It's not like Conor Oberst needs much help sounding great. The Omaha, NE, native has been writing and performing with various projects, most notably with Bright Eyes, since his early teens, and he is a co-founder of not one but two independent labels: Saddle Creek and Team Love. In other words, we …
In an industry where auto-tune is often synonymous with lack of talent, the vocals of Channy Leaneagh, frontwoman of Minneapolis electro-pop group Poliça, are boldly filtered through reverb and auto-tune on each of their albums. But the use of these tools is an overt stylistic choice for Leaneagh a…
If you saw them on the street, it's very possible that you'd mistake Black Rebel Motorcycle Club for, well, members of an actual motorcycle gang. Bassist Robert Levon Been and guitarist Peter Hayes have been playing together since high school (drummer Leah Shapiro has been with them since 2007), an…
If there was one Prince tribute to catch at Coachella last weekend, it was "Purple Rain" as done by indie rock god Sufjan Stevens, featuring lead vocals from a mysterious and absolutely wondrous new voice, Gallant. This isn't the first time Sufjan has teamed up with Gallant. At the turn of the new …
There's probably a joke somewhere in the fact that Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats played a rousing workout of a show on Bumbershoot's first (and, in quintessential Seattle fashion, only) warm afternoon, but it wouldn't illustrate the Denver, Colorado-singer's performance any better than s…
Lemolo has a knack for nostalgic imagery in their videos. Earlier this year, we premiered the video for the dream-pop act's "One to Love", which featured songwriter Meagan Grandall walking the eerie streets of her hometown of Poulsbo, Washington. With "Casting Call", Grandall ventures even further …
There's a moment on "Every Time the Sun Comes Up", the closing track on Are We There, the fourth studio album by Sharon Van Etten, when the New Jersey songwriter nonchalantly declares "I wash your dishes, but I still shit in your bathroom". For obvious reasons, it's a line that immediately stands o…
So I might have been ranting about various shows this weekend being the best shows I saw - but here's the thing. Yes, they were amazing performances by talented musicians, but Killer Mike's set at the Yeti stage topped all of them. There is something about witnessing a brilliant musician finally re…
Angela Conway, the force behind A.C. Marias, doesn't seem to have been particularly prolific as an artist, but what she lacked in quantity she more than made up for in quality - as evidenced by the KCMU gang's high regard for One of Our Girls, the sole A.C. Marias full-length. Conway collaborated e…
In the last few years, there’s been a slew of English, (mostly) London-based bands emerging from basement gigs with world-beating ambitions and the musical elements to make good on them: a heavy dose of pop melody, a balance of snarky storytelling and heartfelt appeal, and most of all, hooks that a…
I had not expected to even make it to Disclosure at the El Chupacabra tent. And I never would have known what to expect from then electronic-music-genius brothers if I hadn't seen the video or "Control feat.Ria Ritchie", which is one of several songs featuring amazing guest vocals that they two hav…
Saqqara Dogs seems to be yet another band that absolutely delighted a certain subset of nerdy college radio DJs (and soon-to-be-incredibly-influential New York Times music critics - you've got to love any band that forces the Times to refer to someone as "Mr. 66"), but didn't seem to make much of a…
Though the new album is called Lost in the Dream, The War on Drugs' Adam Granduciel seems like he's just woken up from one. While it's only the band's third LP since forming nine years ago, Lost in the Dream is leaps and bounds ahead of its predecessors, as Granduciel transforms his oft-meandering …
Most regular gig-goers will agree that the best place to see a band play is in a club. Rock clubs present an intimate setting, and since the audience and the band are essentially right on top of each other, each side can feed off the other's energy. When Queens of the Stone Age took the stage on a …
Collectors of kitsch and arcane Americana in their private lives, Cincinnati's Chuck Cleaver and Lisa Walker are also accumulators of high praise with their band, Wussy. Over the past 15 years, from when they first formed as a duo, the now five-piece has built a loyal fanbase and gathered a wealth …
You know, it's bad enough when there's a band that I'm vaguely familiar with, that I know I should really check out, but have never quite gotten around to (we see a lot of those in this column). But when there's a band that I totally think "yeah, I know that band! I like them," only to realize that…
While we consider all our Bumbershoot Music Lounge sessions "special," there's something undeniably extra-special about this one. When main songwriter Alex Chilton passed away in 2010, followed shortly by the passing of founding bassist Andy Hummel the same year, most assumed we'd never hear from t…
Every great comic book hero has a memorable arc or story where they team up with an unlikely ally - maybe even a former archrival - for some exciting hijinks towards a common goal. That’s a bit how it feels with The Claypool Lennon Delirium. Bass wizard Les Claypool and wizard-looking guitar virtuo…
If Brooklyn producer The Range and Atlanta rapper Rome Fortune have any one thing in common, it's an unfettered line of sight towards a marvelous horizon. Both artists make music that is wrought with present-tense turmoil, but the future always looks brighter - and not only that, it looks magnanimo…
