Apr 30, 2009 By Mike Hilleary Web Exclusive

Death Cab for Cutie is currently on the road alongside Ra Ra Riot and Matt Costa (with Cold War Kids as the opener during the first half of the tour). While on tour Death Cab's vocalist Ben Gibbard doesn't do much with his available free time. The things he does do, however, he commits to with consuming sincerity. Aside from raiding the inventory of numerous cities' record shops, with the new season of Major League Baseball starting up, Gibbard has been living in a state of nine-inning increments: watching games, checking the latest stats, and listening to all kinds of sports commentary. He's even managed to get out to an actual ballpark, recently catching the Twins face off against the Blue Jays in Minneapolis. More

Apr 28, 2009 By Chris Drabick Web Exclusive

Isaac Edwards and Michael Tapscott, the principles and mainstays of Odawas, have succumbed to their wanderlust. Relocating to the West Coast, the band now makes the Bay Area their home base. It is from there that the duo discussed their latest record, the downright oceanic The Blue Depths, their third full-length for Bloomington, Indiana's Jagjaguwar Records (Bloomington was once also home to Odawas). Edwards and Tapscott touch on all their influences, from the obvious (Brian Eno), to the less obvious (Eric Serra) to the, err, completely unpredictable (Arrested Development). More

Apr 25, 2009 By Tom Vale Web Exclusive

Onstage at Club De Ville at this year's SXSW, time finally ran out. "Well, goddamnit, Austin, we have to go," said Matthew Houck, singer/songwriter and organizing Beard Number One of the multibearded monster that is Phosphorescent. His joy was slightly dented by the news, but he recovered quickly ("we're not going to pout. Well, we might pout a little"). Then he brought the show to its slightly premature close with a raucous, freewheeling version of-what else?-"The Party's Over": "Let's call it a night/The party's over/You know that all good things must end." More

Apr 10, 2009 By Frank Valish Web Exclusive

This year marks two important anniversaries for Bob Mould. Thirty years ago, in 1979, his seminal trio, Hüsker Dü, played its first live gig. Ten years later, after Hüsker's brutal demise, Mould made his solo debut with Workbook, an indie-rock masterwork and certified classic that found Mould baring his soul. It is an album that remains as poignant today as it was then. Mould's latest and ninth solo album, Life and Times, revisits the writing style and personal tone of Workbook, and, while Mould has dabbled to various degrees in electronic atmospheres and textures in the past decade, Life and Times also finds him more at ease with the guitar than he has seemed in years. More

Feb 01, 2009 By Evan Rytlewski Winter 2009 - Anticipated Albums of 2009

Brian Aubert is flattered that so many people mistook him for a woman after hearing his band’s breakthrough single, “Lazy Eye.” More

Feb 01, 2009 By Jim Scott Winter 2009 - Anticipated Albums of 2009

“You can only discover something once,” M. Ward says, speaking about both his own music and the influence other artists have had on him. Over the course of his first five solo LPs, Ward slowly opened up, both lyrically and musically, so that each successive album still exuded that feeling of discovery. His sixth, Hold Time, is no exception. More

Feb 01, 2009 By Matt Fink Winter 2009 - Anticipated Albums of 2009

With 2005’s I Am a Bird Now, an album that introduced us to a songwriter with an otherworldly vibrato and an ear for songs that ached with an uneasy desire for transformation and transcendence, Antony Hegarty entered his name on the list of artists who will never be mistaken for someone else. More

Nov 01, 2008 By Kyle Lemmon Year End 2008 - Best of 2008

Back in their home base of Donnington, England, Late of the Pier’s career started with a jumbled mess of dusty synthesizer equipment, guitars in various states of disrepair, and scattershot drum kits. The band’s keyboardist/sampler, Sam Potter, remembers those early days stuck in a musty attic well. “Our singer/guitarist Sam [Eastgate]’s dad played in a couple bands in the ’80s,” Potter explains. “A lot of the original instruments we played came from that attic. We used to practice with this old battered blue drum kit and this old guitar that was covered in comics. We used to get stoned and just go crazy.” More

Nov 01, 2008 By Nate Daly Year End 2008 - Best of 2008

Life was looking grim for Will Roan last winter. “A year ago, I was working making raincoats and just trying to be able to pay rent and being really scared because my band was breaking up. It’s a really strange place to be in now—recording a full-length record. Bizarre,” says the singer for Brooklyn’s Amazing Baby. More