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...
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 ...
About I Am Empire: This San Jose-bred fivesome had no trouble igniting the local scene since forming in 2008, including dates alongside Flyleaf, Sublime, Deftones, Silversun Pickups, Thursday, Four Year Strong and The Wedding, a pair of charting singles (“You’re A Fake” and “The Elevator”), plus additional acclaim from Alternative Press, AOL’s Spinner.com and San Francisco’s LIVE105 radio station. Amongst this success, it was the person...
As a singer, songwriter, guitarist and percussionist, Canadian born Todd Koal expresses faith in the human spirit through his music. Whether it be from his fluid vocal style or his honesty reflected in compositions, Koal conjures up a great blend of acoustic pop and light rock.His debut album, Place to Land, was an excellent example of adult contemporary rock, featuring 10 inspirational tunes. “It was a good learning experience, one which gave me a reference point from which to begin to rework some of the songs in a new light and consciousness.“...
Class Actress Announces Headlining Tour Through SXSW w/ MillionYoung, Journal of Ardency Extended EP Out Now"The great de...
The Fiery Fiddle of Eileen Ivers: Bringing Immigrant Soul to North American Stages Groundbreaking Irish-American fiddler Eileen Ivers can keep up with classical virtuosi while keeping up the warmth of a kitchen party with her group, Imm...
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...
In 2010, pretty much every band on the planet has some dub records at home and a few boutique effects pedals in their "rig." The rise of Ethiopiques and high-quality afrobeat-etc compilations, pan-genre tastemaker websites, specialty blogs and a general cultural climate of chic, post-"world music" exploration has rendered normal--even mundane--the multi-culti-record-nerd-musician who was part of an iconoclastic, forward thinking avant-garde only a few years back. Legend has it that when Fugazi came on the scene, the punx were shocked at their incorporation of funky basslines and slower tempos. These days, the tables have turned and a working knowledge of rap, disco, dub, club and world music basics is as pedestrian as...
Formally known as DDBD,Basic Math is an experimental artist from Pittsburgh, PA who collabates with a number of different individuals to explore the freedoms of music. ...
"As I was working my way through graduate school, I became more interested in reflecting on my experience as a participant in New York City's nightlife" says JP, lead singer of herMajesty. This curiosity fuels the band's first single Operator (NYC), available in January 2010, and acts as an organizing theme for their much anticipated E.P, Images from the Vanishing Night (Bittersweet Records), due out in March 2010.Elegant, enchanting, aggressive, and suffused with longing, Images from the Vanishing Night is a window into the city after dark. When asked to elaborate, JP says, "I am fascinated by the club scene of the city, and, more specifically, how seemingly disparate needs feed into the experience...
The best songs don't just tell a story set to music - they capture a moment, encapsulate a feeling and draw in the listener, in a way that's at once singularly personal and completely universal. When Toronto singer-songwriter Jason Collett was mulling over titles for his new album, the by-turns effervescent and elegiac Here's To Being Here, he stumbled across a line in an anthology of poetry by his friend Emily Haines' (Metric) late father Paul, a well-known avant-garde jazz poet."I really love the simple sentiment of the title. I think of it as a toast, a raising of the glass to the notion of being present to the moment. Recording this record was all about that for me. Capturing the bits of ...
Apocalyptic Heartache: The State of the Broken UnionThe eighth EELS studio album, END TIMES, is the sound of an artist growing older in uncertain times. An artist who has lost his great love while struggling with his faith in an increasingly hostile world teetering on self-destruction. Largely self-recorded on an old four track tape machine by EELS leader Mark Oliver Everett aka E in his Los Angeles basement, it's a "divorce album" with a modern twist: the artist equates his personal loss with the world he lives in losing its integrity. When Everett finds comfort "in a dying world," the END TIMES he speaks of isn't about "Mayan calendar conspiracy theory bullshit," he says, but, &qu...
When Perth five-piece heavy rock outfit Karnivool emerged in April 2005 with an album called Themata, two things were immediately obvious. One, here was a record that single-handedly set a new benchmark for heavy rock in this country and others for years to come. And two, Karnivool were going to be big. Really big. Gloriously anthemic, yet progressive in every sense of the word, Themata boasted the prerequisite moments of rock bombast and foot-on-the-foldback bliss, but combined it with uncanny guitar chops, innovative riffing, experimental tuning, intriguing time-signatures and spine-tingling melodies. Meanwhile, live, the band were unparalleled - the ace in their sleeve being the magnetic stage presence and sa...
From a cabin in the woods outside of Bearsville, NY--where there's nothing much to do but watch the grass grow up with the coyotes, deer, turkeys, and yes, bears--Matt Pond let go of all those studio entanglements and hacked off a piece of his own fate. Trusting in the flicker at the end of the tunnel, he gives us The Dark Leaves, due April 6, 2010 It's been a few years since matt pond PA's, Last Light. And in the meantime, there's been some razing, rooting and rebuilding. You can hear it in the song "Ruins," and you can feel it in a strain called 'Remains'. Out of the gate on Running Wild, starting blocks in a Louisville backyard, on a broken piece of a Miller High Life, t...
While you'd be hard-pressed to get them to admit it, Dinosaur Bones have inadvertently become the poster boys for abandoning education in the name of rock n' roll. In 2008, after months of prioritizing writing melodic indie rock songs over Hemingway essays, vocalist/guitarist Ben Fox finally packed up his guitars, leaving behind his undergrad and Montreal apartment for his hometown of Toronto. It was with that, a bold against-your-guidance-counsellor's-best-advice move, that Dinosaur Bones was born.As soon as he re-planted himself in his home soil, Fox immediately began assembling a mosaic of former bandmates and friends-of-friends to give life to the skeleton of songs captured on his shifty 4-track recorder: B...
Now we're born again," sings Zach Rogue on the closing track of Rogue Wave's fourth studio album, Permalight. The dreamy acoustic lament lasts just over a minute but in sound and spirit it neatly sums up everything that comes before it. A punchy, deceptively effervescent set of multi-instrumental pop tunes, the Northern California band's latest set represents a giant breakthrough for Rogue and his longtime musical partner, drummer- keyboardist- vocalist Pat Spurgeon."The record sounds, for lack of a better word, fun," the frontman says. It's an astonishing change of direction, to say the least. Formed by Rogue in 2002 after he lost his tech job and parted ways with the Oakland rock group...
Shout Out Louds are back at work. It only just dawned on them what the rest of us have known for a long time. They were born to do this. This is what they do. They write songs, record them and tour. That's their work. Hence Work (Merge), the album title of their third album.They've had some time off. A six-month break to regroup, see other things, places and people. Work on a tan, work on love and life. Keyboard/vocalist Bebban Sternborg did so in Los Angeles and singer/mainsongwriter Adam Olenius in Melbourne, Australia. Guitarist Carl von Arbin, bassist Ted Malmros and drummer Eric Edman remained in Stockholm. And when they got together again they knew that this is what they do, and that this is what they will c...
Sambassadeur started as a DIY version of ABBA in the year 2003. They were one of the bands that lead an explosive Swedish pop movement of home recording artists who surprised our country by not only achieving overnight indie fame (thanks to the MP3 spreading kids!) but also reached the sales charts. Since that their sound has continued to grow with their recording budget. On "European" they've finally accomplished to make the grand, classic and orchestrated album they've always wanted to.In the year 2007 Sambassadeur entered a new epoch as they stopped recording at home and started working with producer Mattias Glavå. The second album "Migration" not only gave the band ...
There is a war now. The message has been sent through short wave in code. The Besnard Lakes twisting chronicle, or fever dream, of spies, double agents, novelists and aspiring rock gods has turned violent. Loyalty, dishonor, love, hatred all seen through the eyes of two spies, fighting a war that may not be real. One follows the other as they receive coded messages and spread destruction. The city is burning, and it's to the benefit of music obsessives everywhere. Once again, the husband-and-wife duo of Olga Goreas and Jace Lasek has crafted a majestic, sprawling vision of guitar bombast and captivating pop experiments.The Besnard Lakes Are the Roaring Night calls upon the influence of ELO and finer parts of the A...
