Music
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The Freak of Araby
Sir Richard Bishop is a lot of things to a lot of people. He’s a gentleman! He’s a post-punk Guitar God! Now the half-Lebanese indie instrumentalist is about to release an expansive little record on Drag City called The Freak…
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On Cat Power: It Must be the Colors
When I first started listening to Cat Power’s music, I was still with a man I very much loved. He played music, he was a music man, and for four years, I depended on him for all my music.
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Nordic Track
My friend Margaret has some good ideas, like DJing a monthly night of Northern indie pop. She might call it Nordic Track. That’s a perfect name, indicating how we would skate to Jens and Beyond. Maybe it will happen someday.…
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The Rumpus Mini-Interview Project #1: The Gregory Brothers
The Gregory Brothers, a Brooklyn-based quartet, remix speeches and news clips using an audio processor called Auto-Tune to create catchy musical news mash-ups that Rachel Maddow dubs “newsicals.” By auto-tuning the voices of politicians, pundits, and TV journalists like Katie Couric,…
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The Shorty Q & A with Princess Superstar
The hip-hop mash-up royalty rapper Princess Superstar has always been unpredictable. As a DJ and recording artist she’s made a career of irreverent lyrics that are steeped in sex and irresistibly danceable.
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Sparklehorse, Danger Mouse and David Lynch
For a limited time, NPR is offering an Exclusive First Listen to a collaboration of Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse‘s multi-instrumentalist Mark Linkous that may never be released.
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THE EYEBALL: Shorties
Hey Eyeballers. I haven’t had the patience to watch anything over an hour long recently. I take that back. I watched Babe with my son a couple weekends ago and as always got choked up at the end. I am…
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Running on Sexy
Sébastien Tellier recently toured the States, bringing a spacious European balance to “sex music” from this side of the pond, such as the brilliant, raunchy new Peaches album, I Feel Cream (which imeem is streaming for free, thanks to XLR8R).…
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Music Samples
The much-hyped, long-awaited debut album Manners by electro band Passion Pit has finally leaked. You can only keep such stuff away from Internet-savvy people so long. If you haven’t heard “Sleepyhead,” one of the tracks off Manners, then it’s time…
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Swedish Vibrations
“I got the idea to exchange each word in a poem I’d written with an emotionally equivalent sound. When I had exchanged all the words, I had made an electronic composition without even knowing it. After that I’d found my…