Clik here to view.
One Track Mind: The Strangest Places, Not It
Standout Track: No. 1, “Could Someone,” a moody bedroom-pop song with a hypnotic, repetitive melody and a steady beat. Incomprehensible whispers flutter in the background as sole member Chris Howard...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Beach Fossils’ Dustin Payseur on Inexplicably Rowdy Fans and Working With...
With its 2010 self-titled debut LP, Brooklyn’s Beach Fossils helped to usher in a dream-pop revival, the bread-and-butter of Brooklyn label Captured Tracks. But while bands like Wild Nothing and Craft...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Why We Should Stop Talking About K Records, According to Naomi Punk’s Travis...
Distorted, bruised rock isn't new to the Pacific Northwest—see "grunge scene, Washington"—but Naomi Punk's particular flavor mucks up the '90s alt-rock radio formula a bit, slathering it in noisy...
View ArticleClik here to view.
One Track Mind: Princess Reason, Always Pretty
Standout Track: No. 4, “Books and Dignity,” a break-up song in the “I’ve moved on” vein. “So I am not concerned/When you tell me to go to hell/ I fell for a different girl,” sings Jack Stansbury, the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Cassette Label Tricot Records Builds a Microscene in College Park
Jack Stansbury and his friends were looking for a likeminded creative community that didn’t seem to exist at their school, the University of Maryland at College Park. "We’d just sit around and be like,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Bleached on East Coast vs. West Coast, The Smell, and Doing Karaoke With Ty...
The album of your daydreams has just cruised in on the back of a motorcycle, straight from the City of Angels. Ride Your Heart, the 12-song debut album from L.A. band Bleached, is a hair-in-the-wind...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Johnny Marr: “I Wasn’t Harboring Some Desire to Have My Name Up In Lights”
Johnny Marr is someone you could spend all day talking with. He was The Smiths’ visionary guitarist and co-songwriter. He made three albums as Electronic with New Order singer-guitarist Bernard...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Tales From the Swift
As I learned Sunday night, a Taylor Swift concert is its own ecosystem with its own natural order. Bathed in blue light at a sold-out Verizon Center, the sweet-voiced, ginger-haired Ed Sheeran is...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Mountain Goats’ John Darnielle on Internet Addiction, Metal, and the...
Peter Hughes (left) and John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats Transcendental Youth is the latest album from The Mountain Goats, singer-songwriter John Darnielle’s primary outlet for stories of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
One Track Mind: Greenland, Evil Spring
Standout Track: No. 5, “Silver Spring.” Greenland likes to pay tribute to The Replacements, and here it looks to a hallmark of that band’s (and many others’) 1980s sound: the chorus effect, which...
View ArticleClik here to view.
One Track Mind: Technophobia, “Waltz Demise”
Standout Track: “Waltz Demise,” the first release from new three-piece synth-wave band Technophobia. The song channels a feeling of being lost in ink-black darkness. “Oh godhead/Can't you hear...
View ArticleClik here to view.
One Track Mind: The Beginner’s Mynd, “Hazy”
Standout Track: No. 1, “Hazy,” a psych-pop song that’s not as sunny as it seems. The track derives an upbeat sheen from its Lennonesque vocals, pleasant guitar jangle, and happy Farfisa organ tones,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
One Track Mind: Brenda, Aminals
Standout Track: No. 1, "Make a New Friend," a shambolic indie-rock number with a disco-driven beat. On it, singer and guitarist Dave Lesser, a 28-year-old Capitol Hill resident, complains about...
View ArticleClik here to view.
One Track Mind: Pleasure Curses, “PNKLKR”
Standout Track: No. 1, “PNKLKR” (“pink licker”), a cool synth-pop single built on a hand-clappy drum sample by Jugzy Jord, a.k.a. Jordan Gelling. The rest comes from Pleasure Curses’ main producers,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Scout Niblett on Her Make-Out Album Cover, Talking to Herself, and Snow White
Skim through the lyrics of Scout Niblett’s latest album, It’s Up to Emma, and the common threads are pretty easy to spot: anger, disappointment, desire. Something—or more accurately, someone—went...
View ArticleClik here to view.
One Track Mind: The Walking Sticks, Send the Night
Standout Track: No. 1, "Send the Night," a mildly funky pop tune crafted by the Silver Spring twins Max and Spencer Ernst, 23, and McLean vocalist Chelsea Lee, 22. A synthesized flute opens the track...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Superchunk’s Mac McCaughan on D.C.’s Old Days, Yo La Tengo, and Aging Out of...
After a nine-year hiatus, indie-rock ensemble Superchunk jolted back to life in 2010 with what might have been its strongest album yet, Majesty Shredding. On that punchy, tightly wound record,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Wayne Coyne on the Flaming Lips’ New Album, Their Super Bowl Commercial, and...
As a teenager, I considered Oklahoma City’s alternative-rock weirdos the Flaming Lips to be my go-to “happy” music. Thoughts of frontman Wayne Coyne’s endearingly off, high-pitched voice and the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
One Track Mind: Big Hush, “Winner”
Standout Track: “Winner,” a sweetly fuzzed-out rocker from D.C. five-piece Big Hush. A My Bloody Valentine melody shines through the track’s big washes of distorted guitar, and its hiss-shrouded vocal...
View Article