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- News in Brief: Cyann & Ben, Peaches, Japanese Motors, Television Personalities
- News in Brief: Bruce Springsteen, the Feelies, Saint Etienne, Deadmau5
- News in Brief: ELO, The Week That Was, Carpark Records, Indie-O Fest
- News in Brief: Black Mountain, Black Moth Super Rainbow / School of Seven Bells, Nathan Fake, A Mountain of One
- News in Brief: Lil Wayne, Marnie Stern, Franz Nicolay, the Crystal Method, Viva Voce
Best New Music
This new Slumberland band will be bracketed with other lo-fi/noise-pop peers, but they have songs that will appeal beyond the confines of subcultures: Anyone with a weakness for trebly, melancholy pop music will find a lot to like about this record.
On The Crying Light, Antony Hegarty remains fascinated with the transitions and overlaps between birth and life, life and death, this world and the next, but he expresses them in more universal, more direct, but no less rapturous terms than he did on his New York-tinted breakthrough I Am a Bird Now.
Reviews
Having departed Interscope, and now far enough under the radar to avoid the BS of backlash for backlash's sake, Trail of Dead are in their best position in years to resuscitate their image.
[Ian Cohen]
Originally slated as the final album from Eef Barzelay's Clem Snide, which may or may not be defunct, Hungry Bird substitutes the band's erstwhile lighthearted alt-country with more sober, standard folk fare.
[Paul Thompson]Japanese singer and experimentalist releases her second album for the Australian Room40 label, collaborating with its founder English and associate Chantler, who help her expertly bridge obtuse style and a pleasing sound.
[Joe Tangari]The first release on experimental electronic producer Jan Jelinek's label Faitiche, the homemade recordings of the late Ursula Bogner might never have been heard outside her immediate family had Jelinek not discovered them, or recorded them and conceived the entire backstory himself, depending on who you ask.
[Marc Masters]Former Out Hud cellist Molly Schnick drops almost everything about her former band on this new project, a collection of strummy bedroom chamber-pop.
[Marc Hogan]Mon: 02-23-09
Fri: 02-20-09
Thu: 02-19-09
Wed: 02-18-09
Forkcast
- Video: Depeche Mode: "Wrong"
- New Music: Bat for Lashes: "Daniel" / "Sleep Alone" [Streams]
- New Music: MF Doom: "That's That" [Stream]
- Video: Beck: "Replica"
- Video: Black Lips: "Short Fuse"
- New Music: Vampire Weekend vs. Miike Snow: "The Kids Don't Stand a Chance" [MP3/Stream]
- Video: James Franco: Talking about Let's Talk About Love
Features
Live Review: Jane's Addiction
Jane's Addiction played a small club show in L.A. last week and Pitchfork was there to see how it all went down. The band also taped the show and provided video of six of its classic songs, including "Mountain Song", "Stop", and "Ain't No Right", all of which can be viewed here.
[Ian Cohen]
Appreciation: Touch and Go Records
This week, Touch and Go-- one of America's foremost independent record labels-- announced that they are tabling new music and shuttering their distribution arm. It's impossible to calculate the importance Touch and Go had to the rock'n'roll landscape of the past three decades; we scraped just the surface in 2006 when, to celebrate the label's 25th anniversary, Pitchfork published a few features about the imprint's history.
[Pitchfork]Interview: Air France
Air France members Joel Karlsson and Henrik Markstedt talk to us via email about high school, the economy, and the life-changing power of Saint Etienne.
[Marc Hogan]Guest List: Diplo
Diplo reveals which two classic producers he admires most, tips us off to a new venue in Philly, and divulges a family relation to a prominent indie-rock frontman. [Interview: Tyler Grisham]
[Diplo]Interview: Fennesz
Austrian producer Christian Fennesz put out his long-awaited latest solo album Black Sea late in 2008. Just prior to the album's release, we spoke with him about his working methods, the pressure of a new solo album, and the enduring appeal of A-Ha.
[Mark Richardson]Interview: Stephen Malkmus
Twenty years (!) after the release of Pavement's debut, we talk to Stephen Malkmus about the deluxe reissue of Pavement's fourth album Brighten the Corners, his reasoning for relegating so many of his songs over the years to B-sides and rarities, and his future with the Jicks.
[Matthew Perpetua]