ALBUMS OF OUR LIVES: HICKEY’S VARIOUS STATES OF DISREPAIR
When I first heard Hickey’s Various States of Disrepair I knew I’d found what I’d been looking for. The only problem was, I’d found it too late.
Music
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Writing on music at The Rumpus!
Rumpus Sound Takes: Fade to Blue
There is something inherently brave about the instrumental album: the lack of a vocal line causes the listener to focus on the musical elements, to experience the abstraction of notes and rhythms as they mingle. Valley Tangents, the fourth record by Blues Control, works in this realm, weaving webs of keyboards, electronics, tape-music and beats to create a sound that, at times, is completely mesmerizing.
Rumpus Sound Takes: Spectra in the Walls
The opening track on MV & EE’s recent LP, Space Homestead, is a lovely, spacy instrumental called “Heart Like Barbara Steele.” It’s like something your massage therapist would put on before dimming the lights and telling you to undress and lie face down, except it has a barely perceptible thread of deep, menacing bass that makes it feel as though it’s surrounded by danger, like its namesake.
The Rumpus Review of Searching for Sugar Man
Fast-forward all the way to the epilogue: a 2012 documentary, Searching for Sugar Man. The film is the story of what happened to Rodriguez’s music after his ostensible failures.
ALBUMS OF OUR LIVES: BETH ORTON’S CENTRAL RESERVATION
A few years ago, a friend was attempting to explain why he was divorcing his wife. He said they had grown apart. That they argued all the time.
The Rumpus Interview with Ari Picker of Lost in the Trees
Upon hearing that Lost in the Trees’ A Church That Fits Our Needs was inspired by the suicide of lead singer and songwriter Ari Picker’s mother, Karen, my heart instantly broke.
On Eminem as an Essayist
I want to say that I am talking and thinking and writing about Eminem lately because he’s released another album, and it’s blowing my fucking mind, but that isn’t it.…
Russian Punk Band Pussy Riot Sentenced to Two Years for ‘Hooliganism’
Today in a Russian court, three members (Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, Maria Alekhina, 24, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, 30) of the all-female Russian punk band Pussy Riot were sentenced to two years in…
Fiction Blurred in Oakland
The LA Times reports that a Bay Area bookstore will be transformed into a pop-up record shop this coming September, in connection with the release of East Bay author Michael…
BECK HANSEN’S SONG READER
Beck has announced that his latest album, Song Reader, composed of “twenty songs existing only as individual pieces of sheet music” to be given life by the reader, will be released…