In what essentially amounts to the Greatest Music News of the Month, post-punk legend, post-pop smartass and all around Lion of the Industry Edwyn Collins is recovered enough from his terrifying 2005 cerebral hemorrhage to play a handful of shows in the United States. There’s only a few of them — March 13th at Brooklyn’s [...]

Are you sick of hearing us talk about Yuck and Smith Westerns yet? That’s too bad! Our two favorite new(ish) bands are hitting the road together in February, which gives us even more reasons to talk about how fantastic they are. Two great bands! For the price of one ticket! Who could beat it? Listen [...]

A few months ago, taking all of us by surprise, the entire Elvis Costello catalog showed up on the site. The instant it happened, we did the only thing we could: got Douglas Wolk on the case. You can read his album-by-album breakdown of Costello’s entire body of work below. (UPDATE: Because of various territory [...]

Hey! Look who it is! Fleet Foxes! Back to claim the smooth, soothing folk pastures that are rightly theirs, the Foxes return on May 3rd with their sophomore full-length, a record that finds them making a hard about-face and incorporating elements of rave, neo-Goth and Madchester into their sound. Just kidding! If the below title [...]

Onetime garage noiseniks now gone echo-laden janglepoppers the Fresh & Onlys, whose last albu, the sublime Play it Strange landed on our Best Albums of 2010 list, are jetting out on a short tour of these United States this spring, sometimes on their own, sometimes accompanied by simpatico bands Crocodiles and Young Prisms. If you [...]

You may remember the other day, when we got real amped about the forthcoming Soundway compilation Cartagena!. Well, the good folks at the label have decided to let all of us get an early taste of what we’re in for! The Soundcloud player below features three songs from the album, all of them bright and [...]

(Over the course of the last year, the Global Jukebox label has been issuing a series of recordings from the Alan Lomax Archive, documenting the famed ethnomusicologist and field recorder’s journey through the American South. eMusic’s Richard Gehr talks about the story behind the project — and the music’s incredible value — in a piece [...]

Talib Kweli Gutter Rainbows [Duck Down] By Ben Westhoff Despite its title, Talib Kweli’s latest Gutter Rainbows is less “inner city” than “Sunday drive through the country with the top down.” The weather is mild, and the shining sun has got him in the mood to reflect on his blessings and career highlights. A digital-only [...]

(photo by alyssa scheinson) So, it’s been a busy, crazy week — what with the snow, the riots in cairo, the crazy number of new arrivals and conflating Britney Spears and Hitler, so I think we all need to take a step back, breathe deep, and enjoy this gorgeous new single from the recently-reunited Azure [...]

So we don’t have any MP3s or anything from this to share yet, but I mean, it’s Soundway, and unless they suddenly decide to put out a comp called The Earth is Sexist: Detuned Post-Grunge and Nu-Metal From America – 2001 – 2005, you know whatever they issue is going to be great. To wit: [...]

Though he’s occasionally broken through to achieve a level of national consciousness (like, for example, that 2003 Grammy win), Raphael Saadiq has mostly avoided the limelight since his early years in Tony! Toni! Toné!, instead racking up a string of impressive collaborators while going about the business of making consistently impressive, smoky throwback R&B records [...]

I was sad to learn today that Marvelettes co-founder and lead singer Gladys Horton has passed away at the age of 66. The Marvelettes were one of the first Motown girl groups to make a splash — in fact, the quartet brought Motown its first#1 hit with “Hey Mr. Postman.” The video above is for [...]

Last year, I compiled this starter’s guide to one of the great, unheralded American independent labels, Texas rap home Rap-A-Lot. At the time, we’d received several classic albums, particularly the entire Geto Boys catalog, but there were some missing pieces. Years of rights issues, and a slow changeover for digital rights has made some of [...]

You know who’s the greatest? Rose Melberg. Moreover: she’s been the greatest for so long now. She was at the fore of the first revival of the C86 movement in the early ’90s, fronting the phenomenal Tiger Trap, whose songs sound just as bright and big and buzzy as anything burning up the Hype Machine [...]

Chevaux Fous from m m on Vimeo. First things first: one of our favorite destinations to get the early word on breaking bands is the excellent blog Raven Sings the Blues. His taste is impeccable, and the sheer volume of great music he unearths on a daily basis is humbling. He’s also great at finding [...]

Sleigh Bells – New Music – More Music Videos (you are going to have to watch a 30-second commercial for some shitty action movie first. sorry.) You know what sucks right now? New York. There’s about 500 tons of snow all over everything, the streets are a mess, and New Yorkers — who are seriously [...]

(hipstamatic obscures amateurism every time) Outside Santos Party House on Wednesday, New York City was suffering through yet another night of bitter winds, frigid temperatures and blinding sheets of snow. Inside the venue there was a different kind of storm brewing — this one not without its own sudden gusts and furious squalls. That bluster [...]

OK, I’ll be honest with you: I haven’t really been about The Streets since their excellent second record A Grand Don’t Come For Free, mostly because it felt like Mike Skinner didn’t really have a ton of places to go from there. That record played out like a mini-movie. The next one just felt like [...]

WHOAH. Bethany Best Coast, over the course of the last year or so, has turned into one hell of a powerhouse vocalist. Listen to her absolutely tear up Loretta Lynn‘s classic punch-out “Fist City,” and try to reconcile it with the retiring indie popper of her early 7″. She is on fire.

It’s almost two perfect that post-punk legends Wire and Gang of Four should release records within a week of one another. Both of them are down a few original members, both are responsible for crafting a very particular sound in the late ’70s, and both of them have very clear apostles who mine that same [...]