Year Zero by Rob Reid (2012)
Originally published on Pop’stache
The premise behind Rob Reid’s first novel, Year Zero, is a music-centric universe that has been bankrupted by Earth’s copyright laws due to boundless piracy. Earth is subsequently targeted by certain biased alien races who believe that encouraging our self-annihilation might be the only way of saving Continue reading
Review originally posted on Pop’stache
Since its conception, Grizzly Bear has a seen a tremendous evolution. The eerie, lo-fi bedroom musings of leading man Ed Droste were appropriated for their debut Horn of Plenty with the aid of drummer Christopher Bear. Grizzly Bear’s second release, Yellow House, saw an unexpected and exponential sonic expansion with the admission of multi-instrumentalists Daniel Rossen and Chris Taylor. With the ante upped and Continue reading
Review originally posted on Pop’stache
Animal Collective has clown shoes to fill following 2009’s stellar Merriweather Post Pavilion on their ninth proper album, Centipede Hz. The Collective: Avey Tare (David Portner), Panda Bear (Noah Lennox) and Geologist (Brian Weitz) are rejoined by fourth founding member Deakin Continue reading
Bloc Party was one of the most celebrated bands to emerge in the 2000s post-punk resurgence. Their stellar 2005 debut, Silent Alarm, slated them as one of the brightest newcomers to the indie music scene. What happened then? Continue reading
Love Rock Revolution: K Records and the Rise of Independent Music by Mark Baumgarten (2012)
Some Velvet Sidewalk’s Al Larsen coined the term “love rock” in his music manifesto: “When Sonic Youth do ‘Kool Thing’ they are love rock. Or when Beat Happening trade roles, singer to guitarist to drummer. When Nation of Ulysses makes an absolute sincere mess or when the Melvins Continue reading
Purity Ring is the Montreal-based duo of Megan James and Corin Roddick. Since forming in 2010 they released four singles prior to their debut, Shrines. The first, “Ungirthed,” garnered them some deserved attention in early 2011 while Purity Ring was still a relative internet unknown Continue reading
Glacial is an impressively eclectic trio: Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo on guitar, The Necks’ Tony Buck on drums and Highland Bagpipes’ contributor David Watson on, well, bagpipes. The fact that this album is one 48-minute track, it’s an instrumental and bagpipes are involved might immediately sound like a kitschy experiment Continue reading
Shortly after 8 o’clock last night Sharon Van Etten took the stage accompanied by Heather Woods Broderick in the Swyer Theatre at The Egg. She wore a simple but very flattering black dress and shyly said “Um, hello” into the microphone before slinging her bright red electric (yes, electric) guitar over her shoulder. Continue reading
The long awaite
d solo effort from the silky-voiced Frank Ocean was big enough. Add to the fever his announcement/note/whatever it was that Frank once loved (like, love loved) another man changed this from a record release, to a seismic shift in macho hip-hop culture, not to mention giving his crew, Odd Future, a new air of legitimacy and complexity in the face of all their blatant gay-bashing.
Somehow, lost in all of this, was the record. Ocean’s first release “Novacaine” left many wanting more, including Jay-Z and Kanye West. Ocean would be tapped to sing the refrain on both “Made it in America,” and “No Church in the Wild” on the duo’s epic collaboration Watch the Throne. He would release two more singles, “Swim Good” and “Thinkin’ Bout You,” the latter being the lead track to his major label debut, Channel Orange. Continue reading
Jonny J was kind enough to take point on LCD Soundsystem’s documentary which played for one night only in select theaters this past week. A big thank you is in order for Jon as he purchased a pair of tickets for him and I to the last show as an early birthday present for me last spring. I shared the concert with someone great!
I was fortunate enough to see LCD Soundsystem’s rock-doc in Astoria’s Museum of the Moving Image, where the theater acoustics were the most perfect I have heard in any theater to date. The concert segments made you feel you were actually at the show, superbly recorded in audio and film.
the self-hating hipster 