In the quiet dust of the backyard, a girl, 11, comes crying up to her brother, 8.
“I'm running away. You can come if you want.” She storms off, her sandals kicking up dust and her hair coming out of its ponytail. He rises quickly and follows her.
“What? You're doing what?”
“I'm running away.”
“Where?”
“I don't care. I'll take East Road until it leads somewhere. Anywhere is better than here.”
Thrushes - “Crystals” There are a lot of songs about being rejected by someone that you adore who would rather be with some other person, and to some extent, Thrushes nod in the general direction of a bunch of them, keenly aware that they are treading on familiar territory. “Crystals” is a real gut puncher. It’s sweetly romantic and eager to please; it’s like a sad puppy face getting stared down by indifferent eyes. Anna Conner sounds wounded but not quite defeated, there’s still a lot of hope in her voice. The thing that really breaks my heart, though, is how she keeps singing “Who will I find to talk to? … I wish it was you.” It doesn’t sound like she’s asking for a lot, but she’s still being denied. So much loneliness, so much frustration, so much love to give. Happy Valentine’s Day, everybody.
Buy it from Thrushes.
The Pipettes – “Our Love Was Saved By Spacemen”
New album, Earth Vs. Pipettes, is due later this year on Fortuna Pop
The Boston Globe profiles the Antlers.
But you can’t blame fans for feeling close enough to the heartbroken narrator of the band’s breakout record, "Hospice," to ask for details. The lo-fi concept album, centered on a terminally ill patient and her caregiver, is intimate and haunting. The 10 tracks deal with loss, death, guilt, and even Sylvia Plath (“Sylvia, get your head out of the oven / Go back to screaming and cursing, remind me again how everyone betrayed you.’’) The stuff of nightmares, really.
Spoon's ascent owes a lot to the slow growth of indie rock in the 1990s, before the online world made music easier both to distribute and to dismiss. "You had a lot more time to develop sort of unnoticed," Weiss says. "It wasn't like you were shoved into the spotlight immediately. Your ideas could simmer, and you could bounce your ideas off the other bands that were in your scene before everyone else knew about it."
Singer-songwriter Gil Scott-Heron talks to the Guardian about his new album, I'm New Here.
JamBase interviews John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats.
Who do you credit with originally inspiring you to create music and lyrical poetry?My own path into writing songs comes directly through literature. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a capital-A author, and I wrote short stories on an old Royal typewriter all the time. That was how I spent pretty much every summer night when I was 12 and 13 years old, sitting at my desk in front of the typewriter writing stories and then sending them off to science fiction and fantasy magazines; getting rejection slips but feeling like I was getting somewhere.
Patterson Hood talks to the Raleigh News & Observer about the forthcoming Drive-By Truckers album, The Big To-Do.
Slate interviews Marisa Meltzer about her book, Girl Power: The Nineties Revolution in Music.
Drowned in Sound interviews Alan Sparhawk of Low and Retribution Gospel Choir.
Tiny Mix Tapes has finished counting down its albums of the decade.
Las Vegas Weekly lists three music websites you really should be frequenting.
SXSW is streaming tracks from 2010 featured artists via a Shoutcast music stream.
The XX have won the Guardian's First Album award for their 2009 self-titled release.
Sightings – City Of Straw
Out 4/13 on Brah/Jagjaguwar
Pattern Is Movement – “Light Of The World” From the band’s new EP, a tour-only affair made specially for their upcoming jaunt with Via Audio. Get all the dates here on the PIM Tumblr.
Japandroids – “Art Czars” From a forthcoming 7-inch, the first in a 5-part series the band intends to release. Each release will feature a new track backed by a cover-song on the flip (this first one’s b-side is a cover of Big Black’s “Racer X”). The “Art Czars” 7-inch is out 4/13, but you can pre-order now from the Polyvinyl Store.
