Music
In Conversation
Echoes of a Bygone 'Burg: TV on the Radio's Tunde Adebimpe and Gerard Smith with Theodore Hamm
"You always have this weird thing in the back of your head when you start sculpting something; you want it to flow at least as well as this thing you've read," says TVOTR's Tunde Adebimpe.
Lightspeed Champion Between Conan O'Brien and the Sidewalk Café
By Kate Crane“Whatever you do, don’t ask him about the hat,” she says. I’ve just met Jen, 22, and her husband Luke, 27, as we’re waiting for June’s Lightspeed Champion show to start at Maxwell’s in Hoboken. When I tell them I’ll be interviewing the band’s driving force, Dev Hynes, in a couple of days, Jen raises her eyebrows.
Liberating Sound Floating Points Plays ISSUE Project Room
By Alan LockwoodThe curators at ISSUE Project Room, a linchpin in New York City’s experimental music scene, are hard at work on numerous fronts.
The Deep Strangenesses of the Fiery Furnaces
By Kurt GottschalkSaying the album is over is so over—these days, it’s the song itself that’s played out. Artists used to present two twenty-minute arcs, one per side; with the CD, they were responsible for an uninterrupted hour. But the move in the market from the album to individual song downloads killed all that off, and now a song won’t pass muster unless it will fit in a thirty-second ad spot: Witness Royksopp’s “Remind Me,” a Geico commercial hit.
A Bale with a View Johnny Flynn
By Meghan RoeFans of the young and folksy contingent in music—which seems to be growing in numbers, like so many rolls of hay from a baler—will be content to fall asleep under a stack, sans horn, with the full-length debut from U.K. artist Johnny Flynn. Released in the U.S. in late July, A Larum is the latest from a community of music-makers from across the pond cutting albums in the British folk style
Outtakes
By Steve DalachinskyTwo special treats—not music in themselves, but with great musical content—were the Nakadai film festival, which featured soundtracks by such greats as Toru Takemitsu, and Celebrate Brooklyn’s outdoor screening of Godfrey Reggio’s Powaqqatsi: Life in Transformation. The latter featured live accompaniment by the Philip Glass Ensemble along with the Brooklyn Youth Chorus.
Brought to You by the Letter G
By Grant MoserThe Walkmen: You & Me (Gigantic) The Walkmen have come a long way since their first album more than six years ago, and it’s been two years since their last effort—but You & Me was worth the wait. While their tunes still have that feeling of off-kilter carnival music, this time around they’re playing with a new confidence.
Miami's Godfather of Noise
By Patrick GreeneLast December I got my buddy Rat and his girlfriend Veronica comps for the Deerhoof show in Miami. They brought Steve Mackay, the sax player from the Stooges, with them.
In Conversation
Famoro Dioubate with Aaron Lake Smith
By Aaron Lake SmithFamoro Dioubate is a Guinean balafonist descended from an 800-year-old lineage of West African griot, stretching back to the Malian king Sundiata Keita. The balafon is one of the oldest griot instruments, the African predecessor to what we refer to as the xylophone.
