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Best New Music
TV on the Radio's follow-up to 2006's Return to Cookie Mountain-- a dense and textural album with an optimistic core-- Dear Science is catchier, but thornier. Musically, it's shit-hot but also brainy and ambivalent, and more engaging for it. TV on the Radio remain a true Event Band, and the sign o' the times they capture here isn't audacious hope, or fierce revolution: it's confusion. They're the house band for a country that has no idea what'll hit it next, and Dear Science is a jagged landscape of self-doubt, Bush-hate, and future-fear.
Sharing passing similarities with two of modern indie hip-hop's top producers, Madlib and the late J Dilla, Flying Lotus has constructed an album of static, texture, and rhythm that, at its most stirring moments, can be soothingly meditative, an accomplished blend of debris and warmth, b-boy head-nod and laptopper experimentalism. If Prefuse hadn't fallen off after One Word Extinguisher and continued to push the envelope with each record since, he might sound close to this in 2008.
Reviews
Musically shit-hot but also brainy and ambivalent, the latest from TV on the Radio cements them as a true Event Band, and the sign o' the times they capture here isn't audacious hope, or fierce revolution: it's confusion. They're the house band for a country that has no idea what'll hit it next. [Best New Music]
[Chris Dahlen]Like a chopped'n'screwed version of Spiritualized, Brightblack Morning Light's spatial hymns meticolously unfold, revealing shades of gospel, soul, and even funk marinating in their low, flat tones. [Recommended]
[Andrew Gaerig]These Brooklyn indie rockers have dirtied their jeans, studied the moves of Crazy Horse, and become a more formidable live band in the time since 2004's Pavement-esque Slow Rewind, but how do these changes translate in the studio?
[David Bevan]Originally released 10 years ago on RFI France, Indonesian band Suarsama's spiritual and gently free-spirited Fajar Di Atas Awan gets its belated U.S. introduction by way of Drag City.
[Joshua Klein]The second 12" EP from the L.A.-based Music Go Music continues their obession with 1970s pop touchstones like ABBA and the Carpenters.
[Jessica Suarez]Fri: 09-19-08
Thu: 09-18-08
Wed: 09-17-08
Tue: 09-16-08
Forkcast
- Video: Dungen: "Ingenting Är Sig Likt" (Live in Stockholm)
- Video: My Bloody Valentine: "I Only Said" / "Come in Alone" (Live at ATP New York)
- New Music: Various Artists: ATP New York [Stream]
- Pitchfork.tv: The Gits: One Week Only: The Gits
- New Music: T.I. [ft. Justin Timberlake, prod. by Timbaland]: "Dead & Gone" [MP3/Stream]
- Premiere: Murs [ft. Snoop Dogg]: "Time Is Now"
- Pitchfork.tv: Hauschka: "Eltern" [Video Premiere]
Features
Interview: David Byrne
David Byrne talks Talking Heads, conceptual art, age, and Everything That Happens Will Happen Today, his surprise reunion with Brian Eno.
[Joshua Klein]Guest List: Roots Manuva
Roots Manuva ponders about his musical tastes maturing, opening for Will Young at a festival, and how he is adjusting to an industry more concerned with MySpace hits than record sales. [Interview: Tyler Grisham]
[Roots Manuva]Guest List: High Places
Rob Barber and Mary Pearson, aka High Places, show off a particularly awesome beach towel, tell us how they found out what aliens really look like, and nearly discover the meaning of life through a free-jazz ringtone. [Interview: Tyler Grisham]
[Rob Barber and Mary Pearson]The Month In: Techno
We round up some of the past few months' best tracks, including releases by Brooks, Marcel Dettmann, Minilogue, and Eve White [above].
[Philip Sherburne]Interview: Shudder to Think
We recently sat down with Shudder to Think front man Craig Wedren to discuss the timing of such a reunion, the history behind the group and its seminal album, and the legacy of a band that was ahead of its time.
[Mike Carriere]Interview: Akron/Family
We sit down on a Pennsylvania horse farm to speak to Akron/Family about self-definition, the need to keep changing, and the long, strange road between being a hipster and a hippie.
[Grayson Currin]