes’ show last night at Le Poisson Rouge was noisy, harsh, funky and weird — and I mean all of that in the best way possible. The group’s debut LP, Jewellery, has been out for almost a year now but it’s still a little bit more mind-boggling with [...]

It was early in their set at the Brooklyn Masonic Temple Tuesday night, and Abbath Doom Occulta, guitarist and primary vocalist for the Norwegian black metal band Immortal, was feeling charitable. “If any of you wandered in here and are wondering who the fuck we are,” he growled, “we are Immortal, the Sons of Northern [...]

“With harmony, you can’t fail. When you sing it wrong it’s hilarious, and when you sing it right, it’s beautiful.” At least that’s Becky Stark’s philosophy. Last night at Bowery Ballroom, The Living Sisters — aka the power trio of Lavender Diamond’s Stark, singer/songwriter Eleni Mandell, and the Bird and the Bee’s Inara George, who [...]

Image courtesy of Freya Najade via The Royal Scourge
A surprising amount of big records for what is usually a pretty dry release time
of year! Let’s not waste any time, shall we? After the jump, we’ll trawl through some landmark pop/punk and indie-pop reissues, a retrospective from the inimitable Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, a smattering of [...]

Considering that members of Miike Snow have worked with the likes of Madonna, Britney Spears, Kylie Minogue and J. Lo, it’s a fair assumption that their music will get people on the dancefloor, too. Last night at Bowery Ballroom, the three core members of the Swedish electro-pop band (with an extra four musicians on stage) [...]

We’ve been there: every year there’s a deluge of new bands and new sounds, all of them competing for your attention, all of them seemingly full of promise. More than any year in recent memory, 2010 has already seen the arrival of a boatload of intriguing new talents. Whether it’s Northern Portrait’s aching update of [...]

We’ve already mentioned the incredible benefit album for New Zealand musician Chris Knox, on which which artists including Neutral Milk Hotel’s Jeff Mangum, Yo La Tengo, the Magnetic Fields‘ Stephin Merritt and many others recorded covers of Knox’s songs, after he suffered a series of debilitating strokes last year. Now Mangum, the Fields’ Claudia Gonson, [...]

Everything about last night’s Clogs show at The Bell House in Brooklyn was beautiful. The band (The National’s Bryce Dessner and Padma Newsome, plus Rachael Elliott and Thomas Kozumplik) was joined by a handful of guest musicians to play tracks from their recently released LP The Creatures In The Garden of Lady Walton, some of [...]

I’ve been living with the forthcoming National record, High Violet, for about a week now, and my initial reaction is that they’ve crafted another stunner. It’s a tense, vibrating record, one that favors coiled menace over outright eruption. The more I listen to it, the more odd and interesting corners I find. You can get [...]

I caught Bristol, England based Malachai on the final day of SXSW. Composed of a vocalist, Gee, and Scott on a laptop etc. They were intriguing. Really hard to classify, definitely a bit of the Bristol sound in there but they’re true magpies, grabbing shiny and dark stuff alike, to create, well the metaphor falls [...]

Hey, long-time lurker, first time contributor to the mighty 17. This was also my first time at SXSW. I’ll just share one performance.
After four days (and nights) of carnivalesque goings on, the last show I caught at SXSW was a pretty forceful and moving return to reality. Alex Chilton, which you surely know by know, [...]

(Man/Miracle, “Up,” Live at eMusic Lunch in Austin))
As you may have heard, eMusic had a little showcase in Austin where we announced our new Access and Rewards program and also spotlighted our amazing Selects bands, Man/Miracle and Hurray for the Riff Raff. To say that they were great would be an understatement. Man/Miracle’s brand of [...]

Back from Austin just in time for a healthy smattering of New Arrivals — here’s what we’ve got, let us know what you found in the comments!
She & Him, Volume Two: Mark Ruffalo and Katy Perry return for their second outing as She & Him. eMusic’s Barry Walters says:
Rather than altering what worked once, Deschanel [...]

Our good friends and Selects alum Breathe Owl Breathe have a new album coming out this spring, and this trailer is pretty much all we need to see to get excited for it. We have no idea where this was shot, but Micah’s frozen beard is something to behold.

I’d like to note that after telling Joe at 1 a.m. that no, I was not still out at shows, I received a text from him that said, “I’m at this post rock thing. Everyone else gave up! I will rock till the end.” Had it not been for it being 40-something degrees in Austin, [...]

(Liturgy is for lovers)
My final day at SXSW had me seeing more music than ever, with more nice surprises. And since I’m racing check-out time as I write this, we’re gonna say to hell with through-narrative on this one and just do a blow-by-blow.
The day started with all-you-can-eat pancakes and the Danish post-rock band Slaraffenland [...]

Hey, look, they spelled my name wrong
My limbs are jellified. My head is full of slop. My back needs a brace. My ears are ringing, overheated slabs of cartilage. I am worthless. Also today was the coldest day in SXSW history. And yet, I saw a few more bands.
-Real Estate: Joe spoke wisely on the [...]

Joe said Thursday was his off day; yesterday was mine, at least before about 8 p.m. (I spent the day visiting, wandering, and listening to a really awesome panel of women music writers that included frequent eMusic contributor Amanda Petrusich.) I’m going to make this kinda quick since I didn’t see a whole ton [...]

(look! i took a picture! now you see why i don’t take pictures!)
Some bands make a virtue of precision and accuracy, but the best bands I saw on my third day in Austin hid their songs deep in haze. This started early with Holly Miranda, whose solo debut, The Magician’s Private Library, culled the best [...]

Tim Harrington, sweating on my iPhone
Today was the day when the flurry of exhaustion finally set in. It didn’t affect the number of things I saw, which was more than ever, just the way I’ll be able to process all of it. So, without further ado, the lightning round:
-Free Energy: Goodness, these guys have so [...]