This is exactly what it sounds like, and what it sounds like is awesome. The first entry into this series turned up quietly and mysteriously last week, but it didn’t take long before people sussed out the folks responsible. Apparently, this is the brainchild of people affiliated with the Minneapolis hip-hop crew Doomtree, which is [...]

As we head into the 4th of July weekend with firecrackers in one hand and a frosty six-pack in the other, the eMusic staff thought we’d help soundtrack your next barbecue by offering some of our favorite reissues and best-of compilations — revolutionary records, if you will — for just $4.99 or less. As the [...]

On August 30, Zach Condon — better known by his birth name, Beirut —will release The Rip Tide, a concept record about two former army buddies who open a detective agency on an L.A. Pier. A record this ambitious requires support, and support he will, with a string of dates stretching well into the fall. [...]

It seems like just yesterday Chelsea Wolfe was releasing her stark solo debut, The Grime and the Glow, on the mysterious New York label Pendu. That title was no accident: the album was split between dense, overcast tracks that nestled Wolfe’s voice deep beneath strange waves of sound and tracks that purred and cooed slowly [...]

Kissing Cousins-You Bring Me Down-Official Music Video from Kissing Cousins on Vimeo. A few weeks ago, th LA band Kissing Cousins released their latest EP, Unfortunate End. Broadly speaking, the cousins traffic in the same kind of doomy, ’50s-inspired neo-garage as Dum Dum Girls and the Raveonettes, but there’s something about them that’s more haunting [...]

Battles | Wall Street | A Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo. On June 7, Battles will end a four-year hiatus with the release of highly-anticipated second record Gloss Drop. So what’s the logical thing to do? Go to Paris with filmmaker Vincent Moon and record inside a room that looks, more or [...]

(barely does it justice) Last night at New York’s Bowery Ballroom there was a concert in celebration of the 10th Anniversary of Michael Azerrad’s seminal work on independent music, Our Band Could Be Your Life. And it was great. The concept was clever and worked perfectly: a who’s who of today’s indie all-stars (including eMusic [...]

Guess what, guys? There’s a new Yuck song on the Internet. It’s called “Milkshake.” It is not the Kelis song “Milkshake.” I would make some stupid joke about “IT WOULD BE AWESOME IF IT WAS THO, RIGHT” but actually even trying to imagine what it might sound like makes my blood curdle in my veins. [...]

Well, here’s today’s Greatest Thing Ever. Just a few minutes ago, Nate Patrin — who writes for us as well as for a number of other places — brought to my attention via Twitter a collection of Scott Walker Remixes created by the London DJ Jim Sharp. Uh, so, these are amazing. He basically has [...]

BALKANS- ‘Troubled and Done’ from Frank Broyles on Vimeo. One of yesterday’s pleasant surprises was the arrival of the debut by the Atlanta group Balkans. Don’t let the name fool you: there’s no ham-handed assimilation of world music going on here. Instead, Balkans traffic in stern, razor-sharp post-punk, bundling their songs in thick cables of [...]

(photo by Autumn de Wilde) By now, you’ve had some time to absorb the glory of Fleet Foxes second album, Helplessness Blues, and are probably more than ready to hear how the band handles its grandeur live. Well, our friends at NPR Music have just the thing — tonight at 9:30 pm EST, they’ll be [...]

[Tomorrow will see the release of one of the year's best records to date, the solo debut of former Gowns frontwoman Erika M. Anderson — who records under the name EMA. Stark, haunting and evocative, Past Life Martyred Saints is a portrait of a young woman in transition, grappling with adult uncertainty and emotional turbulence. [...]

In many ways, Fredrik are the ultimate Under the Radar band: their songs are twinkling and unassuming, possessing a distinct air of mystery. They don’t grandstand, they don’t showboat, and they seem comfortable lurking in shadow. But if you give them just a moment’s time, you’ll be drawn in — there’s a hypnotic quality that [...]

I was inspired by the baffling news that Big Boi is producing the next Modest Mouse record to revisit their last effort, 2007′s We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank. The Big Boi collaboration is such an oddball decision, but I can squint and see a parallel universe in which it might have made [...]

April was a phenomenal month for new releases here, and of course when the influx is so great many fantastic albums end up falling through the cracks.  Here are a few of the most criminally overlooked albums of April, please to be sharing your lists as well!

Well, if there’s one thing we know about Kevin Barnes, it’s that we don’t know anything about Kevin Barnes. If you look up “flummox” in the dictionary, you’ll find the definition of the word “flummox,” this way you’ll know what it means when I say Kevin Barnes is one of the most consistently flummoxing personalities [...]

On their fifth LP, Ireland’s Bell X1 make rock music that can be as bombastically arena-ready as Muse or the Killers (“Velcro”), as intense-but-contained as The National (“Nightwatchmen,” “The Trailing Skirts of Love”), and as weird as Beck (the start of “Haloumi”). The biggest differentiator from those acts, though, is the synths and electronic effects [...]

(alright, alright, we get it, you lived in a cabin) Well, well, well. Look who’s decided to take some time off from high-fiving Kanye West, making smooth AM soft rock sex jams and basically having more goddamn side projects than James Franco: it’s Mr. Boñuel Iver. On June 21, Justin Vernon goes back to the [...]

Next Tuesday will see the release of the excellent collaboration between Thao & Mirah, two unlikely musical allies whose combined talents have resulted in a record that sounds like neither. I’ve been bewitched by this thing since the first day the promo darkened my inbox — it plays on both artists’ strength for cockeyed melodies, [...]

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 [...]