from pitchfork
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If Belle and Sebastian are booking Bowlie Weekenders again, then surely their fellow Scots in the Delgados should be busy planning their reunion tour. If ever there were an under-appreciated, defunct indie rock band deserving of a second wind, it's the Glaswegian foursome who disbanded in the mid-2000s after five critically acclaimed but commercially ignored albums.
Emma Pollock: The Law of Large Numbers
Twin Sister: Color Your Life
Twin Sister are a Brooklyn-by-way-of-Long Island quintet that do so much so well.
Galaxie 500: Today / On Fire / This Is Our Music
When new bands play guitar music heavy on reverb and slow in tempo-- a combination that drapes tunes in a sublimely druggy dream-pop haze-- I can be slow to embrace them.
When Elliott Smith's final studio record, From a Basement on the Hill, was released in 2004, some people wanted to avert their eyes.
Elliott Smith: Roman Candle / From a Basement on
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Galaxie 500 — complete studio discography [2009 remaster] (downl
"If there's any justice, Black Tambourine will see their name inserted into revisionist histories of American independent rock." So wrote Pitchfork's Chris Ott in his April 1999 review of Black Tambourine's Complete Recordings , and at the time, the line sounded like wishful thinking. After all, that compilation of the Washington, D.C. band's brief, brilliant career didn't surface at the most opportune time for a reassessment, given pre-millennial indie rock's aesthetic drift away from fuzz-covered slop-pop toward exploratory instrumentals (Tortoise, Mogwai) and folky formalism (Belle and Sebastian, Elliott Smith).
Black Tambourine: Black Tambourine
Christy & Emily: No Rest
Emily Manzo is a classically trained pianist known for performing compositions by Susie Ibarra and John Cage, among others; self-taught guitarist Christy Edwards did time in various NYC indie-flavored rock combos. Despite learning how to play their instruments in different ways, Christy and Emily both approach them with a sense of experimentation and curiosity. They want to see what sorts of sounds they can make with them, how to exploit those sounds, how to make something musical from noises that seemingly sound non-musical.
Mimicking Birds is the spectral folk/home recording project of Portland's Nate Lacy. This, his first full-length under the MB guise, was produced by Modest Mouse's Isaac Brock for the latter's Glacial Pace imprint, a footnote that's actually no footnote at all.
Mimicking Birds: Mimicking Birds
Reviewing Laura Marling's Mercury Prize-nominated debut album, Alas, I Cannot Swim , in 2008, I worried that the then-18-year-old might too quickly shed the teenage guilelessness that contributed so greatly to the record's appeal.
Laura Marling: I Speak Because I Can
Scuba: Triangulation
When the numerous permutations of dubstep are discussed, Paul Rose (Scuba) is usually credited with steering the genre toward softer, more musical arrangements. Scuba has done this both through his own work and through his stewardship of the almost bulletproof Hotflush label, home to 2009's nominally dubstep breakouts by Mount Kimbie and Joy Orbison.Album Reviews: To Rococo Rot: Speculation
To Rococo Rot's skill lies in making electronic-infused post-rock engaging where most other bands fiddling with sculpted synths and cyclic bass lines settle for crafting something tasteful. Berliners Stefan Schneider and Ronald and Robert Lippok often sound as balanced and precise as their reversible band name.Sam Amidon: I See the Sign
Sam Amidon's idea of recomposition-- of excavating Appalachian folksongs; rearranging, repurposing, and creating a dissociation that feels uniquely contemporary-- isn't exactly unprecedented. Musicians-- like A.P. Carter, who scrambled up and down Clinch Mountain in the late 1920s, collecting local songs for the Carter Family's repertoire-- have been reinventing folk songs since before we knew to call them folk songs.Sam Amidon’s third album, I See the Sign, opens on the least folk-friendly moment of his career. A picked banjo pattern and Amidon’s vocal melody is at the center of “How Come That Blood,” picking up in some ways where his appearance on Nico Muhly’s Mothertongue (2008) left off; but neither the repetitive picking nor Amidon’s muted voice hits first. Instead, it’s the stabbing bass, the strings swooping inward for only a few seconds at a time, the bleeping synthesizer, and the loping percussion that control the song.
Sam Amidon - 2 Albums - Demonoid
As dubstep has spread to an American fanbase, artists like Rusko and Emalkay have theorized that stateside audiences gravitate toward the harder stuff, the heavy bass of dubstep's aggro side.