Late but essential! Good stuff going on tonight.
In 2011, you can find a lot of terrible music at the intersection of indie rock, detached hip-hop patois, and gleeful art-noise. EMA, aka Erika M. Anderson of the defunct noise-folk band Gowns, inhabits a similar headspace, but few recent albums sound as vital as her Past Life Martyred [...]

When a band chooses to include a cover in their live set, it's always interesting to hear what they chose, especially when said band is a side-group of three lead singers who also write most of the damn fine songs for their three separate bands. Sometimes, a cover choice is horrible, sometimes overly obvious. But [...]

Middle Brother, a supergroup of rising Gen-Y roots rockers, may just deserve the attention that so often eludes the mid-sequence siblings for whom the band is named.
Jon McCauley, of Deer Tick; Taylor Goldsmith, of Dawes; and Matthew Vasquez, of Delta Spirit might not yet wield the indie capital of another recent (and aesthetically similar) supergroup, [...]

People who hear Dawes before learning anything about the band are generally surprised to learn they’re from Los Angeles. What, like L.A. never had cowboys?
The band’s m.o. is most certainly country, what with its easy stride and affinity for one-four-five “Hey brother, jump on that third when we hit the chorus” template. But there’s definitely [...]

If folk music’s prime currency is authenticity, Langhorne Slim might well earn some crooked eyebrows. Classically trained at the SUNY-Purchase conservatory, Sean Scolnik donned loafers and floppy hat and named himself after his hometown in the tradition of all those rail-hoppin’ ramblers who used to do that. The blogosphere gobbled up this aesthetic and and [...]