The Village Voice profiles Frankie Rose and the Outs.

The record is Rose's latest step in her pursuit of perfectly washed-out dream pop; her Dum Dum departure wouldn't be terribly notable if this weren't the third fast-rising band she has ditched in as many years. The others are Vivian Girls, who Rose co-founded in 2006, and Crystal Stilts, who she joined in 2007, both popular indie-pop outfits that made her a venerable fixture on the fuzzed-out circuit. "But now I'm known for quitting bands," she says, head in hands, at the kitchen table in her South Williamsburg loft. "So many people have asked me, 'Why would you leave a popular band? They're doing amazing stuff. They're going to tour and see the world.' But I just had to do my thing." She also points out that the bands she's played in are merely Pitchfork-famous, and don't make much money—at least not yet.

The Local profiles Brooklyn indie record label Ba Da Bing Records.

NME reports that Morrissey has called Hannah Scanlon of Doll & The Kicks the "best British singer in years."

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution interviews Nick Hornby about his musical collaboration with Ben Folds, Lonely Avenue.

The Vine interviews Low's Alan Sparhawk about the band being covered on Robert Plant's latest album.

The Quietus interviews Sufjan Stevens about his new album, The Age of Adz.

Fact lists the worst band names of the year so far.

Ra Ra Riot visits The Current studio for an interview and live performance.

NPR is streaming last night's Deerhunter Washington performance.

The Guardian music section this week is being taken over by Antony and the Johnsons coverage.

Phil Wilson – “I Own It”

Valerie PhillipsWhen Why You Runnin’, the debut EP from Rock Island, Illinois native Elisabeth Maurus – aka Lissie – was released late last year, she was heralded as a bright new voice of the alt.country scene and indeed, her emotive voice and songwriting had the right balance of twang and rasp that she could well have become the next big crossover act for the genre. The problem with this was that in many ways, alt.country has become as rigid and codified a style as the Nashville scene that it was initially a reaction to in the late ’80s, and for an ambitious new artist, may not be a pigeonhole they want to get stuck in before they’ve even gotten their careers started.

That’s my speculation about why Lissie’s debut album Catching A Tiger is what it is, and that’s a big, genre-hopping record that pops and rocks as much as it twangs. It might have caught some off-guard, but really shouldn’t have – after all, its release was preceded by a series of viral videos that featured Lissie covering decidedly non-country acts like Lady Gaga, Kid Cudi and Metallica. There was definitely an aspect of calculated marketing to these selections, but that took a back seat to the fact that Lissie did a great job of making them her own, and that sentiment largely covers Catching A Tiger as well.

MP3: Lissie – “Little Lovin’”
MP3: Lissie – “Everywhere I Go”
Video: Lissie – “When I’m Alone”

American Songwriter, Washington City Paper and The Cornell Sun talk to Sharon Van Etten.

Spinner talks to Chris Chu of The Morning Benders about their high-profile support slots this year.

My Morning Jacket bassist Tom Blankenship tells Spin that their next album, currently in production, will be a return to the reverb-drenched atmospheric rock of their early records.

The Chicago Tribune talks to Guided By Voices’ Tobin Sprout about how the current reunion came together and where it might go from here.

Pitchfork takes the recent GQ interview with Steve Albini as a launching pad for contemplating the long-term effects of Sonic Youth’s major label tenure on the indie world.

CMJ reports that when Iron & Wine’s new record Kiss Yourself Clean comes out next January, it will be on a major label – they’ve signed to Warner Bros in North America. Their indie cred remains intact in the rest of the world, where they’ll be handled by 4AD.

Spinner interviews Warpaint, who have a new video for the first single from The Fool, out October 26.

Video: Warpaint – “Undertow”

Black Book interviews both Bjork and Antony Hegarty of Antony & The Johnsons, the latter of whom has a new record out in Swanlights. A video from said record was just released.

Video: Antony & The Johnsons – “The Spirit Is Gone”

Claudia Dehaza has left School Of Seven Bells for “personal reasons”. Ben Curtis and Alley Dehaza intend to carry on with the band, though without those sisterly harmonies it can’t help but be a wholly different beast.

Tjutjuna - “Mosquito Hawk”I shaved this morning, it was cold and the water was clear and it felt as if I had tidied up, the way you forget what mess felt like. I sipped grapefruit tea and dipped bread in yogurt, stretched into socks and clothes, and felt the fall air in my eyes. By the time I had rounded Hampstead, my beard had already started to grow. I tried to avoid the sun, put my back to the cultivating wind, tried to hide it from children and animals (innocent gaze) but nothing was working, my beard was in a mood. It grew in wild lines off my chin and cheeks and slid down my chest. By the time I got on the 37c express, my beard was at my knees, and I already had to hold it down to breathe...

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Drowned in Sound interviews singer-songwriter Sufjan Stevens.

DiS: I read an interview with Jonathan Franzen recently, someone who’s obviously also attracted to large-scale projects, and he said something about how after every time he's completed a novel he feels like he's completely forgotten how to even begin the process of writing the next one. Can you empathise with that at all?

SS: Well, after The BQE I felt a real lack of any grounding; I lost my bearings. And like I said I actually think that this record is a real response to all of that, and after this record I feel much better about embarking on something new. It’s allowing me to reconcile with starting over. But I understand that phenomenon – there's a kind of post-traumatic stress syndrome that happens after I make an album: it's like exhaling all the oxygen and all the life out of you, then feeling like there’s none left to breathe in. But I don't feel like that now – I feel much more optimistic right now.

offBeat interviews Local Natives' Matt Frazier about the band's songwriting.

Let’s talk about your collaborative approach to making music. Can you break it down and tell me how that works?

You have a lot of bands that have one or two main people who are the songwriters, and kind of like the lead. They’re like the masterminds behind the band. With us, it's very different. Everyone is very much an equal part of this band, and we all write together. Each song is kind of a different process. Some songs, maybe one or two people will originate and bring to the band. Another song, maybe all five of us work on it together. There are no boundaries. When it comes to writing, it’s a case-by-case basis. With it being so collaborative – and it's a very democratic, new process – things do tend to be a little more drawn out, a little more tedious, because instead of one person controlling it, it's five of us in a room, trying to come together on something. But I think the beauty of it for me is at the end of the day when the song is finished, or our work is finished, it's never something that just one of us could have produced. It's always something very different than what one person could have done.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune talks to local Guided By Voices fans about their love for the band.

SF Station interviews Surfer Blood's John Paul Pitts.

Now Austin interviews Mountain Goats frontman John Darnielle.

Drowned in Sound and the Wall Street Journal interview Trent Reznor about his soundtrack for The Social Network.

Unknown Mortal Orchestra signed to the venerable Flying Nun Records (which was recently bought back from Warner’s by founder Roger Shepherd)