Drew Fortune, Author at ALARM

Dan Deacon: Euphoria by Way of Electronica

Bromst, the second album from Baltimore electro-spazz Dan Deacon, is a frenetic magnum opus offering a warped twist on world, ambient, and electronic noise pop.

Justin Townes Earle: Singer-Songwriter Prodigy Finds His Sea Legs

The son of a country legend, Justin Townes Earle is a young man with an old soul, persevering through personal challenges and deepening his commitment to writing classic Americana songs.

Mercury Rev: Out of the Psychedelic Haze, a Rock Band’s Renewal

Nearly torn apart on multiple occasions due to drug abuse and infighting, New York-based rock band Mercury Rev is still together, asking the big questions, and enjoying every opportunity to play another song.

Syntaks: A Dream-Pop Love Child

Though started as a solo project by Jakob Scøtt, Danish dream-pop band Syntaks is now a duo, filled out by Scøtt’s muse and significant other, Anna Cecilia. As a result, the band’s most recent album, Ylajali, is a true labor of love.

Nick Cave: The Other Man in Black

With dozens of records, several novels, and many film and theater scores, Nick Cave is one of today’s most prolific, consistent, and intense artists. In this interview, conducted in 2008, Cave discusses longevity and reinvention.

Why?: Hip Hop’s Lyrical Transient

One of the founders of Anticon and the primary songwriter for indie hip-hop group Why?, Yoni Wolf’s slippery, honest rhymes reflect his equally unpredictable future.

Angel Deradoorian steps out of Dirty Projectors’ shadow on debut EP

Mind Raft is a trip into the ether of Angel Deradoorian’s mind — by turns spacey and beautiful, eerie and unsettling.

Crystal Antlers’ DIY dedication

Though not inherently punk, Crystal Antlers‘ unique mix of psych fuzz and layered chaos channels a distinct DIY ethos.

Shearwater: Indie Songsmiths Unveil Haunting New Album

Austin-based Shearwater makes hauntingly beautiful music, centering eerie atmospherics and strings amid droning feedback. For its new record, Rook, bandleader Jonathan Meiburg draws on his “circuit blowing” experiences as an ornithologist, studying hawks in the Galapagos Islands.

NOMO: Defying Categorization with Expanded Electronics of Ghost Rock

Mike Ladd: Sci-Fi Hip Hop Futurist

In the world of Mike Ladd, reality is far stranger than fiction. The Boston-bred MC/producer/spoken-word poet is the merry prankster of underground hip-hop, a sonic jester gleefully melding dystopian imagery with lo-fi hardcore, dub, and retro soul to create party music for the year 2032. His lofty concepts have documented the simultaneous death and rebirth of hip-hop in his operatic Infesticons and Majesticons projects.