This Is The Kit - “Waterproof” Lucy woke up thinking of Tom. She hadn't thought of him in six months, seven; but her eyes opened on the pillow and she thought of him in Victoria, at the very end of the world, in a flat filled with plants. She rubbed her eyes; she showered; she pulled into clothes and went downstairs. At the mailbox, her key went in with a faint ding, like a bell, a bell and a mechanism, and when she opened the hatch there was just one envelope there, hatched in red and blue. The return address said, T.W. / VICTORIA.

And as Lucy stood with one hand on the envelope, and one on the key in its keyhole, her body twisted to look out out the front door at the gathering cloud, she had the quiet intuition that fate is not always benevolent, that it is not always good, that it is sometimes sinister. She did not know what was inside this letter, and her heart shivered, and she was not certain that this coincidence was kind.

[very smitten with this song / buy Wriggle Out The Restless from Bristol's Dreamboat Records]

Continue reading at Said the Gramophone →

Eye Weekly lists five things you need to know about Marnie Stern.

1. She is a guitar goddess. For those of you unfamiliar with the axe-slinging virtuoso, she has been making jaws drop in her native Brooklyn, and, consequently, the rest of the indie world, since the release of her ferocious debut, 2007’s In Advance of the Broken Arm. With her charming, unmistakably nasal voice (she recently did a stint interviewing SXSW bands for MTV, asking members of Ra Ra Riot if she sounded like "The Nanny") and finger-tapping guitar playing — a technique generally associated with goons like Eddie Van Halen — her talents are not pretentious gimmicks, but rather a truly original form of expression.

The Austin American-Statesman profiles former Guided By Voices guitarist Doug Gillard.

Cleveland Scene Weekly interviews !!!'s Nic Offer.

The Telegraph profiles singer-songwriter Duffy.

Click Track lists four classic rock records that could stand an in-concert revival.

Liz Phair talks to the North County Times.

The A.V. Club interviews Robert Plant.

The Scotsman interviews Mavis Staples about her new Jeff Tweedy-produced album, You Are Not Alone.

Best Coast visits The Current studio for an interview and live performance.

Rolling Stone interviews President Obama about the music on his iPod (and other things).

No Age – “Fever Dreaming” From their new one, Everything In Between, coming 9/28 from Sub Pop.

Stornoway - “I Saw You Blink” I reckon this would be a pretty good song at least a few different ways, as it is pretty well-constructed and has some very appealing hooks. Nevertheless, the arrangement here is just about perfect in the way it is constantly shifting and adding new sounds without calling much attention to them, or having too much sound get cluttered in the mix. It’s highly dynamic yet subtle, and the result is an easygoing yet brisk piece of autumnal indie-pop. They really get the most out of this pleasant melody, and put the emphasis in all the right places, hitting the emotional marks without over- or understating anything. The arrangement of this song is credited to the full band, and you can tell — this is clearly the product of thoughtful, clever musicians working together as a unit rather than just a bunch of players doing their parts and calling it a day.

Buy it from Amazon.