Good news if you live in or around Chicago: Shellac will play six shows in four nights at The Hideout in December. Since the band’s last album, Excellent Italian Greyhound, the metallic-toned minimalist trio is sticking to its usual routine of casual and relaxed touring.
Iron and Wine: The Shepherd’s Dog
Sam Beam is a powerful and poetic songwriter who benefited greatly from the stripped down, simple production of his early recordings. His words and music could stand on their own, without the need for artifice or embellishment.
Dub Trio Join Ipecac, Set January Release for Another Sound is Dying
Though its name is now substantially less appropriate, instrumental rock outfit Dub Trio have prepared significantly heavier material for Another Sound is Dying, the group’s third effort and first for new home Ipecac Recordings.
Clockcleaner: Babylon Rules
Lest their name be taken in jest or as a clever ruse, Clockcleaner set the record straight with their new album Babylon Rules. The band exists to pummel, punish, and taunt, meaning there’s a perfectly good reason why they were dubbed “Philadelphia’s most hated band.”
Stephen Colbert Furthers Mock-Jingoism with I Am America
Stephen Colbert, the Johnathan Swift of cable programming and host of Comedy Central’s Colbert Report, has decided to grace the literary world with his modern-day satire. Winner of three Emmy Awards for his portrayal of Bill O’Reilly-esque news broadcasts, Colbert has authored I Am America (And So Can You!), allowing his particular brand of caricature access to yet another venue hijacked by personality-driven politics.
Stars: In Our Bedroom After the War
As far as standard-issue iPod compendia go, In Our Bedroom After The War, the latest album from Stars, is pretty big-hearted. The fourth album from these Canadian electro-indie soulsters finds them tackling political unrest as seen through the eyes of young and restless lovers.
Wasted Orient Uncovers Punk Life In Beijing
In Wasted Orient, documentary filmmaker Kevin Fritz attempts to avoid aesthetic pitfalls while following the regionally famous Beijing-based punk band Joyside during a multiple-city tour across China. The result is a frenetic glimpse into the daily life of a young punk band trying to break out in the country’s small and struggling rock scene.
Telephone Jim Jesus: Anywhere Out of Everything
Telephone Jim Jesus has been one of Anticon Records’ flagship producers since his days in Restiform Bodies. His style has remained consistent — noisy, busy downtempo soundscapes that are more funeral march than boom bap. Anywhere Out of the Everything does little to break the mold.
Heavy Trash Pay Half-Century Homage
In support of their second full-length album for Yep Roc Records, Jon Spencer and Matt Verta-Ray — known together as roots rock outfit Heavy Trash — have been giving American concert goers the finest fifties flashbacks possible.
Fog: Ditherer
Along with a slew of notable guest musicians that include Dosh, Andrew Bird, and Alan Sparhawk (Low), Fog have released an album of sometimes eerie, sometimes transcendent experimental pop with Ditherer.
Weekly Burlesque: Interview with Photographer and Publisher Dale Rio
The burlesque scene has its very own print magazine thanks to Dale “Black Dahlia” Rio, Shimmy Magazine‘s co-owner/editor and photographer who recently relocated to Seattle. She has been photographing burlesque for about five years. A little over a year ago she began editing and publishing Shimmy Magazine, the only print magazine devoted to burlesque.
In the Shadow of the Moon
It has been thirty-five years, and many space adventure movies have come and gone, since men last stepped on the moon. Yet in David Sington’s new documentary, In the Shadow of the Moon, the experience has never seemed so vivid and so untouchable to those of us stranded on Earth.