Interview Pitchfork January 18, 2010 Link Kieran Hebden describes his recent stint as a monthly resident at London’s Plastic People club as inspirational. Coming from him, it doesn’t sound like the typical DJ platitude. With the night to himself and an enthusiastic crowd open to anything from highlife to Art Blakey or Carl Craig, it […]
Article EQ January 2010 Link When San Francisco guitarist and singer Chuck Prophet set out to record ¡Let Freedom Ring! [Yep Roc] last spring, he assumed a change of environment, specifically Mexico City, would inspire him and add some manic energy to the album. He didn’t count on periodic power outages ruining takes at Estudio […]
Feature Pitchfork December 18, 2009 Link 18. Atlas Sound Logos [Kranky] While it has plenty of watery drips and washed-out backdrops, Bradford Cox’s Atlas Sound project can also be very blunt. Like his work with Deerhunter, he places gothic horror side-by-side with gorgeous guitar riffs and sonic textures, a disarming combination. But Logos makes it […]
Feature EQ Magazine December 2009 Link Oliver Ackermann’s mixing advice— “It’s all about listening and figuring out what sounds good”—might sound funny coming from a vocalist/guitarist known for working at such a punishing volume. That’s not just hyperbole. When Ackermann and his A Place to Bury Strangers bandmates Jay Space (drums) and Jono Mofo (bass) […]
Article Pitchfork November 25, 2009 Link Krautrock: Cosmic Rock and Its Legacy Edited by Nikolaos Kotsopoulos; Black Dog publishing This thick tome might as well be called the field guide to krautrock (“notice the long, unkempt hair and colorful plumage on Gerd”). The original genre tag in part represented the condescension directed toward this vibrant […]
Interview Pitchfork November 23, 2009 Link A lecturer in music culture at the University of East London, Scottish producer, DJ, and theorist Steve Goodman is anything but an ivory tower intellectual. How many of your professors have spun at Fabric? Under the name Kode9, he has immersed himself in the subject he writes about and […]
Article Wax Poetics Issue #38 Link A camera can be an annoyance or it can mean access. For Chicago photographer Michael Abramson, his 35mm Leica M3 was his way to penetrate the curtain of clubland and document a world both public and private. “Nightlife is eternal,” says Abramson. “It went on 100 years ago, and […]
Feature EQ Magazine June 2009 Link Somber French poets and friendly prostitutes sound like fitting inspirations for a raucous, balls-out rock album. While these characters were part of the neighborhood color near the studio where chic French foursome Phoenix—comprised of Thomas Mars, Laurent “Branco” Brancowitz, Christian Mazzalai, and Deck D’Arcy—recorded the bulk of Wolfgang Amadeus […]
Feature EQ Magazine November 2009 Link “Chameleon,” from the Maps album Turning the Mind, begins with flittering synths and syrupy layers of Roland Juno-G melodies, a common feature of James Chapman’s airy, escapist music. But the words sung by Chapman—those of Marsha M. Linehan, a professor and proponent of a cognitive therapy system called Mindfulness— […]
Article A.V. Club Chicago October 2009 Link Despite the trauma of 9/11, it didn’t take long for Hollywood to revisit and ravage New York City. In just the last few years, monsters, mankind, aliens, and zombies have laid waste to Manhattan in countless post-apocalyptic thrillers and natural-disaster porn. L.A., admittedly subject to its own different […]