Brooklyn’s Ratatat has beat-making down pat with their aptly titled sophomore record, Classics (XL). With more guitar parts than a Lynyrd Skynyrd reunion and enough samples to make Girl Talk blush, the duo, Evan Mast and Mike Stroud, create infectious, stadium-sized instrumentals that seamlessly bridge the barriers between electronica, rock…
With the deluge of product released both by the major and indie labels as well as the proliferation of the do-it-yourself aesthetic even among the slackers, there are bound to be a few gems left unfound, a handful of treasures left undiscovered, buried in the miscellaneous rack at the local…
A remastered reissue of an out-of-print underground hip-hop classic, Ruff Draft is the late, great J Dilla at a creative apex. It took him a week to turn the whole thing out, but that was more than enough time to unleash a maelstrom of lo-fi breakbeat jams that paid tribute…
Street Fame isn’t going to help Twisted Black convince anyone that his November conviction on drug-dealing charges was undeserved, as nearly every track refers to the pistol-packin’, lean-sippin’, double-crossin’ world of a Texas dope boy. But it should convince any doubters that the Fort Worth rapper deserves to trade in…
Mark E. Smith, the infamously scowling frontman for post-punk legends the Fall, is a literate, talented lout who simply cannot handle even a limited amount of success. Fall Heads Roll, last year’s surprisingly tight (and loud) collection found Smith taking a youthful bunch of scallywags and returning to past glories…
I hate the interview process, the whole thing,” says Ira Kaplan, guitarist and founder of Yo La Tengo, one of the most critically acclaimed and longest-lasting American indie bands. “But I’d be happy to talk about some movies I have seen.” Sounding more amused than annoyed, Kaplan, a former rock…
Paper Chase and Explosions in the Sky are two peas in an experimental pod. At least, that’s what it looked like at Monday night’s twin bill at the Granada Theater. In many ways, these two groups couldn’t be more different, but in others they mirror each other almost perfectly, though…
If you’re a regular reader of this section you’ve surely seen us sing the praises of Denton’s Current Leaves before. Unfortunately, last year’s Pastense is still essentially a limited CD-R release, a near criminal offense considering it might be the best platter of psychedelic country served up since the demise…
When vocalist/drummer Francis Mark moved from behind his drum kit to replace departing lead screamer Benjamin Perry, hopes were high that this Long Island quintet was going to delve further into the melodic side Mark brought to the band. The group’s latest effort, Holding a Wolf by the Ears, while…
For those hipsters out there who think Coldplay is too big to remain trendy, Guster might just be the band for you. Over the course of a decade, this Boston area band has built a surprisingly large grassroots following playing seemingly unassuming pop that reveals more with each listen. Ganging…
Backed by blipping beats and cybernetic synth sounds that owe equally to Deltron 3030 and Duck Hunt, Fort Worth’s MC Router dispenses a distinct vocal style not unlike that of a squealing 9600 baud modem. By her own description, the first lady of nerdcore spits “angsty lyrics” and “whiney rants”…
While recording his debut record, Chicagoan David Vandervelde spent two years holed up as an apprentice at Pieholden Studio, the Chicago recording space owned by former Wilco axeman Jay Bennett. Under Bennett’s tutelage, Vandervelde produced and played nearly every instrument on the resulting album, The Moonstation House Band, a catchy…
Let’s take care of a little business. In light of the recent Grand Widespread Panic Controversy, the powers that be here at the Dallas Observer headquarters feel we should make peace with the jam band’s fans and any other affiliated person we might have offended. In case you don’t know,…
Producers are the oft-overlooked wizards behind the curtain, pulling strings and pushing buttons, molding the shape and texture of an album. They are mad scientists and magicians, experimenting with techniques to record and manipulate moments in time, while remaining mere ghosts in the machine, a presence not seen but felt…
Chicago band Bang! Bang! calls itself a “sex rock trio” and offers up an uproarious mix of sleazy indie rock and dag-nasty punk that calls to mind Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Electric Six and Johnny-cum-lately cock-rocker Louis XIV. With tracks such as “Spank” imploring the listener to “take it like…
Gretchen Wilson, “Come to Bed” from One of the Boys Gretchen Wilson tore us a new one as a beer-drinkin’, shit-kickin’, Wal-Mart-lovin’ “Redneck Woman.” But aside from the hubristic drunk-driving anthem “All Jacked Up,” Wilson’s struggle to stay on the charts can be likened to fitting a size-10 hinder into…
The success of local hip-hop trio PPT is undoubtedly due, at least in part, to the group’s first official release, the contest-winning “Rowdy, Loud and Proud” Dallas Mavericks 2006 playoff theme song. But rather than enjoy the opportunities that song opened up, including their signing to Idol Records, the three…
Definitive Jux founder Jaime Meline, who goes by El-P, has spent the millennium battering hip-hop’s boundaries, and on his first solo CD since 2002, he takes things well beyond his previous extremes. The results are intriguing but self-consciously arty, engaging the brain more often than they move the body. El-P…
We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank seems most easily defined by what it isn’t. This isn’t The Moon & Antarctica, with its move from landscape and loss, from even landscape as loss, toward utter aridity. Dead lacks the blood-on-the-tracks freshness of the early work; this is not Interstate…
While Nick Cave and comrades venture out with their efforts in new band Grinderman, Mute has issued a double CD/double DVD chronicling the tour immediately following the release of Cave/Seeds’ Abbatoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus double album. (Abbatoir marks the first tour and recordings since Einstürzende Neubauten guitarist and core…
No rock-star kid ever made a more endearing record than Into the Sun, Sean Lennon’s 1998 debut, a Double Fantasy for hipsters produced by his Japanese girlfriend, Cibo Matto’s Yuka Honda. Taking cues from Tropicalia, cocktail jazz and ’90s art-pop, Lennon’s lounge-adelic take on the sounds of the British Invasion…
TV on the Radio, fronted by Brooklyn artiste Tunde Adebimpe, is simultaneously progressive and regressive—a forward-looking throwback that’s defined by its ambiguity. Unlike all but a few recent albums, Return to Cookie Mountain, the outfit’s latest full-length, is less a collection of songs than an overweening sonic statement whose whole…
