Jul 01, 2013 By Laura Studarus Dom La Nena

Brazil-born/Paris-based cellist Dom La Nena starts the interview by apologizing for her English, heavily accented from a childhood spent circling the globe. The caveat is needless—every word is clear as she animatedly recounts the events that lead up to her debut album, Ela.

Jul 01, 2013 By Laura Studarus Web Exclusive

We recently spoke via email to Solar Bears’ John Kowalski. He told us why he and bandmate Rian Trench work so well together, the surprising history of the vocoder, and the upside of nostalgia.

Jun 28, 2013 By Ryan E. C. Hamm Grant Morrison

If you’re into comics at all, chances are you’ve got strong opinions about Scottish comic book writer Grant Morrison. Widely loved for his work on JLA, The Invisibles, We3, and All Star Superman, and widely panned for his work on Final Crisis and Batman R.I.P., Morrison has become something of a measuring stick for comic fans: If you love him, you really love him, and if you hate him, you really hate him. And somehow, even his most ardent opposition respects the sheer audacity and imagination in every piece of writing Morrison produces.

Jun 26, 2013 By Mike Hilleary Jagwar Ma

Enjoying toast and a cup of tea for breakfast in the Sydney suburb of Chippendale, Australian native Gabriel Winterfield humbly acknowledges that he’s not a good dancer. He’s quick to note, however, that this hardly stops him from engaging in the act. “I really just like dancing,” he says. “I’m really bad, but I really, really enjoy moving.”

Jun 21, 2013 By Laura Studarus DIANA

Carmen Elle, Paul Mathew, Kieran Adams, and Joseph Shabason, the Toronto-based musicians who perform as DIANA, count their parents among their most ardent supporters. But it might be a stretch to say that they’re big fans of their children’s abstracted soft rock.

Jun 21, 2013 By Jeremy Nisen Dave Wachter

On June 14, James Andrew Clark and Dave Wachter posted a Kickstarter campaign for their lauded web comic, The Guns of Shadow Valley, with the primary goal to bring it to print as a hardcover. Despite the comic having been on hiatus for a pretty good stretch, the great art and compelling story of superpowered gunslingers in the Old West proved to maintain its fan base… and then some. Merely days later, and well in advance of the deadline, they’ve blown their $24,000 goal out of the water. Clark and Wachter found some time to answer questions about their book.

Jun 21, 2013 By Laura Studarus Web Exclusive

Undercover is our new recurring series where we talk to bands about the genesis of one of their album covers. Here we talk to Small Black’s Josh Hayden Kolenik about the cover of Limits of Desire.

Jun 19, 2013 By Chris Tinkham Web Exclusive

For a scene in the romantic road-trip comedy, Forev, Noël Wells re-enacted her second audition ever as an actress, one that she jokingly describes as traumatizing. The audition was for a Hebrew National franks commercial and called for an “all-American” girl to take a bite of a hot dog and savor it. “I was struggling to act like I was really enjoying this hot dog,” Wells remembers. “It lasted for 30 seconds. It was the longest 30 seconds of my life. And when they said, “OK cut, you can spit it out in the trash can,” when I went to spit it out, it was filled with hot-chewed hot dog buns and people’s dreams just in the trash.”

Jun 19, 2013 By Kenny S. McGuane OMD

Released this past April, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark‘s second post-reunion and 12th studio album, English Electric, goes above and beyond what anyone could—or should—have expected from two ‘80s synth superheroes both now approaching their mid-50s.