Holy Fuck @ Rhythm Room

Affixing a tidy genre label to most music these days isn’t a daunting task. In fact, it’s almost like bands want to fit into a certain genre, for marketing ease, lest their eager fans be left in the dark. Toronto’s Holy Fuck have become adept at actively avoiding easy classification…

Sufjan Stevens: The Age of Adz

As always, with such a creative leap forward, Adz is not without its controversy. But an album like Adz is what keeps both critics and the public on their toes, forcing them to shift their mindset to adjust to Stevens’ new work.What the rest of the critics are saying:…

Ten Songs That Make Me Hate Music

​We all have those select few songs we can’t stand. Songs that, when they come on your car stereo, make you seriously consider jerking the car into a ditch just to make the pain stop. Songs that a wily FBI profiler could blast at us to stop a hostage situation.Not…

Caribou at The Clubhouse Last Night

CaribouClubhouse Music VenueOctober 9, 2010Canadian electronic act Caribou is essentially only one person, Dan Snaith. At least in the studio. When Snaith, who I was lucky enough to interview for this week’s print edition hits the road, however, he is joined by bandmates.The question is what they do. How do…

Mr. Miranda & Jimmy Nelson: The J & D Experience EP

TItle: The J & D Experience EPBasics: More YAFI hip hop? I could get used to this. This EP was passed along to me by resident PHX hip-hop expert Mike Meyer, so I knew I was in for something decent — if not actually good. Well, you know what? Miranda…

Caribou’s Dance-y New Sound Is a Risk

For Dan Snaith, the mastermind behind Canadian electronic outfit Caribou, 2010 has been a busy year, starting with the release of his critically acclaimed album Swim in April and a subsequent spring tour. Never one to slow down, Snaith has embarked on yet another tour to promote Swim. His massive…

Swans: My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky

It is rather easy to see Swans are not dead with My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky. The album opens up with a nine-minute opus “No Words/No Thoughts,” that creates an atmosphere that feels like Gira and co. never really took those 14 years off…

Early Listening: Kings of Leon – Come Around Sundown UPDATE

There is perhaps no band as celebrated as they are reviled these days than Tennessee rockers Kings Of Leon. Always the lightning rod of controversy, Kings Of Leon broke new ground with their commercially viable 2008 release Only By The Night. That album brought the band a Grammy for the…

Deerhunter: Halcyon Digest

Theirs is a complex aural equation, one that bursts through with genuine moments of genius mixed with just quite too dense to comprehend instrumentation. Whatever your take may be, Halcyon Digest is the band’s crowning achievement — which is, by the way, saying something for a band like Deerhunter –…

Album Stream: Sufjan Stevens – The Age of Adz

Perhaps noticing that the album hit the internet or perhaps having already planning to do so, NPR has given Adz their First Listen treatment, offering to stream the album in its entirety — I personally suggest giving the 8-minute “Age of Adz” a listen first.Those fans of Stevens who pre-ordered the…

Knox: From the Ashes

Title: From the AshesBasics: Let’s see — I’ve been doing YAFI for a while now, eight months to be exact. From the Ashes, the latest album from former Brew Crew member Knox, is the first hip hop album I have received. Thank god I got Knox’s album first, too, because…

John Legend and the Roots: Wake Up!

So why not combine forces, dust off some older, more obscure R&B classics and introduce them to newer generations, as well as some older generations that weren’t privy to the songs when they were first released? Such is the case for Wake Up!, twelve songs that combine Legend’s remarkable vocals…

Moovayla: First Degree

Artist: MoovalyaTitle: First Degree, a five song EPBasics: Hey now, some goofy pop punk! That’s more like it! Billing themselves as a “melodic punk band from Phoenix, AZ,” Moovalya plays pretty run-of-the-mill rock music with an edge that was last seen wandering the streets of Anaheim in the year 2000.A…

The 10 Best Spoken Word Intros

​As I perused Sirius/XM 90’s on 9 the other day, I was greeted with an intriguing song from a particular Canadian, alternative rock/pop one-hit wonder.This song included an intro featuring a conversation between two fellows that, while intriguing, was pretty pointless. But it got me thinking — what are some…

Chromeo: Business Casual

I digress — today marks the third album from Quebecois dance/funk duo Chromeo, Business Casual. The hotly anticipated third offering finds the gang working with a new producer, Philippe Zdar — one half of Cassius and the producer behind Phoenix’s commercially (literally) bankable Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix. What do the guys do…