Historically speaking, Crystal Stilts were never really my thing. They certainly should have been: they seemed to be referencing about 50 different bands I loved, and yet the sum total of those influences never fully clicked for me. I always felt at arm’s length from them, “getting” what they were doing, but never being completely [...]

(or, PJ Harvey live on Conan).

What’s that you say? 50 million new releases are not enough? You need something beardier? Something that smells vaguely of weed and hot tar? LOOK NO FURTHER, FRIENDS. Ye Olde Thunderstealers My Morning Jacket have arrived today to distract you from the Foo Fighters and TV on the Radio and poor old Paul Simon with [...]

So TV on the Radio made an hour-long movie to better illustrate and expand on the themes on their excellent (and is it too soon to say “underrated”?) new record, Nine Types of Light and, as it turns out [SPOILER ALERT] IN THE END, THEY WERE DEAD THE WHOLE TIME. You can watch the full [...]

Looking for a guide to help you navigate today’s truckload of new releases? Look no further: new TV on the Radio, Paul Simon, Foo Fighters, Panda Bear, Alison Krauss, and much, MUCH more, after the jump. BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE: don’t miss this guided tour we put together, which links some of this week’s biggest [...]

(Photo: Tamara Porras) There was only one place to see economics professors, proper skinheads and Jersey’s teen punx crowd-surfing in unity on Saturday night. The Dead Milkmen show at the Warsaw was brimming with grinning fans, all of them eagerly expecting the return of punk’s prodigal satirists. This was the band’s second New York gig [...]

OK! This is what I’m talking about!! After playing a secret show a few months ago opening for fellow North Caroliners the Love Language, the Archers are now back full-on for a proper tour, thus whittling the number of indie rock bands left to reunite down to…like, what? Three? Two? I’ve lost track. In any [...]

Want to help Japan? Download this record. Want some incredible classical repertoire performed by the world’s best interpreters? Re-read that second sentence. We just received Classics For Japan: Music For Healing on the US site. It is album-only. Every single penny of the proceeds goes to the Japanese Red Cross or their international affiliates as [...]

Well, here’s a great idea: Over on flickr, a user named SeeGee has re-imagined classic albums as if they were classic books. Blood on the Tracks, OK Computer, Hatful of Hollow and tons of others get the literary makeover — and the results are pretty much on-the-money. Blood on the Tracks even works in some [...]

We also got this Tennis record! Looking for this week’s most vital new releases? Holy Ghost!, Vivian Girls, The Crystal Stilts, Black Devil Disco Club, and more, all after the jump. Hit us up in the comments with your findings.

Well, SNL was on again this past Saturday and, despite the best efforts of Dame Helen Mirren, it was kind of a dud. This season is stuck in a strange spot, pairing a genuinely good cast with some genuinely terrible writing. Real People Problems! One thing that didn’t suck, though, was the Foo Fighters, whose [...]

[Editor's Note: If you think you've made up your mind about time-tested post-hardcore group Thursday, this may be the point where you want to think again. I'm a firm believer in bringing more mainstream music to indie fans, and indie bands to people who think they only like pop music. Thursday is a bit of [...]

Because it’s a slow Friday, and because I’ve been playing this record an awful lot lately, why not enjoy this super adorable video from Catalan band Aias? It has all the things you love: showers, drawing, green underwear and coffee pots. FRIDAY!

By Claire Zulkey Michael Showalter has been making the smart-and-silly set laugh for a long time, in various formats. Audiences were first introduced to the lantern-jawed actor with a thick shock of dark hair as a part of The State, the raucous, mid-’90s MTV comedy sketch show (Showalter’s most famous role on the show was [...]

If you’re anything like me, you like super trashy, super lo-fi, super high-energy garage/scuzzbucket indie with bad manners and a worse attitude. Well, ladies and gents, OUR SHIP HAS COME IN. The always-excellent HoZac Records is once again playing host to the Blackout Festival, Three Days of Pee and Bruising at the Velvet Perenium in [...]

File Under: AM radio broadcasts from the great beyond Personae: Alex Zhang Hungtai For Fans Of: Suicide, Elvis Presley, Angelo Badalamenti, RZA From: Vancouver, Canada While most people associate Nicolas Cage with flaccid popcorn flicks like National Treasure, Alex Zhang Hungtai still relishes his mercurial role as Sailor Ripley, the Elvis-quoting outlaw who dives straight [...]

Last time I was in London, my friend Anna, rightly frustrated with the gaps in my electronic music knowledge (it’s just a bunch of blips and bloops, amirite?) turned me on to Ikonika, a minimal-kinda band on the great Hyperdub label that, to me, recalls the music that used to accompany old Atari 2600 games, [...]

The last album from The Antlers, Hospice (first self-released, then re-released by Frenchkiss in 2009), is a heart-wrenching piece that chronicles an emotionally abusive relationship set in a hospital (though frontman Peter Silberman has more or less kept mum about the actual story). While Hospice came mostly from Silberman, their recent work is a much [...]

Talk about a crazy bill! Opposites attract! Cats and dogs playing checkers! Ambient vocal-only artist opening for guitar-driven indie band! WHAT WILL THEY THINK OF NEXT. To quote the marquee at my local art house, this is a win-win: Selects alum and goth chanteuse (says me) Julianna Barwick opening for hyper-literate, hyper-wry, hyper-hyper Okkervil River [...]

You Must Obey: Nigeria’s Other Juju Superstar By Richard Gehr Anyone mildly acquainted with modern African popular music has heard of King Sunny Ade, the international star of Nigerian juju. While Ade, born in 1946, has long been juju’s primary technological innovator and global ambassador, Chief Commander Ebenezer Obey has enjoyed more local success as [...]