The self-titled debut from Toronto's Crash Karma - Edwin (ex-I Mother Earth), drummer Jeff Burrows (ex-The Tea Party), guitarist Mike Turner (ex-Our Lady Peace) - is the result of three musicians with multi-platinum pedigrees coming together with one equally skilled musician, Amir Epstein (ex-Zygote), in a curious "six-degrees of Amir" story.The story begins when Amir, a prolific songwriter for the past 14 years, expressed to a friend a desire to co-write with Edwin. To his surprise, this friend had connections to Edwin and agreed to set up a meeting. On his way there, Amir decided on a bolder approach. "I thought i...

I remember when I realized what I wanted to do in life. I was helping my mom clean out our swimming pool when an old Frank Sinatra song came on the radio. I remember saying, "Mom, I want to write things down that I have to say, and I want to sing them real loud so everyone can hear me." I was seven at the time. Ever since that moment, making music has continued to be my goal.Writing has always been a constant escape for me. A lot of horrible things have happened in my life, and without the ability to write my feelings down and communicate them with a melody; they essentially would have blown up inside of me, for all I know. I graduated high school super early, and then went to culinary school when I was just 16. I...

Cosmo Jarvis is a new kind of artist, for whom one world will never be enough. He's a songwriter and a singer, but he's also a filmmaker, storyteller, poet, iconoclast, Jessica Alba enthusiast, and campaigner for the equal treatment of gay pirates. He's an ordinary teenager with extraordinary talents.His heroes are as varied as the art he produces every single day; John Lennon, Robin Williams, Jim Carrey, Terry Gilliam, Jerry Garcia, Samuel L Jackson, Jamie Fox, Will Smith, George Lucas, River Phoenix, Joaquin Phoenix, Muhammad Ali, Maximus Decimus Peridius, Harrison Ford, Robert DeNiro, Elliot Smith, and Frank Zappa.And he's fast becoming a hero to others, not least Wall Of Sound MD Mark Jones, who will re...

Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars started playing music together in West African refugee camps while their homeland was being racked by years of bloody warfare. Since then, audiences around the world have embraced the band and their utterly extraordinary story. On their forthcoming album, Rise & Shine, the All Stars' sound, as well as their biography, evolves further; the music finds them "establishing an identity based as much on skill, imagination and charisma as on their undeniably touching story" (The Los Angeles Times). Cumbancha will release the album on March 23, 2010. An extensive US tour will follow the release beginning April 10th including the album release show at New York City's Highline Ballroo...

John Baldwin Gourley Vocals, Guitar Zachary Scott Carothers Bass, Percussion & Vocals Ryan Neighbors Piano, Rhodes, Organ, Synth, Farfisa... etc. & Vocals From Satan's Satanist to America's GhettosAs I sit down to get into this topic that is American Ghetto I am realizing that I have put it off for far too long. I for some reason have it in my head that I have told you all that I would be posting on this subject nearly every month since it's completion... Well, I really have no excuse aside from our endless work schedule and our promoting of The Satanic Satanist. Before heading on I cannot help but point out how funny I find it that every time I talk about promoting the Satanis...

In 1996 five high school students from Recife, Brazil challenge the music trend with intensity started a rock band, The River Raid (TRR). The group consists of TONI (vocals/ guitar), PRAGA (vocals/ guitar), GIBA (guitars/ moog), DUDU (bass) and GUZZ (drums/ sampler). Their music is influenced by The Stooges, Violent Femmes, Radiohead, Sonic Youth as well as other Brazilian artists from the sixties and seventies such as Tom Jobim, Roberto Carlos, Os Mutantes, and Luiz Gonzaga.The early years for The River Raid offered much success, receiving the honor of being published in a reputable magazine known as Showbizz, being at the time the #1 music magazine in Brazil. They rapidly gained media attention after winning fir...

"Anaïs sings of love among the ruins, coming of age to find yourself an outsider looking for the place you belong, finding other strangers along the way. Details ... are offered like clues or keys to the reality all of us sense is imminent and eternal beneath the surfaces of things."-Hugh Blumenfeld, Sing Out!From her current home base in a 200-year-old farmhouse in rural Vermont, Anaïs ("uh-NAY-iss") Mitchell writes songs that are as intimate as conversations and as rich in detail as short stories. The daughter of "hippie back-to-the-landers" whose father was a novelist and English professor, she remembers her family's home (another farmhouse in the same state) co...

Okay, let's just get this part out of the way. Most people know OK Go from their videos, especially those treadmills. Any video that's well enough known to be parodied on The Simpsons is a cultural force in itself and, checking the YouTube rating right before sitting down to write this, I was amazed to see that the number of views on the band's YouTube page alone now stands at 47,788,229. That's a lot. That many people and a brother who's the Governor of Florida is pretty much enough to win you a presidential election. Add the zillions who've seen it elsewhere, and you might not even need the brother.So if you're reading these words, you've probably seen that video. I find even more endearing the video dance to &q...

Warmer, deeper and more stripped back than their previous record Made In the Dark- One Life Stand is still conscientiously crafted and informed by the kind of intelligent evaluation that is now second nature to Hot Chip. The seductive and surprisingly glossy finish they can deliver when the mood takes them is enhanced by an emotional honesty and open-hearted optimism that is disarmingly affecting. With both feet in the Jack Track underground roots of classic house and techno, and a heart in candid song-writerly craft, the album is convincingly inspired by Joe Smooth, Marshall Jefferson, Derrick May, Theo Parrish, Bill Withers and Bill Callahan all at once. One Life Stand seeps through to your soul while...

Hello, my name is Eric Nally and I am the singer and founding member of this rabble-rousing pack of fucks they call Foxy Shazam. Our other five members are (in alphabetical order): Daisy (bass) Aaron McVeigh (drums), Alex Nauth (horns) Loren Turner (guitar) and Sky White (piano). I love them but before I get into their story, I would like to spend a little time on myself: I am twenty-four years old, the father of two boys, Julian Michael and Francis Jordan, as well as a loving husband to Karen Nally. This creates an interesting contrast to my career as a professional musician.I grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, and was one of two white boys in an all-black high school. The band name Foxy Shazam came from a saying in m...

A band called The Radio Dept. was formed by Elin Almered and Johan Duncanson when they were in the school together in the late 90's. The name was taken from a gas station/radio repairer in Lund (Sweden) which had a large sign with the name »Radioavdelningen« (The Radio Department in Swedish) hanging outside their shop. Just like today Elin and Johan hung out with people who, if they didn't play music, were into photo, film, art and the likes. The Radio Deptartment was a suiting name as it became a department of its own among their friends' activities.For a few years there was some random activity, members coming and going, recordings being made but after a while the Radio Dept. seized to exsist. When M...

When global bass music matriarch Mary Anne Hobbs recently told The Fader Flying Lotus, for me, is like the Hendrix of his generation it seemed more then an audacious opinion, and with the arrival of Cosmogramma, it's revealed as a revelation. In the past couple of years, Flying Lotus has grown into the position of being far more than a producer, he has helped materialize a far-reaching strain of musical ideology that has encompassed not only a global family of like-minded artists, but also a nearly infinite palate of planetary (and interplanetary) sonics.Looking back, his full-length Warp debut, Los Angeles appears to be much more of a mission statement than a simple introduction - laying the foundation for a fi...

Butterfly Explosion are a band from Ireland that blend powerful spiraling music with delicate vocals to form rich soundscapes of beautiful melodies, gliding between moments of ethereal dreampop and explosive sonic bliss.The debut album 'LOST TRAILS' is released February 2010 on Irish label Revive Records. 'Closer', the first single, has been receiving extensive airplay from Ireland's leading alternative music shows such as Paul McLoone(TodayFM) and Dan Hegarty(2FM) who described the track as "My Bloody Valentine meets M83 meets Sigur Ros in Heaven".With two critically acclaimed EPs, the band have toured from Dublin to London and New York to Toronto with bands such as Howling Bells, God Is An Astro...

Aloha follows the acclaimed LP Some Echoes (2006) and acoustic EP Light Works (2007) with a powerful record that shows the band unbound by past influences and boldly stepping out of the shadows. Written initially through a private band blog, Home Acres is a project three years in the making. Home Acres pushes the tempos and dials up the guitars, with the band's slow-burn intensity sometimes overflowing into huge moments. But even as the energy surges, Aloha casts an otherworldly glow, serving up ambience and attack with equal measure. Album opener "Building a Fire" pairs gritty, persistent bass and drums with celestial, elusive melodies. An explos...

Unite three musicians - playing three unique roles; each compelled to move in the direction of what is timeless, to draw on history and take from where they've grown and from the traditions of music made decades ago - and you'll craft a moment, a Rite of Spring, a new foundation akin to what Russian Circles have accomplished on their third album, Geneva.- Mike Sullivan, Guitar- For an album like this to work the composer's focus must remain with the songs, on the effectiveness of the song writing, and the inherent artistic value of the whole, rather than the cheap emotion of a simple soft-to-loud dynamic. "Malko," like many of their finest pieces, is a precise attempt to reconcile the paradox of...

Quasi formed in Portland, Ore., in 1993, which means that it's been fearlessly rocking since long before your website launched or you booted up an iPod. For years -- 16 to be exact -- it was a duo consisting of Sam Coomes and Janet Weiss. In 2006, Joanna Bolme (of Stephen Malkmus + The Jicks) joined the band on bass.Quasi flings words and notes relentlessly, hurling music across the stage like grenades. It is explosive and electrifying. Coomes devours his instruments, whether it is keyboard or guitar, fusing melody and mayhem. His voice can go from deadpan to caterwauling, from a lovely lilt to a sardonic sting. Weiss is the avalanche (earthquake? tsunami? volcano?) of drummers. R...

Broken Social Scene will be releasing their new, as-yet-untitled album on May 4, 2010 on Arts & Crafts. Co-produced by the band and Tortoise's John McEntire at Soma Studios in Chicago, with additional recording at Giant Studio and The Schvitz Studio in Toronto, the new album is the follow up to their acclaimed self-titled third record, released in 2005.The new record was written and arranged by the Canadian collective's current line-up: Kevin Drew and Brendan Canning Justin Peroff Charles Spearin, Andrew Whiteman and Sam Goldberg Lisa Lobsinger.The album features guest turns by BSS alumni: Leslie Feist Amy Millan and Evan Cranley of Stars Emily Haines and Jimmy Shaw of Metric Jason ...

The story of Lali Puna is inextricably linked to that of the Morr Music label itself. The band's classic Tridecoder album was the second ever release on the imprint back in 1999 and set a new template for electronic rock music that's remained in place ever since. In parallel, Morr and Lali Puna have evolved from humble, experimental beginnings before eventually coming to represent the vanguard of modern pop.Fronted by singer and keyboard player Valerie Trebeljahr, Lali Puna's line-up is completed by drummer Christoph Brandner (also of Tied & Tickled Trio), keyboard player Christian Heiß and Markus Acher - an artist already highly regarded for his work as part of The Notwist. Over a decade of recording to...

Trans Am take time out to talk about their new album, Thing, the process of recording, and how much winning means to them.Going into this project, how did you feel? TA: Trans Am felt very positive at first. When we started, we thought we were making a very lucrative soundtrack. Then that fell apart and we started hearing a lot of negativity. Lots of people were coming up to Trans Am, saying, "Trans Am can't finish this album - you're all washed up." So it's been a long journey, but we've got a veteran mentality. We've been through all this before and we kept our head. Now, here we are!What happened to the soundtrack? TA: Well, we were supposed to get some serious cash to record a soundtrack for a Hollywo...

Just when you get to the age where sitting in traffic and switching back and forth from the conservative to the liberal talk radio station sounds more appealing then sifting through the bush-league releases of the day, Daughters comes through with an untouchable new record absolutely snuffing out your now-so-surly being. Bumper to bumper, late for work, window down and more and more your thinking that a cigarette and a beer coupled with these stellar jams would end all right now!Because that is exactly the kind of record Daughters' s/t is, the kind you can't stop turning up... The kind that satisfies every cultural / musical requisite a critical listener possesses while simultaneously reinventing the wheel... The ...

When you think of Palm Beach, Florida, what comes to mind? Palm trees swaying gently in the balmy breeze? Scantily-clad bikini buxom babes rollerblading down an infinite slab of coral-colored concrete? How about anthemic, bombastic, life-affirming indie pop? If the latter didn't occur to you, let us introduce you to Surfer Blood: they call West Palm Beach home and, while still in their early 20s, have penned an album worth of catchy indie songs that even the most hook-laden power pop band would rightfully be jealous of.Comprised of members JP (dubbed "The Mastermind" by the rest of the band), TJ, Thomas Brian and Marcos, Surfer Blood met one fateful night at an after party for Miami's Ultra Festival, tho...

On February 23rd, Blind Man's Colour will release Wooden Blankets - approxiately 6 months after the release of their debut album Season Dreaming. While the songs for each were created around the same time - early 2008 during Kyle Wyss and Orhan Chettri's senior year of high school - the songs from Wooden Blankets were always intended to be their own entity.Between then and now, you might have heard how Blind Man's Colour, through a series of auspicious events, ended up on Kanye West and some indie taste making blogs like Stereogum, which ultimately led to their signing to Brooklyn indie label Kanine and their debut album release. The album was reviewed everywhere - from NPR to the Harvard Crimson to Desert Living...

Make no mistake, French trio DOWN TO EARTH doesn't make concessions or concern itself with musical fashion on their second full-length Prisms. Revealing a progressive interplay between aggressive rock and provocative melody, the album revs up like a dirty shot of adrenaline and burns like alcohol on an fresh wound. The combination of searing vocals, angular guitars and a pounding rhythm section makes for prime moshing material. Needless to say, few bands can pull it off this easily or this well. Shaken and stirred, this band aims to leave bruises and change lives...not the least of all their own. Harmonized vocals shift between a blustery bravado and edgy recklessness, running a gauntlet of self-examination. And the musi...

Since the release of their debut album, "Red Your Blues", in 2001, Picastro have continued to mine a rich seam of beautifully melancholic (and sometimes menacing) avant-folk/rock. The fourth album, "Become Secret", finds them on top form once again, with the familiar accompaniment of cello, acoustic guitar, drums and piano employed to great effect on songs that incorporate Eastern European folk themes, bleak cinematic soundscapes and dark, unsettling pop. Frontwoman and songwriter Liz Hysen shares vocal duties on several songs with guest vocalists including Tony Dekker (Great Lake Swimmers), Brendan Massei (Viking Moses), Colleen Kinsella (Fire On Fire, Cerberus Shoal), and John McIntyre....

Trans-Atlantic post-punk band Venus Bogardus formed in England and relocated to the Santa Fe, NM area in 2009, playing national shows and UK shows on return visits. The band is inspired by no-wave, new wave, and experimental literature. Before moving to the US, Venus Bogardus signed first to Pretty Mouth/Big Deal Records in 2008, then moved to five03 records (New York) in 2009, when Pretty Mouth ceased to function. Five03 re-released 2008's Tourist in 2009, and releases the Spitting at the Glass LP in February 2010. In America the band continues to garner exceptional press, gain new fans and play high profile shows.Founding members James Reich (vocals, guitar) and Hannah Levbarg (vocals, bass guitar) met in 2002 a...

Alaska In Winter began when art student, Brandon Bethancourt spent a semester writing and recording music in an isolated cabin on the south coast of Alaska. Upon arrival back in New Mexico, he teamed up with Zach Condon of Beirut, Heather Trost of A Hawk And A Hacksaw and other friends, and thus began work on the album Dance Party In The Balkans. This debut release was released by Milan Records in July 2007 in the US after a release in the UK by Regular Beat a few months earlier.After his critically acclaimed debut release, Bethancourt decided to quit his job, move out of his house and relocate to Berlin, Germany - a city he had been to before and had always dreamed of living in. He has spent the ...

The Unwinding Hours is the new musical project from Craig B and Iain Cook, former members of Glasgow's critically acclaimed and much loved Aereogramme. Their debut self-titled album is an intensely rewarding experience with the literate flair of the song-writing effortlessly matched by Craig and Iain's musical ambition & creative scope. Avid cineastes, The Unwinding Hours acknowledge the influence of film on their work by taking their name from a reference buried deep within Stanley Kubrick's The Shining.The Unwinding Hours started out as a means for Craig to record some of his songs with the help of Iain after the demise of Aereogramme, but with no plans for a commercial release or to play th...

Emma Pollock returns to Chemikal Underground with The Law of Large Numbers, her second solo outing, and if her 'repatriation' to the label she helped to create represents a return to more familiar territory, then the same could also be said for the album itself. The follow-up to 2007's 4AD-released Watch the Fireworks, Emma's second solo effort eschews the traditional, accessibly melodic approach of her debut for a more angular musical terrain: The Law of Large Numbers is crammed with unconventional arrangements and by Emma's own admission, was an almost entirely self-serving project. So if returning to Chemikal Underground and the creative alliances that fuelled The Delgados has restored Emma's...

To say that Flashmob, the new album by Vitalic is eagerly awaited would be an understatement. This is the first major release in four years from Dijon, France-based Pascal Arbez-Nicolas, one of the world's leading electronic producers. The Frenchman is a "disco visionary," according to Vice, and like Daft Punk of Aphex Twin, is responsible for shaping the sound of modern-day electronic music. Once again, with Flashmob's dozen songs, Pascal sets the agenda for others to follow.A daring successor to 2005's OK Cowboy, Flashmob is an album that effortlessly evokes the insatiable attitude of disco - reducing its essence, in certain places, to the sound of a snare, to a single handclap - while Pa...

Thunderheads storming across the prairie, outraged students taking to the streets, migratory herds stampeding along the tundra--any number of images could describe the grandiose scope of Red Sparowes' lush vignettes. Wielding both a master's sense of nuance and an outsider artist's unhindered expressionist zeal, the Los Angeles quintet created a catalog of haunting and hallucinatory guitar orchestrations over the course of the millennium's opening decade. With two albums, a string of split releases, multiple U.S. and European tours, and a number of line-up changes under their belt, Red Sparowes are currently poised to release their third album and most impressive creation to date, The Fear is Excruciating, But Therei...