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(12/07/12 6:07am)
Bish Bosch, as has now been clarified countless times in promotional media, isn’t quite as nonsensical a title as it might first appear. It seems playful at first glance; a childish euphemism, a demure statement of sloppiness out of apathy, a generally silly phrase. The alternate spelling of Bosch, however, recalls Hieronymus Bosch, classical master of all things bizarre, and Bish, well, it just means bitch. So Scott Walker’s massive 14th album is perhaps a slovenly, hastily assembled mess (it’s only been six years since The Drift, versus the 11 years between that and Tilt and another 11 between Tilt and Climate of Hunter), but it’s also, in the artist’s own words, a towering hodgepodge representation of the universal woman artist. That’s the thing about Walker’s latest work: It’s clever on the surface, but it’s absolutely brilliant underneath.
(11/16/12 7:15am)
If you could assign a sound to sloppy, starry midnights in the big city with all your best friends (omitting all the cheesy bar-rock and the club bangers), it would probably sound something a little like Birmingham-based Johnny Foreigner. What that actually means, however, is a bit difficult to pin down.
(11/09/12 4:57am)
I love Skrillex.
(10/18/12 1:31am)
Time has solidified Dinosaur Jr. as the (relatively) unsung paragons of ’80s and ’90s underground rock, whether you know it or not. Their second album and opus, You’re Living All Over Me, which just happens to be turning 25 next month, worked as an invisible hand to the very apparent one of Nirvana’s Nevermind, guiding the alternative scene and shaping it into the zeitgeist that defined an entire generation.
(10/16/12 4:22am)
Let’s talk about Nick Cave for a moment.
(09/18/12 12:00pm)
In the year 2012 emo has become a pejorative term, a scathing ball of spit to lob at the mascara-fouled MySpace refugees and the kitschy bands of our middle school years.
(09/11/12 5:04am)
Despite what NPR and your resident barista-pseudo-snob seem to think, The xx are no longer a small band.
(05/09/12 4:56am)
“The one constant in the band will be that we’ll always write about things that are real,” Jamie Stewart of Xiu Xiu said recently. “When we started the band we literally sat down and decided we were going to do that. So, no, none of the songs are made up.”
(05/04/12 4:54am)
When talking about Death Grips, inevitably someone’s going to mention Odd Future. It’s not an entirely inaccurate comparison; both (on paper, at least) are grimy, punky, shock-inclined takes on hip-hop with a tremendous hype train backing them. Except Odd Future, as time has revealed, aren’t all they’ve painted themselves as—just take a look at Tyler, the Creator; less brooding hip-hop messiah and more gangly Dennis the Menace. Death Grips’ debut, The Money Store, makes a point of drawing a distinct line in the sand between the band and its competitors. Death Grips are real, terrifying and incredible.
(04/25/12 3:09am)
It’s sort of unfair to call “The Cabin in the Woods” a horror movie. Sure, there are residual scraps of horror scattered throughout—blood is shed en masse (more often than not in absurd doses) and psychobilly zombies provide cheap pop-up scares—but there’s a lot more to it.
(03/29/12 3:46am)
I’m constantly astounded by the inherent hypocrisy of metal. The genre seems naturally limited—I mean screaming and raucous guitar can only go so far, I mean. There’s a sense of communal purity to the music as well; deviations from the established course are grounds for derision, mockery, and cries of ‘that’s not real metal!’ But despite that, I dare you (this is really happening, I’m actually daring you) to find a genre that’s sprouted such an incredibly diverse litter of subgenres. For as puritanical as the scene is, it’s also insanely multifaceted—often to the point of actual frustration. I know it better than anybody—to a little bopping indie kid like high-school me (whose ‘heaviest’ interest was the Chili Peppers) the world of metal was a terrifying and stupefying realm of upside-down crosses and burly, bearded men.
(03/08/12 2:55am)
I’ll admit it; I don’t really know how I feel about Julia Holter. On one hand, she sounds like Joanna Newsom’s ghost haunting a church in the year 3000, which is kind of a double-edged sword. Her first album, last year’s Tragedy (an able rival to Hello Sadness for the least subtly titled record of the year), was a little gem of that straddled the fine line between doomed pop and menacing drone-dance music being played several miles underwater. Apparently having learned a lesson or two last year, she’s recently put out her sophomore album, the infinitely more frustratingly titled Ekstasis.
(02/29/12 6:10am)
Breathe Owl Breathe are, in this recent and frankly bizarre folk resurgence, a genuine diamond in the rough. Cleverer than their cleverest contemporaries and more sprightly than their genre would imply, the band mixes youthful whimsy with disarmingly complex instrumentals for wondrous results.
(02/27/12 2:54am)
For the impatient out there, here’s a single sentence summation of Paralytic Stalks, of Montreal’s latest sonic think piece: The sound of Kevin Barnes, frequent musician and perpetual thespian, traveling so far up his own ass that he has finally emerged out the other end and into the brilliant light of day.
(01/27/12 4:24am)
Cardiff-born and Wales-formed Los Campesinos! (colloquially and
locally) are just as kinetic and wordy as the frantic age they were
born into-no one embodies the hustle and bustle of the 21st century
quite like them. Fronting their pop-assault is wordsmith Gareth
Campesinos!, a tongue-in-cheek troubadour who hopes for a smoother
performance on this weekend's visit to Madison.
(11/09/11 10:59pm)
The scourge of 80s and 90s arthouse cinema and general cultural
ne'er-do-well David Lynch has been busy lately, doing virtually
everything he can to put off directing a follow-up to his most
recent dose of cinematic nightmare fuel, Inland Empire.
He's written self help books and thrown together a photography
collection for Sparklehorse and Dangermouse's ill fated Dark
Night of the Soul and, oh, yeah, put out his own line of
coffee beans. So what does that leave? Well, while we're all
waiting for the inevitable children's book collaboration with Lars
van Trier (ANYTHING but another movie, I suppose), there's Lynch's
latest project to tide us over, his surprisingly solid solo debut,
Crazy Clown Time.
(10/16/11 6:00am)
All right, time for some real talk—Colin Stetson is perhaps the
most wonderful musician currently active. It doesn't matter if you
don't know him or even if you don't like him (it's barely even
expected, honestly—his is a niche within a niche within a niche),
the man is doing things beyond groundbreaking and he deserves
nothing less than to have the very ground he walks upon kissed in
adoration by the awestruck masses.
(10/10/11 6:00am)
In a world of increasingly pedestrian and piddling hip-hop,
Dessa of Doomtree stands as a true
visionary, crafting baroque and intricate songs about life and loss
and everything in between.
(09/25/11 6:00am)