Blogs
Feedback: Bastion’s Soundtrack
In 2012 an independent developer released Bastion, a somewhat clumsy platformer and arcade style third person shooter for the computers. The gameplay and the art style, while interesting, did not make quite as big a splash as its soundtrack. With good reason too, most...
633 Ashland Ave.: The World's Fastest Record, "Lazaretto"
On April 21st, Third Man Records, Jack White's privately owned record label, released their video of the fastest vinyl ever recorded and sold. The video begins with a short performance of White’s newest single “Lazaretto” in his studio at Third Man Records...
The Tough Crowd: Meeting Mr. Liebling
Courtesy of CV Comics. On Saturday I met a real life rock star. A 70's icon decked out with big long hair, tight jeans and his mother's blouse. I (and all of my friends) met Bobby Liebling, vocalist of the legendary doom metal band Pentagram. I experienced the whole...
Rainy Day Music #10: "Wincing The Night Away"
Last week's Rainy Day Album was an album of relentless, visceral sorrow — an opportunity to use a rainy day to purge the darkest emotions in your nature. This week's is the opposite, a light and carefree album to make the most of your time inside: the Shins'...
Minutia: Slint – The "Spiderland" Reissue
My addition to the Slint reissue circlejerk: There's something about being immersed in the mundane, cyclical toils of prepubescent academia that has left me utterly unmotivated to follow this column's self-imposed structure. I spend my days hunched over a...
Under the Tide: Jamie Woon
An amalgamation of music genres by musicians isn't all that uncommon these days. You even have new genres arising from time to time (PBR&B, Chillwave, Slowcore) to add to the confusion when trying to place a finger on someone's brand of music. Thankfully, no...
Feedback: Songs for Tough Times
This semester ran me over. In the last couple months I worked harder than I ever had before and encountered whole new stresses. But I know I am not alone. During this time of the year plenty of us have papers to complete and finals to study for. To help us all get...
Shaken Not Stirred: Cloud Nothings at the Black Cat
Raggedy, full-grown beard: check. Loose fitting, probably vintage flannel: check. Greasy, lion's mane hair: check. What more could you ask for from a three-piece, indie rock band? Well, besides a hardcore drumbeat to make you jump repeatedly and buzzing guitar...
Sit Down with Shira: Angel Olsen
Still from Angel Olsen’s “Tiniest Seed” music video. I don't think there's anything greater than an ethereal songstress, strumming softly on her guitar while wheezing haunting lyrics. This, dear friends, is Angel Olsen in a phrase. After releasing...
Leading Ladies: British Rapper Little Simz Doing Big Things
From North London, rapper and actress Simbi Ajikawo, known by her stage name Little Simz. Courtesy of BKLYN1834. As soon as Little Simz‘s latest mixtape “Blank Canvas” was featured on JAY Z’s Life&Times website, everyone wanted to know...
The Tough Crowd: Hardcore Twitter
The world of Twitter is relatively new place for me. Over the past month or so I have been trying to navigate the waters of the social network and learn its intricacies. I have learned some but I still have some way to go to become a master sailor of Twitter. I find...
Rainy Day Music #9: Hospice
Last week's pick, Dilute’s second album, was a piece of beauty that embodied rain in its sound as well as its abstract emotion. This week's Rainy Day Album does away with the abstract and goes straight for the emotion: Hospice by the Antlers. Thanks to our...
633 Ashland Ave.: Parquet Courts Announce New Album
Only two years after the release and success from their first album, Light Up Gold, the Brooklyn punk outfit Parquet Courts have announced the release of their new album Sunbathing Animal. Along with the announcement of their new album, they also released a new...
Shaken Not Stirred: A Brief “Death Cab” Overview
It's that time of year again. The time for crazed festival fans to prepare themselves for the summer's upcoming musical events. Finally, summer music festivals are releasing their lineups for 2014 and pumping up festival-goers across the country. This past Tuesday,...
DJ Spotlights: Strictly Kosher
How did you come to call your show Strictly Kosher? Drew Sher: Before Strictly Kosher, my show's name was Fur Sher. As with all of my names, I was joking around with Mikey Creedz, Mike Creedon, and we came up it. I like for my show name to be a play on words. What...
Leading Ladies: Female Artists Supporting Each Other Is A Great Thing
Janelle MonÌÁe performs with a hologram M.I.A. for a live on-stage collab. (I might have cried just a bit.) I am a big fan of seeing women uplift and support each other, especially within the music industry. Recent examples include BeyoncÌ© featuring Nigerian author...
The Tough Crowd: Copeland – A Love Letter
Very rarely am I optimistic about a new record. Especially when the new record is from a recently reunited band, and even more so when that band’s last record I consider one of my personal favorites. Last week when Copeland announced their reunion, it's the...
Chance The Rapper-Acid Rap (Self-Released)
SEE CHANCE LIVE AT AU ON APRIL 10 Among the best hip-hop releases of last year, Chance The Rapper’s breakthrough project Acid Rap is an impossibly smooth and effortless collection of summer infused, fresh pop rap. With a voice that sounds like the unpredictably...
Mac DeMarco – Salad Days (Captured Tracks)
He’s done it again After 2012's 2, which featured the enticing single “My Kind of Woman,” a yearning for Salad Days was inevitable. The phrase “salad days” has been around since Shakespeare, made popular by DC band Minor Threat ÛÒ referring to the...
Cloud Nothings ÛÒ Here And Nowhere Else (Carpark)
The Best New Music. There comes a point in our lives when we have absolutely no idea what we're doing. There aren't any signs pointing us in the direction that we should be headed, instead we have to some how figure it out on our own. At times it is excruciatingly...
Tycho – Awake (Ghostly International)
Though Scott Hansen, aka Tycho, has been making hazy, pleasant chillwave and dream-pop tracks by himself for years now, somewhere in the past two years he took it upon himself to flesh out his project from just himself to a fully realized, traditionally instrumented...
The Hold Steady ÛÒ Teeth Dreams (Washington Square)
“Movies and Krishna and hardcore and Jesus and joyÛ If (as a poster in my 11th grade English teacher's room claimed) Bruce Springsteen is Steinbeck in leather, then surely The Hold Steady's Craig Finn is Fitzgerald in a Twins jersey. Instead of writing about the...
Panama – Always EP (Future Classic)
RX: feel good grooves Aussie electro-pop lads, Panama, have found the cure for the winter woes with the perfect prescription of dreamy dance beats and ready-for-sun remixes that will have you up and going in no time. Once the burnt orange chord progressions of opener...
Architecture in Helsinki – NOW 4EVA (Self-released)
Synth-pop til you drop Architecture in Helsinki has been on the indie-synth-pop scene since 2000, making this their fourteenth release. With happy, synth heavy pop music, this Australian band reimagines some original 80s songs between their synths, vocals, and lyrics....
Saintseneca – Dark Arc (ANTI-)
Dark Indie Folk After seeing Saintseneca play a live in-studio session here at WVAU… I kind of fell in love. This was before their first full-length album, Dark Arc, had dropped. When I heard them live, I knew I was really going to dig this album. Dark Arc is a...
Black Lips – Underneath The Rainbow (VICE)
Sad Black Lips with more of a southern influence The Black Lips are a rock group from Georgia that have been part of the garage rock scene since 1999. Their songs are influenced by classic rock, punk, and even a little bit of country. Their newest album, “Underneath...
Rainy Day Music #8: Grape Blueprints Pour Spinach Olive Grape
Last week's Rainy Day album, High Violet by the National, was chosen by one of the Camerons in my life and dealt with rain concretely, as a recurring lyrical theme. This week's pick is Dilute's second and last release, 2001's Grape Blueprints Pour Spinach Olive...
Minutia: Don Caballero – "The World In Perforated Lines"
The more I think about it, the more I become convinced that Don Caballero is the best musical outlet that Pittsburgh has ever seen. Granted, that thought is contingent on the band's immense influence on my musical development. Before I found Don Cab, I was invested...
Under the Tide: Jack’s Mannequin
I have respect for many musicians not just because of their musical nous, but also how they manage to make a living for themselves by writing tunes for the better good of humanity. Top the feat of overcoming cancer, and it sounds even more terrific. Enter Andrew...
Introducing VEDAS
Get familiar with American University's very own ambient pop duo, VEDAS. Their debut EP will be independently released by the band on April 15th and their first single, “RuinÛ, is already out now. Their five-track endeavor is marked with spacious sounds, precise...