The first single from the U.K. trio The xx’s forthcoming sophomore album “Coexist” (due Sept. 11) is “Angels,” a typically minimalist number with barely enough heft to silence conversations on a typical night at the Hotel Cafe. But you might like it. ||| Stream: “Angels” ||| Live: The xx play July 23 at the Fonda […]
Any fan of legendary 1970s psychedelic cartoon “The Point” will appreciate AM‘s first offering from his forthcoming album. The L.A. singer-songwriter adds his own brushstrokes to the Harry Nilsson classic, “Me and My Arrow,” with his signature beat-driven folk – and speeds it up just a tad for a modern flourish. AM’s soaring falsetto is […]
If you didn’t fall deeply in love with Australia’s Tame Impala when the psych-rock quartet released 2010’s remarkable “Innerspeaker,” then the new, heavily Beatles-influenced tune the quartet is passing around the Internet will no doubt pull you in to a deep undertow of reverbed riffs and melodies. New fans need not underestimate the impenetrable yet […]
The Blank Tapes describe their sound as “beach party,” and who are we to throw sand in their faces when the San Francisco quartet led by Matt Adams are providing sunny tunes such as their new 7-inch single “I’m Back” (out now on 20 Sided Records). Currently fleshing out the live band with Pearl Charles, […]
Having Neil Young take a shine to your band from the get-go must be a double-edged sword. On one hand, it’s Neil Young and holy crap he wants us to open for him. On the other (and I only intuit this), you’re writing your second or third or fourth album and you’re thinking WWND (What […]
“Let’s Boot and Rally” is a made-for-TV hit – yeah, it’s a hit – that pairs iconic punk rocker Iggy Pop with indie darling Bethany Cosentino of Best Coast in a way that recalls some of the stellar work of X. And it makes for a pretty good story: The tune, penned for the HBO […]
There’s no moment in recent memory that I’ve been happier glued to the floor than the chilly night this past February when Aaron Embry played to a completely hushed (!) room at the Silverlake Lounge. A voice, a special guitar, a board to stomp on, and a wide-open vein of emotions – those are the […]
Ariel Rosenberg has made a pop song. That seems to be what everybody was waiting for, right? For the mastermind of Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti to get straight to the crates he’s been digging for more than a decade now? Ariel Pink’s widely praised 2010 album “Before Today,” while a musicologist’s wet dream, required an […]
Voxhaul Broadcast’s propulsive single “Turn the Knife” used to be called “Broken Nerve,” when we heard it last October. But as has been the case with the L.A. quartet’s material over its four-year run, David Dennis, Anthony Aguiar, Phillip Munsey II and Kurt Allen sent it back to the shop for a few tweaks, sharpening […]
I mostly do not bother with the likes of Perfect Dilemma, the collaboration between Jeff D’Agostino and Aaron Dudley that demonstrates how low the bar remains in the major-label world. But after reading some online debate today about Pitchfork’s laughable coronation of the milquetoast Twin Shadow record, I thought I’d share some of what litters […]
