There is every other music festival and then there is Coachella, the California-desert weekend that, in many ways, set the template for all that followed. The first U.S. festival to boast big-ticket reunions and all-over-the-map booking, Coachella continues to maintain its distinctive, idiosyncratic personality. Needless to say, navigating such a wide array of music can be tricky. We've picked 25 acts worth making time for. more »
Whether it's on account of creativity bursting at the seams, or just a desire to try something musically or lyrically different from their previous work, sometimes artists feel the need to step outside themselves and create an entirely new persona. The syndrome that's kept psychologists busy for years has manifested itself in concept albums, live performances or just the occasional one-off single.
Inspired by Nicki Minaj's sophomore album Roman Reloaded — where Minaj channels her rage… more »
Six albums into his career, Andrew Bird has established himself as a man of certain habits - the whistling, the violin, the sock-footed live shows - stuff that'd seem like a heap of geeky gimmicks if they weren't executed so well. Classically trained from an early age, he seems nothing if not a lover of routine and control; even when he's warbling about the end of the world, it's with poise, grace and intelligence.
But when… more »
New ones from The Men, Jenny Scheinman and more this week. Let's get to it.
The Men, Open Your Heart: Here it is. People, if you only download one record today, make sure this is it. Big, loud, roaring rock & roll that ricochets between scuzzy garage, roughed-up punk and lovely, laid-back country with equal aplomb. Needless to say, HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. Here's eMusic's Austin L. Ray with more:
The album is divided roughly into three categories: rockers… more »
The office folks at Righteous Babe Records put this playlist together for eMusic. It has some choice songs from the Righteous Babe catalog but also some friends, openers and influencers we either work with or just plain like to play. Hope you enjoy! more »
Whether your tastes skew toward classics by The Smiths and Wilco or current cutting edge tastemakers like Sleigh Bells and Neon Indian, you're sure to discover something you love on Indie Hits, Past & Present. more »
File Under: From raw, gutbucket blues to soul, rock and pop with a similar unspoiled spirit
Flagship Acts: R.L. Burnside, Junior Kimbrough, Solomon Burke, the Black Keys, Andrew Bird, Band of Horses, Dinosaur Jr., Wavves, the Walkmen, Smith Westerns, Yuck, Tennis
Based In: Oxford, Mississippi
Like the Delta bluesmen whose records he started Fat Possum to release, Matthew Johnson is part of a dying breed. Rock owes much of its early legacy to eccentric, mostly European-descended label owners… more »
Released in 2007, Armchair Apocrypha proved that hyper-literate singer/songwriter, genre-bending violin player, and peerless whistler Andrew Bird had found the perfect middle ground between his increasingly austere solo sets and the full-band grandeur of his days with the Bowl of Fire, a strategy he repeats with similar results on Noble Beast, his fifth full-length solo offering and second collection for the Mississippi-based Fat Possum label. Bird, a classically trained violinist since the age of four, has skillfully integrated nearly everything with strings on it into his repertoire since his conversion from the Weill and Brecht-heavy days of Music of Hair, Thrills, and Oh! The Grandeur to the semi-mainstream indie pop of The Swimming Hour, but it’s his seemingly limitless capacity for manipulation of the violin that dominates Noble Beast. Opening cut “Oh No,” a track that Bird began releasing sketches of months before the album’s street date, may be his most successful foray into the murky world of the potentially commercial pop song yet, boasting a chorus that points directly at the Shins while maintaining the artistic integrity of the loop-happy, meticulous craftsman who fans have been watching evolve since 2003′s Weather Systems. What follows is a typically eclectic batch of material that reflect Bird’s own musical time line. Tracks like “Masterswarm” and “Not a Robot, But a Ghost” are proof positive that he hasn’t completely abandoned his swing jazz roots, “Fitz and the Dizzyspells” could very well provide audiences with their first opportunity to “bust a move” at a show, while “Nomenclature”‘s easy country-folk front half dissolves into a rear end that wouldn’t seem out of place on a late-’90s Radiohead album. Throughout it all Bird rhymes — sometimes to a fault — like a history or biology professor (“From proto-Sanskrit Minoans to porto-centric Lisboans”), rendering many of the songs clever as opposed to emotionally resonant, but whatever romance he lacks in the textual medium he more than makes up for in melody. [The deluxe version of the album includes an impressive bonus disc of instrumental works, cleverly titled Useless Creatures, which features collaborations with Wilco drummer Glenn Kotche and jazz bassist Todd Sickafoose.] – James Christopher Monger
