James Blake has always been somewhat of a musical dichotomy. Since his debut release nearly four years ago, Blake has been carefully straddling the line between the UK post-dubstep scene and his own pop music leanings, a feat evidenced by arguably his most popular single to date, the wobbly, earth-shaking Read More…
Recent articles in music publications have decried the state of indie rock, declaring that is has gone “soft” and become too “wimpy.” While these sentiments may be extreme, it’s true that indie has trended less toward the rock ‘n’ roll of Pavement or the White Stripes and more toward the Read More…
There’s the essential canon of Lil Wayne’s extensive discography, and then there’s I Am Not A Human Being II. With his incredible music run in the second half of the last decade, Lil Wayne fulfilled his personal quest to become one of rap’s greats. The next few years found Wayne Read More…
Superstars have a lot of responsibility. Things they produce need to be bigger and better than what they did before. The best of the best thrive under that pressure, but some can’t properly deal with those expectations — D’Angelo and Dave Chappelle still haven’t come out of hiding. Read More…
Devendra Banhart, the Venezuelan-American singer who has often been labeled as freak-folk, is back after a four-year hiatus, though I’m not sure if I want him to be. Read More…
When an artist as iconic as David Bowie announces an album, expectations of something along the lines of a Second Coming tend to circulate. It was no help that Bowie’s announcement was coupled with the release of a new single, “Where Are We Now?,” a characteristically extraterrestrial ballad emanating the Read More…
“Environmentally friendly” might not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think of an alternative rock band. However, that is the main driving force behind Cloud Cult, an extraordinary eight-member experimental “chamber rock” group. Read More…
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds take on their fifteenth album with Push the Sky Away, a phantasmagorical brooding on the visions of a fevered night sweat. Inspired by falling down various Wikipedia holes and googling niche “curiosities”, the album has an encyclopedic bent to it. Read More…
This month comes the release STRFKR’s fourth record, Miracle Mile, and simply put, it is damn good. The 4-man indie electro-pop group originated in Portland, Oregon as a solo project by Joshua Hodges (vocals, keyboard, guitar and drums) under the alias Sexton Blake. Read More…
This didn’t actually happen, did it? For months, My Bloody Valentine frontman Kevin Shields had been nebulously hinting at a long-awaited follow-up to their classic 1991 LP Loveless. But he also said in 1997 that he’d be “dead” if he didn’t release a new album that year. Well, 1997 came Read More…