2015 was a great year for music, and 2016 might be even better.
Bon Iver
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Lip service
Brad Gregg Oklahoma City’s band is back with a double-vinyl release, The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends, which features collaborations with Ke$ha, Biz Markie, Nick Cave, Bon Iver, Erykah Badu, Yoko Ono, Neon Indian, Tame Impala, Coldplay’s Chris Martin and My Morning Jacket’s Jim James. Tracks include “Superman Made Me Want to Pee,” “Helping the […]
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Poliça — Give You the Ghost
Winning an NFL Championship (last season) and a couple Grammys (for Bon Iver) probably has a lot of those folks high on life, which could possibly also explain why they’re so unafraid to strike out in weird sonic directions. Enter Channy Leaneagh (formerly Casselle). Previously fronting Minneapolis folk ensemble Roma di Luna, her new vehicle, […]
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M83 — Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming
And not just in indie. Released this week, Coldplay’s “Mylo Xyloto” (also see Florence + The Machine, Lady Gaga) is the group’s biggest, brightest, largest-swelling album yet, just as optimistic in tone as its lyrics are complimentary and superficial. Meanwhile, once the biggest, loudest, hardest chest-beaters of the indie-rock scene (just watch them playing “Wake […]
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St. Vincent — Strange Mercy
No longer girlish in her vocal performance, Annie Clark grips a “horsehair whip” brought to life by her sinister voice that’s simultaneously desperate for intimacy and confident expressing it. The line “no kisses, no real names” makes it pretty clear that she’s playing the dominatrix here. All that’s missing is a black mask on the […]
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Name value
Band-to-band comparisons are a necessary evil in the universe of emerging acts. However, media outlets like NPR and Interview take a little of the sting out by making comparisons to Radiohead, Arcade Fire and Bon Iver. “From a musician’s standpoint, you want to be your own thing and not necessarily compared to anyone,” said Kyle […]
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Collections of Colonies of Bees — GIVING
How’s that, you figure? Well, COCOB’s taken instrumental post-rock where it needs to go by completely eliminating all the typical boring moments from their formula. “Giving” is a short album that’s constantly barreling forward and never stalled out by a single breakdown or pause, ethereal jam session, or instrumental solo. Even when the guitars, so […]
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Chris Bathgate — Salt Year
It’s a mellowing experience, one that makes a sleepy day seem bearable. The folky tunes don’t have an underlying layer of misery that marks Bon Iver’s output, and that’s all the better for just watching life go by on a lazy afternoon. If you’re lazy, you can just put “No Silver” on repeat and drift […]