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Discover: Kranky Records
Kranky Records celebrated its 20th anniversary late last year with four hometown shows — including rare sets from Grouper and Stars of the Lid. Given the communal, all-join-hands spirit of that...
View ArticleWho Are…Blank Realm
File under: Sun-baked psych-pop with a sticky-sweet core For fans of: The Clean, Gap Dream, Apache Dropout From: Brisbane, Australia Personae: Daniel Spencer (vocals, drums), Luke Spencer (bass), Sarah...
View ArticleWho Is…Marley Carroll
File under: Melancholic electro-pop with psychedelic sample play For fans of: Dntel, Caribou, Toro Y Moi From: Asheville, North Carolina Marley Carroll isn’t the easiest musician to pin down. A...
View ArticleSharon Jones is Gonna Be Just Fine
Sharon Jones paws through her handbag and emerges with a pocket-sized, navy-blue vaporizer that vaguely resembles an up-market ballpoint pen — the kind a mid-level executive might get as a retirement...
View ArticleInterview: Joyce Maynard
Joyce Maynard’s After Her is a novel about two sisters, a serial killer, and Northern California’s beautiful and mysterious Mount Tamalpais. Set in the summer of 1979, the book’s protagonists, Rachel...
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Discover: PAN
Few enterprises make followers of electronic music turn as saucer-eyed and reverential as PAN. Since its humble beginnings in 2008, the label run by Bill Kouligas has amassed a formidable catalog with...
View ArticleInterview: Angelique Kidjo
Africa couldn’t have found a more tireless and powerfully-voiced advocate than Angélique Kidjo, an onstage powerhouse whose fortifying new album Eve celebrates motherhood, daughterhood and sisterhood...
View ArticleInterview: Dum Dum Girls
“It’s frustrating to learn the guitar, because you suck so bad for the first week or two,” explains Dee Dee Penny, the singer/songwriter at the center of Dum Dum Girls. “I could not handle sucking, so...
View ArticleInterview: Peggy Sue
Fêted in their early days by fellow fan of the DIY confessional Kate Nash, it’s taken London-based trio Peggy Sue five years to find their true voice. Or more accurately, their voices; principle...
View ArticleInterview: Marissa Nadler
[Marissa Nadler's new album July will be available for purchase on eMusic on Tuesday, February 4. — Ed.] Marissa Nadler has been quietly carving out a niche at the curious intersection of folk, black...
View ArticleInterview: Snowbird
Moon, the debut album from UK duo Snowbird, arrives trailed by an impressive resume: Simon Raymonde, whose haunting piano playing provides the record’s foundation, was the bassist in Cocteau Twins for...
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Augustines and the Burden of Being Uncool
“We’ve heard the sound of each other’s urine, so I think this will lead to a good interview.” I’ve been promised — or more likely, warned — that Billy McCarthy is a heart-on-sleeve kind of guy. The...
View ArticleChicago’s Mike Reed Gets a Second City
The drum set is a collection of instruments, assembled to let one percussionist do the work of several. In that way, every drummer is a multitasker. Though he may have bloomed late as a drummer,...
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Hurray for the Riff Raff’s Long, Wild Ramble to the Top
[Hurray for the Riff Raff's Small Town Heroes is out on Tuesday, February 11. Sign up here to be notified when it's available for purchase on eMusic. — Ed.] It’s 7 p.m. on a Thursday, smack in the...
View ArticleWho Are…Temples
File under: Nouveau psychedelia, ’60s Revival, acid rock For fans of: The Brian Jonestown Massacre, the Electric Prunes, the Warlocks, Iron Butterfly From: Kettering, UK Personae: James Bagshaw...
View ArticleThe Resurrection of Deathrock
In the ongoing narrative that is The History of Popular Music, the style colloquially known as “deathrock” was a blip, a flash in the pan, an evolutionary dead end. Specific to a small pocket of the...
View ArticleMark Kozelek Answers 43 Percent of This Q&A
Mark Kozelek didn’t much feel like talking, it seems. There was nothing personal in it; Kozelek hadn’t consented to an in-person interview in years. However, one onerous side effect of producing a...
View ArticleInterview: Planningtorock
On 2011′s eerily compelling album W, Planningtorock came wrapped in mystery — not to mention an astonishing facial prosthesis. Designed to undercut the typical assessment of a female singer’s looks,...
View ArticleInterview: Angel Olsen
Angel Olsen’s first experience on stage didn’t go as planned. Growing up in St. Louis, she was cast to sing the Les Misérables showstopper “On My Own” in her middle school musical. Halfway through the...
View ArticleNeneh Cherry: Blank Slate
Anyone looking for a thumbnail summary of the life of Neneh Cherry should start with the sound of her voice. Even over the phone, it has the same ebullience that memorably bounded through her massively...
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Linda Perhacs: God is Saying This to You
“The way I compose music is that I hear it, and then I have to run and write it down,” Linda Perhacs says, as we sit on the balcony of a friend’s house in the Hollywood Hills. “It’s coming this way, so...
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Andre Cymone: 30th Century Man
“Welcome to the ’80s, y’all!” Andre Cymone half-raps on the title track to his 1983 solo album, Survivin’ in the 80s. Behind him, synths pile up chaotically, like a malfunction on a robot assembly...
View ArticleEagulls: Bad Lads Army
It’s a damp Sunday night in Camden, north London, and the five members of Eagulls stand in the street outside the Good Mixer, pints balanced on ledges, coats zipped against the winter chill. A couple...
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The Numero Group: Numbers Game
Asked about reissue label the Numero Group, Syl Johnson, the Chicago soul singer who logged a series of mid-level hits in the late ’60s and early ’70s, was forthright: “They’re excellent,” he said....
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