Music

Activist afrobeat collective Antibalas continues to demonstrate the essence of its, as the translation goes, “bulletproof” nature by announcing three new tour dates in the US. Still feeding off the high energy from this year’s release of Security, Antibalas has two performances scheduled in New York City and one in Boulder, Colorado within the next three weeks.

U.S-Kenyan collaborative Extra Golden was born of the encounter of two guitarists, Ian Eagleson and Otieno Jagwasi, in Nairobi in 2000 while Eagleson, a Washington, D.C. rock musician and ethnomusicologist, was conducting research on Kenya’s benga pop music.

Having caught the Eastern European fever that has hit American independent music over the last few years, Zach Condon, the now 21-year-old mind behind the band Beirut, has shifted from the Balkan folk style of his The Gulag Orkestar album and Lon Gisland EP.

Every time Nina Nastasia releases new music, it seems to be sparser and more skeletal that whatever preceded it. Yet the New York folk songstress now has a number of records to her name, 2002’s The Blackened Air in particular, which seem larger than life.

Your buck will go a long way at New York City’s Knitting Factory this Sunday, October 14, as indie rock hip hoppers Why? take the stage for the mere cover of one dollar. And even if NYC isn’t on your weekend’s itinerary, the assuredly melodic sounds of Why? will return with The Hollows EP via Anticon Records on November 19.

Devendra Banhart descended from his rainbow last week and landed in Albuquerque. The beards in the crowd were swaying to his flamenco-inspired folk rock, and there were enough old thrift-store vests among the audience to restock a vintage boutique.

USSA’s debut The Spoils will never sound the way many want it to, meaning it sounds nothing like the previous work of former Jesus Lizard guitarist Duane Denison or former Ministry bassist Paul Barker. That’s fine; neither Denison nor Barker, each of whom is in USSA, is trying to recreate the past.

Music fans that overdosed on Chicago-based festivals this summer had a final event to mark off their checklists on Sunday; the organizers of Intonation Music Festival decided to eschew their outdoor concert set-up in order to partner with the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) for a one-day event called Rock/Art.

Vietnam traffics in rock-blues psychedelia laced with just enough down-home dirt to send eyelined alt-rock scenesters running back to the coffee bars from whence they came. With a full-length debut on the way, two national supporting tours, and more hair than you can shake a bar of soap at, Vietnam is taking rock back to its dirty roots.

One must admire a band as bold and irreverent as Pere Ubu for maintaining a recording and touring schedule even in the new millennium. As a part of the Adventures in Modern Music Festival, the longstanding avant-garde group exceptionally performed last week in Chicago.

Last Friday, L.A. noise rockers Qui, comprised of guitarist Matt Cronk, drummer Paul Christensen and former Jesus Lizard/Scratch Acid singer David Yow, performed at Chicago’s Empty Bottle to a rabid audience. The band played every song from Love’s Miracle, its debut for Ipecac Recordings, restoring some grit and disquiet to songs from a rather antiseptic recording.