A few words about me and mixes (or, you can skip ahead).  Like year-end lists (and like a lot of other geeks, I assume), I use mixes as a heuristic–songs as things to think with.  I’ve got access to so much music, I’m a compulsive sorter and ranker, and I’m often sitting still in [...]

Bat For Lashes Two Suns (Astralwerks/Parlophone) Sounds like a modern British and/or old American western version of the best Tori Amos album that never happened.
Bear In Heaven Beast Rest Forth Mouth (Hometapes) Post-wave-psych-pop-rock-tronica?  This album is great.  And I’m quite pleased the @marathonpacks review pointed it out to me.
Beirut March of the Zapotec/Holland EP (Ba [...]

Okay, so I know this is starting to look like one of those fly-by-night concert update blogs, but man, the announcements are coming in fast! It just seemed like two days ago that I learned Wilco was coming to the IU Auditorium (4/16), and as I’m typing this, I’ve got a fistful of tickets. [...]

Two things I really like about the end of the year–making comprehensive mixes of the music of the last 12 months, and giving cheap presents. This is a way for me to do both. Well, here they are–the first two products of about two weeks (off and on, mind you) of narrowing my year-end favorites [...]

After four stellar releases under the Four Tet guise, Kieran Hebdan has become one of the most sought out artists for remix projects–and he’s accepted many times, tackling Bloc Party, that Sia song from Six Feet Under, Cyne, Juana Molina, Doves, Aphex Twin, and Badly Drawn Boy among others, acheiving the singular feat of reinventing [...]