Music

Explosions in the Sky doing the soundtrack to a jock flick? Makes about as much sense as Korn scoring a Merchant-Ivory film. And yet the ethereal Austin-based ensemble contributes the majority of the aural backdrop to Billy Bob Thornton’s new football fable, Friday Night Lights. Like Explosions’ earlier work, these…

If the name of the label releasing Federation’s debut rings a bell for Denverites, it should. The moniker was chosen by Big Jon Platt, a local-hero-turned-industry-powerhouse who heads the imprint, to honor the metro-area neighborhood where he came of age. The local connections end there, but the disc remains notable…

These days, the term “hip-hop” is used much more frequently than “rap,” and that’s appropriate. Old-schoolers may wish otherwise, but in 2004, the genre is less about words than production. This simple fact makes it more difficult than ever for local artists who don’t have access to enormous recording budgets…

Though it’s often prone to sounding like a malfunctioning Hoover, minimalist music is not made in a vacuum. In fact, when it comes to the tweaking of stark tonal palettes and pure silence, context is everything; each time and place has its own ambient default, a given and unconsciously realized…

I’m a Nancy boy. While everybody’s afraid of something, the things that scare the shit out of me are laughable — perhaps not as grin-inducing as a friend’s irrational fear of midgets, but amusing nonetheless. You want to know what freaks me out more than anything? (Besides being subjected to…

Vinyl has booked some of the planet’s best-known spinners of late, but few are more noteworthy than Sander Kleinenberg. Over the past several years, this Dutch treat (he’s from Holland) has earned plenty of acclaim — and prompted lots of tail-shaking — for the sort of dance-floor versatility on display…

None of the typical jam-band cliches — patchouli, spinning dancers, aimless soloing — really applies to Garaj Mahal. Yet the act often gets unfairly lumped into that unsavory bucket. Far from aimless, this improvisational quartet kicks out bad-ass, well-structured grooves and blazing, coherent solos that mine the fertile territory in…

This Scottish quartet has always had a problem getting its due in the States. Although the Delgados’ members collectively founded the Chemikal Underground label, which launched the careers of Arab Strap, Bis and Mogwai, the group has lurked in the shadows of its better-known neighbors for most of the last…

While it’s tempting to blame the entire Lone Star State for the coldhearted, gold-digging idiot in the White House right now, not all of its citizens voted for him. Even Crawford, Dubya’s supposed home town, recently screened Michael Moore’s Bush-bashing Fahrenheit 9/11. D:Fuse, hands down the most well-known DJ in…

Allegedly, teachers teach because they can’t do. Damien Jurado, though, shouldn’t have any worries: Although he leads sing-alongs as a preschool teacher in suburban Seattle, it hasn’t inhibited his ability to craft and perform his mordantly clever, darkly catchy songs. After forming the Christian pop-punk band Coolidge with Pedro the…

Fat Possum Records, based in Oxford, Mississippi, originally devoted itself to the marketing of blues at its roughest — music much truer to the spirit of the genre than the slick, tidied-up stuff being peddled by too many so-called roots companies. More recently, the folks behind the firm began applying…

So what if Megadeth figurehead Dave Mustaine vowed “I’m not going to tour again” during an interview last year with Guitar World magazine? So what if he quit the band after a 2002 arm injury left him unable to play the guitar? Mustaine’s back, and given recent debates and the…

There’s probably enough hair between the members of Throcult to braid Lucifer a sick pair of suspenders — assuming that Ol’ Horny ever bothers to wear pants. For the rest of demonkind, however, the Halloween season presents a fashionable opportunity (with or without trousers) to take a walk on the…

White Girl Lust is what happens when rock music meets DJ culture. DJs Eric Kozak and Clay Meador have brought guitars back to the dance floor, creating custom set lists with innovative tools like Logic and Final Scratch. Rather than simply play song after song like other rock jocks, the…

I realize it now: I am one nervous interviewing dude. That’s the reason I’m a songwriter and a record producer, not a journalist. Not only do I detest deadlines — I’ve never handed in a project on time –but I’m really more interested in made-up stories than real ones. Also,…

I wouldn’t consider us a throwback, but I also wouldn’t say we’re reinventing the wheel of rock and roll,” says Ronnie Vannucci, drummer for the Killers. “We’re taking the best parts of the music we were influenced by, putting them in our songs and making them our own.” The Killers…

I’ve always wanted to be George Lucas,” admits Coheed and Cambria’s Claudio Sanchez. “But I’m not really. I just want to rock.” Coheed and Cambria, however, is closer to inspiring a Star Wars-like fanaticism than Sanchez may think. A Google search for “Coheed and Cambria,” for instance, yields 181,000 results,…

Not to get too gossipy or anything, but did you hear about the Apples in Stereo? After years of marriage, drummer Hilarie Sidney and guitarist Robert Schneider have broken up. Which would be nothing but old dirty laundry, except for the interesting fact that Schneider and Sidney have just released…

The other Elvis has long displayed a weakness for genre exercises, and while some of his dabblings have worked (most notably the pseudo-R&B of 1980’s Get Happy!!), the majority have felt awfully self-conscious. Almost Blue, a weak 1981 tribute to country music recently reissued by Rhino, is a case in…

You say the Melvins aren’t heavy enough? Metallica’s ’80s output doesn’t give you a sufficient blood-pressure spike? Fear not: Atlanta’s Mastodon concocts an extreme, fist-to-the-face metallic alloy that’s sure to satisfy. Less than a minute into Leviathan, the quartet’s second album, Brann Dailor’s hyperkinetic drums, Troy Sanders’s stool-softening bass, and…

Shortly after releasing Double Up in 1999, Mase left hip-hop while at the top of his game to get his life right with God. Five years later, he’s back, and not much has changed — well, except for the fact that he’s noticeably cleaned up his act. In the past,…