Nov 29, 2011 By Frank Valish

This twenty-fifth anniversary triple DVD set features two discs of stellar performances from the history of the annual Bridge School benefit concerts, but it is the third disc documentaries and student-artist interviews that truly impress. More

Sep 14, 2011 By J. Pace

This Germano-Kenyan (how often do you get to use that) collaboration took a handful of Berlin-based electronic artists to work with various established artists of the Kenyan music scene.  More

Dec 07, 2010 By Nate Daly

World Psychedelic Funk Classics put out its first release in 2009 under the title Psych Funk 101. An introductory study of the "golden years" of psychedelic funk music, the compilation brought together essential tracks of the genre from around the globe. Their third course in fuzz guitars and funk rhythm (following their Brazilian fuzz guitar comp) focuses on India, summarized by the subtitle of the record: Seminar: Aesthetic Expressions of Psychedelic Funk Music in India 1970-1983. More

Jun 14, 2010 By Frank Valish

It's hard to believe it's been almost 40 years since Graham Nash released his first solo album, Songs for Beginners. Debuting in 1971 while on hiatus from Crosby, Stills & Nash, the album was the first to showcase Nash's superb songwriting skills front and center, driven by a voice that so easily conveyed a complexity of emotion while retaining a certain innocence. More

Apr 01, 2010 By Frank Valish

It's supremely odd to hear movie stars singing their own soundtrack material, especially since the characters they're playing are actual musicians. The main attraction to the soundtrack from the Kristen Stewart/Dakota Fanning portrayal of '70s all-girl rock band, The Runaways, is not the period punk music included (fine tracks by David Bowie, MC5, The Stooges, and Sex Pistols). It's the fact that Fanning and Stewart actually sing four of The Runaways tunes on the soundtrack. More

Nov 12, 2009 By Laura Studarus

Indie kids beware—your heroes just got co-opted. While hardly a cohesive gathering, from Death Cab For Cutie doing what they do best (channeling youthful melancholy), to Lykke Li's unexpected gravitas, it would be difficult to ask for a better group of ambassadors. More

Oct 23, 2009 By Nate Daly

Fidel Castro's communism had incredible, if often polarizing, effects on the music industry of Cuba. The island employed state-subsidized musicians who earned steady paychecks, and these artists had relatively little concern about their commercial success, giving them free reign to experiment and play from the heart. On the other hand, there was very limited access to recording equipment and the raw materials necessary to record and create albums. More

Oct 12, 2009 By Nate Daly

Where the Action Is! is the Southern California answer to 2007's San Francisco box set, Love Is the Song We Sing. With some exceptions, that NorCal Nuggets set focused on the infinitely collected works of the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, Santana, and other Summer of Love bands. This new LA compilation digs much deeper and dredges some stellar tracks to the surface with 101 tracks spread over four discs and supplemented by copious amounts of liner notes about the bands, producers, and the stories behind the songs. More

Oct 08, 2009 By Laura Studarus

Regardless of your views on love, marriage—or Michael Cera's status as an indie heartthrob—writing off the Paper Heart soundtrack in its entirety would be like pulling a football away from Charlie Brown as he goes to kick it—heartless, cold... and all too tempting.  More

Sep 30, 2009 By J. Pace

Every decade following Woodstock there's a flurry of retrospectives, and the 40-year anniversary is no exception. This one comes hot on the heels of an AARP membership for most attendees, but that doesn't mean a new crop of music fans can't be browbeat with the event's mythology. See, kids, there was a time when neither Mountain Dew nor Clear Channel played a prominent role in music festivals, when pull-tabs were hauled past lax security, when the money-making aspect had yet to make things unbearable. Woodstock made things unbearable the old-fashioned way: half a million naked hippies rolling around in the mud. More

Sep 21, 2009 By Kyle Lemmon

Judee Sill released only two LPs, 1971's Judee Sill and 1973's Heart Food, before tragically dying of a heroin and cocaine overdose in 1979. She didn't live long enough to see her music become popular among Laurel Canyon-referencing indies such as Fleet Foxes and Department of Eagles. American Dust's lovingly compiled Crayon Angel features gorgeous and tolerable Sill covers from Daniel Rossen (Department of Eagles, Grizzly Bear), Beth Orton, Bill Callahan, Final Fantasy, Marissa Nadler, and Ron Sexsmith. More

Sep 16, 2009 By Laura Studarus

If there’s one great failing to Quentin Tarantino’s film soundtracks, it’s that they remind me just how boring my life really is. Extraneous orchestral swells? Unexpected juxtaposition of classic rock and symphonic scores? Obscure foreign language ditties? Why, it’s enough to make a girl want to seek revenge against the man who left her for dead on her wedding day, take a classic car for a blood-soaked joyride, or—in the case of his latest epic Inglourious Basterds—go a’ Nazi killing. You know, just for the hell of it. More

Jul 30, 2009 By Tom Vale

There's a natural inclination to hate (500) Days of Summer. It's aimed so squarely at the indie demographic, even starring the current cross-media Queen of Indie, Zooey Deschanel, and including her work (as half of the grammatically frustrating act She & Him) on the soundtrack. And anything that claims to know us thoroughly risks rejection out of hand: we're unknowable, man, we're individuals, you can't just treat us like a demographic. But, well, of course you can. More

Jun 17, 2009 By Kyle Lemmon

Kath Bloom is the daughter of the famous concert oboist Robert Bloom, and was raised in New Haven, Connecticut, where she trained as a cellist. The folk luminary's six self-released CD-Rs and various cassettes are highly-sought after collectibles but most people would draw blanks if her name was brought up in conversation. The reason behind her anonymous nature is simple. Though Bloom's been cutting records off and on since the late '70s, she took a long hiatus to raise her kids after her record with Loren Mazzacane Connors (1984's Moonlight). After leaving for much of the '90s, Bloom returned to the public eye, resulting in some releases and her latest album, Finally, released on Australia's Chapter Music in 2006. More

Apr 28, 2009 By Nate Daly

Along with Motown, Stax Records defined an era of soul music in the '60s and '70s. And from the parents who lived with and loved the sound of Stax came children who would sample and appropriate the breaks into loops that would become the foundation of hip-hop. This compilation collects the original Stax hits that spawned so many hip-hop classics. More