Music

Beach House

Review: Beach House’s Bloom

Beach House: Bloom

Beach House: Bloom (Sup Pop, 5/15/12)

“Myth”

[audio:https://alarm-magazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Beach_House_Myth.mp3|titles=Beach House: “Myth”]

Two years ago, Baltimore-based dream-pop duo Beach House released its best effort to date with Teen Dream. The album took the band’s gift for crafting atmospheric, melancholic synth pop to an entirely new level. The band’s writing was tighter, cleaner. The songs themselves were suffused with nostalgia and heartbreak. It took the band’s signature style — droning organs, echoing guitars, digitized beats, and gorgeous vocals and lyrics — and refined them to the point where a successful followup seemed unlikely.

Kate Beacon: Dude Watchin' With the Brontes

Book review: Hark! A Vagrant

Kate Beacon: Hark! A VagrantKate Beaton: Hark! A Vagrant (Drawn and Quarterly, 9/27/11)

Even if you’ve never heard of Kate Beaton, you’ve probably seen her work. Beaton, a Nova Scotian cartoonist and webmistress of harkavagrant.com, has quickly become a mainstay of Internet and blog culture, with her comics being re-posted around the Web and shared widely between bloggers, history buffs, and readers. Her sharp and somewhat absurd humor and casual riffing on history are instantly recognizable, and have earned Beaton a number of fans and accolades in the six years that harkavagrant.com has been online.

Mayer Hawthorne

Contest: Mayer Hawthorne DJ set + VIP treatment

Are you in Chicago this Thursday, May 17, and want to get down and/or funky? ALARM is giving away a special package for soul crooner Mayer Hawthorne’s DJ set at Beauty Bar, following his regular performance at Park West.

Local DJs Major Taylor and DJ Castle join Hawthorne for the official after-party, and one lucky winner gets a table, four guest spots, and a bubbly bottle of champagne to enjoy the good times, all courtesy of ALARM Press.

Killer Mike

Review: Killer Mike’s RAP Music

Killer Mike: RAP Music

Killer Mike: RAP Music (Williams Street)

“Don’t Die”

[audio:https://alarm-magazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Killer_Mike_Dont_Die.mp3|titles=Killer Mike: “Don’t Die”]

Like words themselves, Atlanta rap veteran Mike Render (a.k.a. Killer Mike) has the potential to be misunderstood. The hardcore southern rhymer — who first came to prominence thanks to his affiliation with Outkast — is a self-proclaimed “pan-Africanist gangster rapper, civic leader, and activist,” and his profile as the latter has been elevated recently by outspoken campaigns for Trayvon Martin, Troy Davis, and the Occupy movement.

Idyl

Review: Idyl’s Elements of the Field

Idyl: Elements of the Field

Idyl: Elements of the Field (5/8/12)

“Rio da Duvida”

[audio:https://alarm-magazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Idyl_Rio_da_Duvida.mp3|titles=Idyl: “Rio da Duvida”]

Thirty years ago, an artist like Alex Dupree may not have gotten past his debut album, a record brimming with both respect for the folk tradition and an insatiable need for experimentation, recorded with a group of misfits from Austin, Texas, who called themselves the Trapdoor Band. He may not have gotten past his second record or his third or the EP that came out between them, music that earned Dupree comparisons to Bob Dylan, at least by the few folks listening. Fortunately, times have changed, and artists like Dupree don’t need to be ratified by the critics’ vanguard to keep making music.