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Best New Music
From the first listen, the new post-hardcore album from Fucked Up-- their first for Matador-- is a pummeling, almost exhausting listen. Yet it's also incredibly inclusive and uplifting, an ambitious hard rock record born out of a sense of community and the hope of creating something huge. Vivian Girls and Sebastian Grainger (formerly from Death From Above 1979) guest.
Phil Elverum finds a perfect foil and vessel for his songs in Julie Doiron on this mini-album, which marries to great effect his meditations on life's Big Questions with her quiet revelations about the everyday. To hear Elverum sing of his existential quandaries in isolation is frequently compelling, but with these songs often cast as duets, we're presented with the notion that Phil's struggles are universal.
Reviews
Two new EPs offer John Darnielle in ways we've never heard him before: with a distinct, independent supporting player (Kaki King, and her pointillistic, vivid guitar work); and solo, with piano.
[Mike Powell]So clear and shiny it makes the taut and focused God's Money seem murky by comparison, this is Gang Gang Dance's long-simmering version of a pop album-- though it still preserves their core of new-wave synths, tribal beats, otherworldly singing, and Residents-style loops. [Recommended]
[Marc Masters]Produced with long-time supporter Thurston Moore and released on his Ecstatic Peace imprint, the latest from this Brooklyn noise-rock band is a considerably more melodic and traditionally structured album.
[Mia Lily Clarke]Holly Golightly's second album with the Brokeoffs (aka Lawyer Dave) retains the antique luster and heartily ramshackle quality of her work but gives her old-timey music a bit more focus. Just a bit: The album's clattery rawness is its chief appeal.
[Stephen M. Deusner]David Grubbs, former member of Squirrel Bait, Bastro, and Gastr del Sol, pokes his head out of his cave of academia, squints at the sun, and releases his first solo album in four years.
[Joshua Klein]Fri: 10-17-08
Thu: 10-16-08
Wed: 10-15-08
Tue: 10-14-08
Forkcast
- Pitchfork.tv: Yeasayer: Live on "Don't Look Down"
- Pitchfork.tv: Shugo Tokumaru: "Parachute" [Video]
- New Music: Lemonade: "Big Weekend (Delorean Remix)" [MP3/Stream]
- Pitchfork.tv: Matt and Kim: "Daylight" [Video]
- Video: Jens Lekman: "Black Cab" (Live on "Black Cab Sessions")
- New Music: Department of Eagles: "1997" / "What Is Your Deal?" (unreleased songs; Daytrotter session) [MP3s/Streams]
- Video: Jeff Mangum and Julian Koster: "Engine" (Live in Pittsburgh; updated with video live in Columbus)
Features
Interview: Of Montreal
Just before the release of his band's ninth album, Skeletal Lamping, we talk to Kevin Barnes about the process of writing and performing by himself, the ways he was affected by the backlash to his song's appearance in an Outback Steakhouse commercial, and how there's a middle-aged black transgender man inside us all.
[Tyler Grisham]Column: Resonant Frequency #61
Ten indie singers who approach the microphone armed with more than just songs-- they each are also thinking about their voices, figuring out what might make them most effective given their limitations.
[Mark Richardson]Guest List: Murs
Murs gushes over a certain crew of Ivy League pop stars, shares a little about the new video games he saw at Comic-Con, and explains his life-long wish to sing a song popularized by Kermit the Frog. [Interview: Tyler Grisham]
[Murs]The Month In: Techno
Here's five singles and four albums that should help illuminate the lengthening nights, including releases from Stefan Goldmann [above], Damián Schwartz, and Dinky.
[Philip Sherburne]Interview: Marnie Stern
The guitar virtuoso fills us in on her long, convoluted path to becoming a guitar goddess, describes her songwriting process, ponders the pros and cons of not having a debut album until after she turned 30, and explains the significance of the title of her sophomore release, This Is It and I Am It and You Are It and So Is That and He Is It and She Is It and It Is It and That Is That.
[Matthew Perpetua]Interview: Sigur Rós
We sat down with Sigur Rós bassist Georg Holm, who answers our questions about encores, "CSI", what "Gobbledigook" really means, and whether or not Sigur Rós are funny.
[Amanda Petrusich]