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In a hostile sea of disposable, throwaway singles, BEN HARPER AND RELENTLESS7 have made a true album. White Lies For Dark Times is a timeless rock record, with a cohesive collection of music that is as raw, unrelenting and thunderous, as it is arrestingly haunting and emotional. On the raucous opening track, "Number With No Name," Harper bellows "the very thing that drives you -- can drive you insane" over an infectious guitar line and a deftly serious groove that both thumps and propels the listener.
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She grew up listening to '70s soul and '80s hip-hop, but Erykah Badu drew more comparisons to Billie Holiday upon her breakout in 1997, after the release of her first album, Baduizm. The grooves and production on the album are bass-heavy R&B, but Badu's langurous, occasionally tortured vocals and delicate phrasing immediately removed her from the legion of cookie-cutter female R&B singers.
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In the brutally cold world of Big Rock Biz, there's something very comforting about just knowing that a band like L.A.'s Silversun Pickups exists. That feeling derives from the group's searingly sumptuous music, sure, but it has a lot to do with knowing their rather humble origins and super-admirable raison d'etre.
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The first time I heard "Boots of Spanish Leather," it was as if all of the oxygen had been drained from the room, suddenly replaced with the wavering golden longing of this one song. Only it wasn't Dylan singing, it was my 14 year-old brother Robin, belting out these heart-worn lyrics as the afternoon spring sunlight streamed through rain-stained windows, illuminating a thousand dust flecks in my cluttered college apartment.
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Combining elements of punk, gypsy music, and Brecht-ian cabaret, Gogol Bordello tells the story of New York's immigrant diaspora through debauchery, humor, and surreal costumes. Leader and singer Eugene Hutz's taste in music was spun out of black market tapes of the Birthday Party and Einsturzande Neubauten in his native Ukraine.
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As a solo project comprised of a revolving door of members, the heart and face of Santigold is vivacious frontwoman Santi White. Paired with John Hill, her former counterpart from ska-punk band Stiffed, the two use their common backgrounds as production-savvy musicians to make bombastic, bass-oriented songs that fuse punk, reggae, grime, and indie rock with electro.
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Grizzly Bear released Yellow House in 2006. It was a slow, steady and stunning ride, and given the album's otherworldly charm and staying power, it's hard to believe three years have gone by.
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These four sensitive gentlemen of instrumental rock describe their band as a close but dysfunctional family who have been financially unstable. Austin, Texas has been their home base for several years, allowing them to become allies with bands such as the very beautiful American Analog Set, the completely awe inspiring Lift To Experience, and the sonically destructive And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead.
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For Gregg Gillis, the Girl Talk project has always been about embracing pop music. On his fourth album, Feed The Animals, Girl Talk celebrates pop to the extreme and continues his sonic evolution towards his party-infested live shows.
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Furr is the fourth record by Portland sextet Blitzen Trapper and the follow-up to last year's highly acclaimed Wild Mountain Nation. Written in the gaps of the group's frenetic touring schedule and recorded mostly in a hoary old telegraph building close by the Willamette River, the new record refines and expands on the far-ranging yet distinctive songcraft that lies at the heart of Blitzen Trapper's unique appeal.
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Consider The Knux, and their genius, genre-bending debut, Remind Me In 3 Days..., the sledge hammer that's going to save the music.
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Dissatisfied with the state of the music scene in their hometown of Tel Aviv, the Israeli trio Monotonix formed in November of 2005 with the mission of redefining the rock show. The band, consisting of singer Ami Shalev, guitarist Yonatan Gat, and drummer Haggai Fershtman, channel riff heavy influences Led Zeppelin, the Sonics, and Thin Lizzy to create raw, driving rock & roll. Shortly after forming, they would accomplish their mission in Tel Aviv, defying the expectations of what a rock show should be there.
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Bishop Allen is an American indie rock band based in Brooklyn, New York, composed of drummer Jack Delamitraux, guitarist Justin Rice, and guitarist Christian Rudder. Vocal duties are shared among the band's members. Bishop Allen, formed by Rudder and Rice who met while attending Harvard University, grew out of the pair's more humerous punk venture The Pissed Officers. During the spring of 2003 the pair recorded all of the instrumentation for their debut album, Charm School.
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A notoriously enigmatic band hailing from Pennsylvania, Black Moth Super Rainbow made waves on the indie circuit in the early 2000s with their brand of otherworldly, psychedelic indie pop. The project began in Pittsburgh in 2002, and expanded to include five members (Tobacco, the Seven Fields of Aphelion, Power Pill Fist, Iffernaut, and Father Hummingbird) in the following year.
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Beach House, Alex Scally and Victoria Legrand, have been playing music forever, each since childhood in Baltimore, Philadelphia, and France . Beach House formed in the summer, it was very late at night and there was a lot of heat. Their songs start simple and grow organically like tiny skeletons that multiply layers of necessary flesh.
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The DUTCHESS and the DUKE: Kimberly Morrison and Jesse Lortz. Two kids hanging out together, growing up together, having fun together. Two kids pissed off at each other, picking on each other, blaming each other, calling each other's bullshit. Two kids playing in all sorts of bands for years. Sometimes together, many times apart. Through all the years they've known each other, however unforeseen, however ridiculous, the result has always been inevitable.
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Ben Curtis fled Secret Machines in 2007 to focus on School of Seven Bells, an electronics-enhanced dream pop group formed with twin sister vocalists Claudia and Alejandra Deheza (also of On!Air!Library!). They debuted in 2007 on Sonic Cathedral with the 7" recording My Cabal, which featured a remix on the B-side from Robin Guthrie -- Guthrie's Cocteau Twins, as well as several of the artists the Cocteaus inspired, from My Bloody Valentine to Medicine, being apparent touchstones.
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The Portland, OR, folk duo Horse Feathers consist of singer/songwriter Justin Ringle (acoustic guitar, vocals, percussion) and multi-instrumentalist Peter Broderick (violin, banjo, mandolin, cello, viola, piano, saw, percussion, vocals). Ringle grew up in Idaho and played in several short-lived indie rock bands during his teenage years, but moved to Portland in 2004, where he met Broderick, who was already a member of the more established Portland band Norfolk & Western.
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For all there is to be said about the power of the present in the endlessly cannibalizing tradition of pop music, it's often the uncanny intangibility of timelessness that so separates the wheat from the chaff - a music aware of both the past and present, and yet discernibly apart from either moment in time. It is a tightrope tread by many, and often with perilous consequence. And yet, in the most literal sense of the word, timelessness is the very currency Seattle's The Pica Beats make their stock in trade: that is, a sound both of and apart from our time.
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Loch Lomond stuns. Effortlessly combining symphonic chamber pop with the most raw, visceral and expert melodic acrobatics, the co-ed sextet employs the distinct use of harmonic vocals, mandolin, theremin, bass clarinet, and all manner of exclamatory percussion minutia to foil the even more distinct and arresting voice of lead singer/multi-instrumentalist Ritchie Young.
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Based in the college town of Stillwater, Oklahoma, the band – Jesse Tabish (lead vocals, piano, guitar, harmonium, organ, vibes, electric harpsichord), Josh Onstott (bass, melotron, backing vocals), Jonathon Mooney (piano, violin, organ, vibes, electric harpsichord), Jenny Hsu (cello, backing vocals) and Colby Owens (drums, lap steel) – has been playing music together for the past five years in various incarnations. They began as an avant-garde instrumental group, then added vocals and eventually evolved into Other Lives.
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Amanda Blank is a flamboyant dirty rapper from Philadelphia who is closely associated with Spank Rock and who has ties to the Baltimore club scene. Born Amanda Mallory, she began to establish herself nationally in 2006 with a guest feature on "Bump," a song from Spank Rock's acclaimed album YoYoYoYoYo (2006).
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Natasha Leggero is originally from Rockford IL, but has traveled the world enough to mask this unfortunate fact. After graduating from Hunter College in New York City and studying at the Stella Adler Conservatory, she moved to Los Angeles and started doing stand-up comedy. For the past five years, Natasha has performed stand-up all over the country and abroad. Her TV stand-up performances include appearances on “The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson,” Comedy Central's “Premium Blend,” “The Comedy Factory” on Dutch television and “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.”
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“Bizarre, edgy, and hilarious,” and “funnier than Saturday Night Live,” according to Entertainment Weekly, The Whitest Kids U’ Know’s sardonic, salty humor cracks on politics, gender, race and sex and pushes sketch comedy to a whole new level of depraved genius.
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The Peoples Republic of Komedy (PROK), a tight-knit group of like-minded Seattle comedians, has been creating a stir in the local arts scene with their wildly popular "Laff Hole" show every Wednesday night. Combining edgy comedy with some of the hottest young bands in Seattle, "Laff Hole" has created the kind of buzz that Seattle hasn't seen since the grunge boom of the early 1990's.
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Tobacco sometimes runs with a group called Black Moth Super Rainbow. On
Fucked Up Friends, his latest mission, he works alone. Tobacco's tools are
analog synths, tape machines, and deformed incantations from throats
unknown. His music is a wash of distortion and melody over jagged beats. It
amalgamates hypnotic, cosmopolitan pop, gritty, propulsive hip-hop and a
night full of fevered dreams.
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Chromeo will be performing a DJ Set. Crossing the Gaza Strip of Sexxx Jams Chromeo is Pee Thug and Dave 1: best friends since their Montreal adolescence, virtuoso musicians, walking hip hop encyclopedias, and the only successful Arab/Jew partnership since the dawn of human culture.
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Gideon and Jeremiah first met at Christ Our Leader College when they were paired as freshman roommates. Through a shared love of music, non-contact athletics and different cultures, they became fast friends and spent four close years together. Though school was important to them, they spent most of their time strummin' and singin'.
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Deerhoof is a San Francisco musical group, currently consisting of Satomi Matsuzaki (usually vocals and bass), John Dieterich (usually guitar), Ed Rodriguez (usually guitar as well) and Greg Saunier (usually drums). Although typically classified as an indie rock band, due to their having been on an indie rock label (Kill Rock Stars) for the entirety of their career, the mercurial and unconventional nature of Deerhoof's music makes genre identification difficult, and perhaps inappropriate.
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BLK JKS defy description. With a wrecking crew rhythm section, debonair vocals, and guitar concoction of one part shred and two parts soul, BLK JKS shoot an African music sensibility through the tenets of rock. On one hand it is easy to politicize BLK JKS; as seen on the cover of Fader, here is a band that is instantly young, black and fly even as they reclaim styles that have been stolen, watered down, and regurgitated for generations. And yet to get caught up in anything but their sound is to sell this phenomenon short, because as musicians--as artists--BLK JKS simply cook.
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Fat Possum Records is excited to announce that the Heartless Bastards are
set to release their third record on February 3rd, 2009. The record is called
The Mountain and was produced by Mike McCarthy (Spoon, Trail of Dead,
Patty Griffin). The Mountain delivers the swamped-up rock howl that fans
have come to love from the critically acclaimed Heartless Bastards, but it also
weaves in an adventurous sonic evolution, expanding their three-piece rock
palate by adding pedal steel, mandolin, banjo and strings, all in support of
Erika Wennerstrom's transcendent voice that Rolling Stone once described as
"channeling all the swagger and spit of a young Robert Plant."
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