Every now and then, a song turns up in my inbox from a band I’m unfamiliar with, and it turns out to be really lovely. And lo and behold, it’s happened again! Snow & Voices — who, as it turns out, are an LA band who have recorded three albums of moody, emotive pop — [...]

Get it here Cruel Sister, a half-hour instrumental suite by Bang On A Can co-founder Julia Wolfe, is a cheery little number about jealousy, sororicide, and harps made from human bone. The grim story behind the music comes from an ancient English ballad of the same name: two sisters — one “bright as the sun” [...]

In the age of social media, it’s easy to share our thoughts, our opinions, our pet peeves and our dinner menus, our take on the Charlie Sheen situation. But social media hasn’t allowed us to share our voices until now. Yesterday, a new startup called Broadcastr launched in beta. Broadcastr allows its users to listen [...]

So the minute-long little cello and piano interlude before “All of The Lights” on Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is one of my favorite moments on the album. I’m a sucker for a cello. (Whoever plays on it goes a little flat about three-quarters of the way in, but whatever.) The song itself [...]

By Richard Gehr Tabu Ley Rochereau is more than just one of the greatest singers and composers in African popular music. He’s also the master politician of the Congolese dance-band nation, which has splintered, fractured, revolted, imploded and rebuilt itself more or less continuously over the course of three generations while producing some of the [...]

Hello there! It’s been too long. One of the most fun parts of each day — as I’m sure most of you here can attest — is combing through Freshly Ripped here at eMusic, seeing what weirdnesses and grand, exciting discoveries showed up. I have pulled so many things blind from Freshly Ripped — by [...]

I’ve been going on and on about this record for awhile now; it’s crazy and overblown and beautiful. It’s art-rock; it’s classical; it’s proggy. I love it. As I initially put it to my friends, “it sounds like Todd Rundgren, Ariel Pink, and Owen Pallett trying to make American Idiot.” I mostly got blank stares. [...]

In honor of Lenny Kaye’s epic retrospective on the MC5′s Kick Out the Jams and courtesy of the dearly departed former eMusic employee Patrick Lelli, here is an amazing clip of Rob Tyner, former lead singer of the MC5, performing his solo song “Grande Days” on an autoharp with a pair of Larry “Bud” Melman [...]

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 [...]

Man, Jayson wasn’t kidding about today being a big day. In amongst the marquee stuff that’s dropped in, I noticed a bunch (a slew even) of great and/or interesting records that I figured were worth running down here. Even still, I’m sure there’s stuff of note that I missed. Feel free to drop some science [...]

I realize I’m probably picking a bad time (entire Replacements discography and all) to trot out a laundry list of random-seeming records that you just Have to Download Now! but… let’s just call it Save For Later-bait? Ok, cool. I’ve posted here before about leaning on lists to augment my all-consuming music nerd habits, but [...]

Ariel Pink is megaprolific LA-based songwriter who sits at the center of a whole constellation of artists making homemade, rinky dink could-be-hits. Using often outdated, underpowered and/or rudimentary equipment, Pink (née Rosenberg) makes quirky pop music that sounds like a sun-damaged, slowly melting version of 1970s FM rock. Since first hitting record on the boombox [...]

I’m the kind of listener who gets stuck on songs and moods. I find one mood I like and suddenly it starts appearing everywhere before me, echoes of the ideas ubiquitous. Right now two songs dominate my consciousness, both precious, contained, and beaten down by life. One is “Black Lake” from the new Real Estate [...]

Our fall will sound like summer. Not everyone’s but certainly indie rock’s, and three bands (a trend) — the Drums, Girls and Beach Fossils — will be partially responsible. Some of their music will remind you of surf rock. More of it like the electrified cicadas of early R.E.M. Most of it like California. And [...]

Today marks the 50th anniversary of Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue, aka every non-jazz listener‘s favorite jazz record. You’ll see a lot of excellent essays this week about the impact of Blue and what it has meant to jazz and culture at large since. What you won’t see are many attempts to place the record [...]

Usually when I think of summer jams, I think big and bold and bright. I think of swooping Beach Boys harmonies or “Heat Wave”-y romps or, ya know, Summer Jam. I’ve noticed recently, though, the ease of which I’ve stockpiled a bunch of scratchy new lo-fi summer favorites. I know “lo-fi” is a bit of [...]

When it comes to jazz, pretty much everything I know is bullshit. I traffic in half-truths and shallow assertions and hope that no one ever asks a followup (if they do, I’m all ears no mouth). If I’m completely honest with myself — and I’m doing my best to be — then I must admit [...]

Nothin but good things to say about this – via Peter Eavis Just wanted to give a shoutout to one of my favorite new favorite tumblrs, Little Deaths. It’s basically structured like an old-fashioned mp3 blog: post one song, gab about it a little. As the owner of the tumblr writes: “A good song is [...]

As we come to the close of another week, we wanted to shine the light on a few records that may have fallen through the cracks — lovely, small albums that deserve a bit of spotlighting. They pretty much range across all genres, and the only thing they really share is that we like them [...]

A deeply weird and haunting clusterfuck of an avant-garde record came into eMusic on Friday. It is filed under Jazz, but the only distant relation it bears to Jazz is the fact that it is completely improvised. Otherwise, it lays about thirty miles safely outside of any genre borders. It is called The Songs, and [...]