Recent Articles in Interviews
The Woodlands: Now Hear This
It’s not often we come across a musical act that forms as the result of an old-fashioned, friendship-into-love scenario, rather than a rockin’ ad on Craigslist or random meeting in a music scene. The married duo of Hannah and Samuel Robertson, otherwise known as Portland, Oregon’s The Woodlands, create captivating folk songs that unfold as [...]
Holy Fuck: Just Don’t Ask About the Name!
If you ever want to gather Toronto’s Holy Fuck into a cozy label office before noon to chat, and they’re just coming down from post-tour jet lag, be prepared for much more than idle chatter about their music. When we met to talk about their bangingly optimistic new album, Latin, hilarity ensued…
It’s All in a Day’s Work for Tireless Crooner Mike Patton
After spending some hang time on the phone with Faith No More singer Mike Patton to discuss his current project, Mondo Cane, I’ve become certain that he might not require sleep anymore like the rest of us. Not that I ever thought he was like the rest of us.
Kate Nash: Girl Talk
Kate Nash and I sit talking on a worn leather sofa somewhere in the labyrinth of Interscope HQ. A snowicane is blowing through Manhattan on the day, and it makes for a cozy, if hilariously damp and rumpled setting. The fast-talking, redheaded whirlwind that is Nash quickly spots what looks to be a corpse on an adjacent building roof.
Choir of Young Believers: Spiritualized, Without the Religion
One of my favorite releases in 2009 was This Is For The White In Your Eyes (packaged in the U.S. with the Burn The Flag EP as a bonus) by Danish band Choir of Young Believers. The band has been charming audiences and critics alike ever since making their U.S. debut in 2009, getting rave reviews, both for the album and for live performances here.
Oh No Ono: Surreal Landscapes… of Sound
Danish quintet Oh No Ono has at last made a splash on this side of the Atlantic with the recent worldwide release of their sophomore album, Eggs. The band debuted live in the U.S. in January, opening a sold-out show for Bear In Heaven at New York’s Mercury Lounge while selling out their own headline gig …
Efterklang: Pushing to New Frontiers
If there’s one description that always holds true for the Danish band Efterklang, whose music varies from indie-electronica to a sort of modern folk, it is that the band defies easy categorization. For their third full-length album, Efterklang, well known for a strong DIY ethic…
The Library is on Fire: From Manifesto to Magic
Brooklyn band The Library is on Fire has been steadily gaining momentum since debuting live at Glasslands Gallery in 2008 (with the Tings Tings opening). With a sound that’s reminiscent of the early 1990s American indie/alternative rock scene, the songs are like a noisy, yet melodic whirlwind of raw guitar riffs, bass and drums…
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club: Better the Devil You Know
On the day in late winter that I catch up with Robert Levon Been of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club there are connection problems. He’s in a place, likely somewhere in California near the band’s home base, with bad reception. Somehow this seems like the perfect backdrop…
Anton Newcombe on the Latest Brian Jonestown Massacre: When Everybody’s an Artist, Nobody is
The newest Brian Jonestown Massacre album, the band’s twelfth studio release, helmed, as usual, by Anton Newcombe, is a multi-cultural, unexpected exploration of beats, genres and tempos, far from any BJM psych-folk you’ve heard before. But don’t call Who Killed Sgt Pepper? a world album, per se.
