We assume most MAGNET readers are already under the magical, musical spell of the Soundtrack Of Our Lives, but if not, 2011 is the perfect time to change that. The Gothenburg, Sweden, band just released Golden Greats, No. 1 (Little W/The Orchard), a 19-track compilation of songs from throughout the group’s career. TSOOL formed in 1995 after the demise of Union Carbide Productions, a great, punk-leaning band featuring vocalist Ebbot Lundberg and guitarist Ian Persson. Since, TSOOL has released five studio albums and a handful of EPs and non-album singles, earning a Grammy nomination for 2002′s excellent Behind The Music. Lundberg will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. We recently caught up with him via email while TSOOL was at a tour stop in Brussels.
“Karmageddon” (download):
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Kristian Hoffman always has so much to say, we might have edited the hell out of his interview—and his voluminous daily guest-editor posts. Except that everything he comes up with is so … damn … fascinating. And why not! He and Lance Loud met in high school back in the early ’70s in Santa Barbara, Calif. After starring in PBS cinéma-vérité documentary An American Family, they formed the Mumps, moved to New York and shared Max’s and CBGB stages with all the legends of the punk/new-wave explosion of 1976: Television, the Ramones, Talking Heads and Blondie. Hoffman and Loud also had front-row seats for the Mercer Arts Center incubation of the New York Dolls, before that. In our book, that grants you unlimited license to open the floodgates. Fop (Kayo), Hoffman’s latest solo album, is an ornate masterpiece of baroque pop, well worth your attention. Hoffman will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week.
“I Can’t Go There With You” (download):
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The Goldberg Sisters is the new musical project from Adam Goldberg, the always entertaining actor/filmmaker whose impressive resume includes the likes of Saving Private Ryan, Dazed And Confused, Friends, Entourage, Zodiac, 2 Days In Paris and the Flaming Lips’ Christmas On Mars. The band’s 10-track, self-titled album (on Apology Music/Play It Again Sam) follows Goldberg’s 2009 musical debut, Eros And Omissions, released under the moniker LANDy. As with that project, The Goldberg Sisters finds Goldberg collaborating with Aaron Espinoza (Earlimart, Admiral Radley), though this time out, the duo was assisted by a handful of other musicians, including Goldberg’s girlfriend Roxanne Daner on violin. The result is a satisfying collection of effects-heavy, urbane psychedelia held together by Goldberg’s high-pitched, Lennon-esque croon. Goldberg will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. We recently caught up with him via email after a long day shooting new CBS cop drama Rookies, which is being executive produced by Robert De Niro and Richard Price.
“Don’t Grow” (download):
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Over the course of three surprise-filled albums, Wye Oak has artistically come of age in the public eye. Singer/guitarist Jenn Wasner and drummer/keyboardist Andy Stack mesh spellbinding folk-rock melodies with a dynamic range that shifts, in the blink of an eye, from the parlor to the garage. The Baltimore duo, whose latest album Civilian (Merge) can whisper as loud as it rocks the rafters, is on duty all week as guest editors of the MAGNET website. We recently caught up with Wasner via phone.
“Civilian” (download):
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Aside from having the coolest name of any punk-leaning Chicago-area band since Big Black, Smoking Popes have been blessed with core fan base that refused to quit on the outfit. When leader Josh Caterer pulled the plug on the Popes in 1998, it came little more than a year after releasing what might have been the group’s best album, Destination Failure, perplexing many but apparently offending few. Seven years later, a sold-out reunion show in the Popes’ Windy City hometown was all it took to get Caterer back in a creative mood. From there, Josh and brothers Matt (bass) and Eli (guitar) pretty much picked up where they left off, releasing Stay Down in 2008 and compilation It’s Been A Long Day last year. The new This Is Only A Test (Asian Man) is a concept album that only occasionally comes across as such, with the 38-year-old Josh taking on the role of an angsty teenager to convincing effect. Josh and Matt will be guest-editing magnetmagazine.com all week. We recently caught up with Josh.
“How Dangerous” (download):
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Small Source Of Comfort (True North) is the latest LP from legendary Canadian singer/songwriter Bruce Cockburn. It’s also his 31st studio album in a career that dates back all the way to the mid-’60s. Over the years, Cockburn has become one of his country’s most successful and honored musicians, winning more than his share of awards and accolades, not only for his music but also for his longtime humanitarian work. This week, Cockburn adds MAGNET guest editor to his already impressive resume. We caught up with him via email.
“The Iris Of The World” (download):
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It’s hard to believe that it’s been 20 years since Over The Rhine issued its debut album. The Ohio-based husband-and-wife duo of multi-instrumentalists/vocalists Linford Detweiler and Karin Bergquist have marked the anniversary with new album The Long Surrender, which was produced by Joe Henry at his Garfield House home studio and features an assortment of musicians handpicked for the project by Henry, including Lucinda Williams. Though Detweiler and Bergquist had never worked with Henry or his assembled backing band before, The Long Surrender was finished in less than a week. The fan-funded, 13-track album was just released via OTR’s Great Speckled Dog Records, which the duo named after Elroy, their much-loved Great Dane who passed away last year. Detweiler and Bergquist will also be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. We recently caught up via email with Detweiler, who answered our questions as Bergquist peered over his shoulder.
“The King Knows How” (download):
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Nothing if not a model of consistency, Buffalo Tom has been making the same decent-to-great music since 1992’s Let Me Come Over. Actually the Massachusetts trio’s third album, Let Me Come Over feels more like a debut, as it zeroed in brilliantly on the group’s strengths, namely the earnest, imagery-laden, acoustic-gone-electric songwriting of guitarist Bill Janovitz and bassist Chris Colbourn and the propulsive punk undercurrents supplied by drummer Tom Maginnis. Judging by the band’s latest, Skins (Scrawny), it’s a formula that still has legs. Skins is the group’s eighth album and second since reuniting after a 10-year (sort-of) break, and its world-weary lilt and been-there/done-that themes make it the perfect grown-up companion piece to Let Me Come Over’s reluctant coming-of-age angst. It may be the best thing the band has done since that LP—and far be it from Janovitz and Colbourn to disagree. Buffalo Tom will also be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week.
“Arise, Watch” (download):
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KORT is Lambchop frontman Kurt Wagner and solo singer/songwriter Cortney Tidwell, and with covers album Invariable Heartache (City Slang), the duo has recorded a sort of love letter to its hometown of Nashville and the city’s musical past. Eleven of the LP’s dozen tracks were originally recorded in the ’60s and ’70s for the Music City-based Chart Records (a label with huge familial ties for Tidwell), and the 12th song was cut by Tidwell’s mom, Connie Eaton, in 1975 for ABC Dunhill. And while the heartfelt Invariable Heartache is certainly ensconced in Nashville’s storied musical history, it’s a thoroughly modern statement by two of the town’s brightest hopes for Music City’s future being as fertile as its past. Wagner and Tidwell will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. We recently caught up with the duo via email.
“Incredibly Lonely” (download):
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Gary Louris and Mark Olson left Jayhawks fans in a lurch when they parted ways rather abruptly in 1995. Turns out Olson had tired of all the obligations and trappings that came with the Minneapolis-spawned group’s hard-won success. So he escaped to the Mojave Desert to ply a rootsier, salt-of-the-earth trade with the help of wife Victoria Williams. Ah, but time—and perhaps a little fiscal motivation—has a way of smoothing over the rough patches in many productive creative partnerships. (Unless you’re Bob Mould and Grant Hart.) And 15 years later, the Jayhawks have returned to us more-or-less fully intact. For how long, no one really knows, but they just did a string of shows to back the enhanced reissues of 1992’s Hollywood Town Hall and 1995’s Tomorrow The Green Grass (American/Legacy). With their sugary (if unrefined) harmonies, rugged intelligence and casual accessibility, the albums are to the alt-country movement what One Of These Nights and Hotel California were to ’70s SoCal country rock—even if the comparably modest sales figures may not indicate as much. Louris chimes in on the Jayhawks’ recent resurgence below. He and Olson will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week.
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Stoutly refusing to record his passionate songs under anything less than his own terms (in his New Jersey home on a TASCAM MiniStudio), F.M. Cornog, under the name East River Pipe, has released seven albums since 1994 that can stand toe-to-toe with anything by your favorite indie rockers over the past 20 years. Although working full-time at the local Home Depot and raising a daughter with his wife may have curtailed Cornog’s recording time somewhat, the quality of the finished product remains unchanged. ERP’s latest, We Live In Rented Rooms (Merge), is further testimony to a man who refuses to play the rock-star game (form a band, tour, do photo shoots, etc.) and has come out the other side with a brilliant body of work—and with his soul intact. MAGNET recently caught up with Cornog by phone. Cornog will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week.
“Cold Ground” (download):
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White Wilderness (Dead Oceans) is the latest album from the San Francisco-based John Vanderslice, and he’s joined on it by the classically trained Magik*Magik Orchestra. MMO artistic director Minna Choi arranged and conducted the Vanderslice-written music on the LP, which was recorded in a whirlwind three-day session by producer John Congleton (St. Vincent, Walkmen, Bill Callahan). Vanderslice himself is no stranger to production, running the Tiny Telephone recording studio for 14 years and having produced records by the likes of Spoon and the Mountain Goats. Now he can add MAGNET guest editor to his resume, as that’s what he’ll be doing at magnetmagazine.com all week. We recently caught up with him via email.
“Sea Salt” (download):
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“The Piano Lesson” (download):
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British trio White Lies—guitarist/vocalist Harry McVeigh, bassist Charles Cave and drummer Jack Lawrence-Brown—just released Ritual (Geffen/Fiction), which follows up To Lose My Life…, the band’s commercially successful 2009 debut. The 10-track sophomore LP was co-produced by Alan Moulder (Depeche Mode, Killers) and was written over a five-week period when White Lies wasn’t crisscrossing the globe in support of its first album. Though McVeigh, Cave and Lawrence-Brown are all barely old enough to drink legally in the U.S., the threesome has been playing together as a band since their mid-teens, first as Fear Of Flying, which released two singles produced by Stephen Street (Smiths, Blur), and then under the White Lies moniker. The trio will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. We recently caught up with Cave via email.
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You might know award-winning critic/journalist Tom Moon from his bestselling book 1,000 Recordings To Hear Before You Die, his contributions to NPR’s All Things Considered or his freelance work in the likes of Rolling Stone, GQ, Blender, Spin and Vibe, but around the MAGNET office, when we think of Moon, we think of the nearly two decades he spent as the music critic of our hometown newspaper, the Philadelphia Inquirer. When you regularly read a writer’s work for that long, you feel like you really get a sense of who someone is, so we were shocked to find out that Moon is also a musician who just made an album. Into The Ojalá (Frosty Cordial) is credited to Moon Hotel Lounge Project and came out earlier this month. MHLP is an impressive, instrumental, jazz/lounge/Latin-leaning project featuring Moon and six local musicians playing nine Moon-penned tunes as well as a cover of gospel standard “Rock Of Ages.” We are excited to have Moon guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. We recently caught up with him via email.
“Thank The Eyes” (download):
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Phosphene Dream, the third album from MAGNET faves the Black Angels, marks a big step forward for the Austin, Texas, psych quintet. The band signed to the Blue Horizon label (run by industry bigwigs Richard Gottehrer and Seymour Stein) and worked in L.A. with veteran producer Dave Sardy (Oasis, Rolling Stones), marking the first time the group recorded an LP outside of its home base. The Black Angels also recently upped their profile with a collaborative appearance with UNKLE on the soundtrack to The Twilight Saga: Eclipse. (We hear the track, “With You In My Head,” is played at a pivotal scene in the film, but when it comes to movies, we are more Black Swan than Bella Swan.) The band also backed Austin legend Roky Erickson (though the fruit of that labor is still up in the air, release-wise) and is still working hard on its annual Austin Psych Fest. And if that wasn’t enough, the Black Angels will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. We recently caught up with vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Alex Maas via email.
“Telephone” (download):
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Though it’s been seven years since the last Cake studio LP, you can understand why it took the eclectic Sacramento, Calif., rockers so long to finish album number six. Like its predecessors, Showroom Of Compassion was self-produced, but for the new LP, the band members engineered it themselves in their solar-powered studio and released it on their self-run Upbeat label. And aside from gigging relentlessly, the group also organized the multi-genre Unlimited Sunshine Tours (which have featured bands as diverse as the Flaming Lips, De La Soul and Cheap Trick) and is currently in the planning stages for a 2011 UST. Cake—vocalist/pianist John McCrea, multi-instrumentalists Vincent DiFiore, Xan McCurdy and Gabriel Nelson and drummer Paulo Baldi—is taking to the road this week in support of Showroom Of Compassion, playing multiple nights in numerous cities. The band will also be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. MAGNET caught up with DiFiore via email.
“Long Time”
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Hardcore will never die, at least while Keith Morris is still alive and kicking. The 55-year-old Morris co-founded the legendary Black Flag with Greg Ginn before leaving the band three years later to start the equally seminal Circle Jerks with future Bad Religion guitarist Greg Hetson. That band lasted a decade, though since 1994, the Circle Jerks have continued to tour sporadically but haven’t released a new album since 1995. That was going to change when the band convened last year with producer Dimitri Coats (Burning Brides) to work on new material. The result, however, was Morris quitting the CJs and forming OFF!, a new hardcore supergroup with Coats on guitar, Steven McDonald (Redd Kross) on bass and Mario Rubalcaba (Rocket From The Crypt, Hot Snakes) on drums. OFF! recorded four EPs that will be released as a vinyl boxed set, First Four EPs (Vice), on December 14. The band will also be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week.
“Upside Down” (download):
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“I Don’t Belong” (download):
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Even James Jackson Toth’s most rabid fans probably can’t keep track of the prolific singer/songwriter’s output. The Lexington, Ky.-based Toth has issued numerous solo and group efforts (including cassettes, CD-Rs, limited-edition vinyl, etc.) under his own name as well as such monikers as WAND, Wooden Wand And The Vanishing Voice, H.P. Witchcraft, the Jescos and the Blood Group. His latest release is Wooden Wand‘s Death Seat (Young God), an impressive 12-track album produced by YG label head and Swans frontman Michael Gira and featuring musical contributions from members of bands such as Lambchop, Silver Jews, Mercury Rev, Glossary and Fire On Fire. Toth is heading out on European and North American tours in the new year, but in the meantime, he will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week.
“Ms Mouwse” (download):
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One constant over the past 17 years of MAGNET has been the music of Jason Noble. First with the post-hardcore Rodan, then the classically inclined Rachel’s, the post-rock Shipping News and the theatrically concerned Young Scamels, Noble has always been involved with projects that interested and challenged us. Noble has two new releases: a live Shipping News album, One Less Heartless To Fear (Karate Body/Noise Pollution), and the debut LP from the Young Scamels, Tempest (File 13). Unfortunately, creating music is hardly the main concern for Noble these days. The 39-year-old Louisville, Ky., native was diagnosed with synovial sarcoma, a rare form of cancer, 15 months ago and is currently battling the disease with the determination, positive energy and modesty he has always displayed in his two-decade musical career. MAGNET is proud to have Noble guest editing our website all week.
“The Delicate” (download):
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It’s no real surprise that the Chapin Sisters—Abigail and Lily—ended up playing music professionally. They come from a impressive family of musicians, including their father (Grammy-winning singer/songwriter Tom Chapin), uncle (late singer/songwriter Harry “Cat’s In The Cradle” Chapin) and grandfather (late jazz drummer Jim Chapin). In 2008, Abigail and Lily, along with half-sister Jessica Craven (daughter of horror director Wes Craven), released their debut, Lake Bottom LP, which came on the heels of the success the trio garnered with their cover of Britney Spears’ “Toxic.” Late last year, Craven left the band to care for her newborn daughter, so Abigail and Lily continued on as a duo, touring this summer as members of She & Him and, more importantly, recording their second Chapin Sisters album. Two (Lake Bottom) was cut at a family farm in New Jersey by Abigail and Lily with co-producers Jesse Lee (Gang Gang Dance) and Louie Stephens (Rooney), and it adds layers of electric guitars, keyboards, percussion and more to the duo’s patented acoustic, vocal-harmony-driven sound. The duo is currently in the middle of a U.S. tour supporting Two. The Chapin Sisters will also be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week.
“Palm Tree” (download):
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Bleu McAuley had his first (and only) brush with the mainstream back in 2003, when his shifty ode to insecurity, “Somebody Else,” found its way onto the hugely popular soundtrack to the first Spider-Man movie. The tune was also on Bleu’s second album, Redhead, a delectable slab of power-pop bombast and one of the most unjustly overlooked albums of the early 2000s. Seven years and one falling out with Columbia Records later, Bleu knows better than to go sniffing around for scraps amidst the carnage of a dying industry. Recently, he averted any future label shenanigans altogether, appealing directly to his fans for money to make his latest CD, Four (The Major Label). They responded by forking over almost $40,000 via online funding platform Kickstarter. Stylistically flamboyant and prone to abrupt changes in mood (much like the man himself), Four finds Bleu at ease with his easily distracted self, whether he’s sweating his own mortality with manic glee (“Dead In The Mornin’”), singing the praises of the city that gave him his start in the music biz (“B.O.S.T.O.N.”) or falling prey to his inner Van Morrison (“In Love With My Lover”). Over the years, Bleu has found highly entertaining ways to celebrate his knob-twiddling heroes. Alpacas Orgling is the 2006 product of his Jeff Lynne-loving collective known as L.E.O. And for LoudLion, he’s recruited Rooney’s Taylor Locke, the Donnas’ Allison Robertson and some other L.A. pals to shamelessly emulate Mutt Lange. The band’s contributions to the Balls Of Fury and The Hills Have Eyes 2 soundtracks couldn’t sound any more like circa-Hysteria Def Leppard if they had spots. Bleu will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week.
“Singin’ In Tongues” (download):
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Kim Richey spent the initial portion of her 15-year career chafing at various stylistic restraints, some self-imposed, others foisted upon her by others. Through the second half of the ’90s, the itinerant daughter of a Dayton, Ohio, record-store owner sampled and discarded various guises: new-country misfit (1995′s Nashville-friendly self-titled debut), Lucinda Williams in waiting (1997’s calculated Americana stab Bittersweet) and top-40 hopeful (1999’s super-slick Glimmer). And while those albums had at least two things in common—great songwriting and a soulful, not-in-the-least-bit-showy vocal approach—it wasn’t until more recently that Richey locked into a groove all her own. That in mind, Wreck Your Wheels (Thirty Tigers), her sixth and latest release, finds the artist reveling in a friction-free comfort zone somewhere along the well-read, emotionally honest folk/pop continuum. Richey will be guest-editing magnetmagazine.com all week.
“Wreck Your Wheels” (download):
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It’s hard to believe it’s been more than three decades since the release of Gary Numan‘s The Pleasure Principle, the electronic-pop masterpiece that spawned massive hit single “Cars,” one of the defining tracks of the new-wave era. (The song has since been covered and sampled numerous times and been used in countless commercials, movies, TV shows, video games, etc.) To celebrate the highly influential album making in into the Billboard top 20 in 1980 and the recent multi-disc, 30th-anniversary reissue, Numan just kicked off a three-week U.S. tour that features him playing The Pleasure Principle in its entirety, along with songs from his entire career as well as tracks from forthcoming album Splinter. MAGNET caught up with the British music legend on the eve of the tour. Numan will also be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week.
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Fronted by the nervous guitar and earnest vocals of Richard Barone, the Bongos grabbed the torch from the Talking Heads to light the way into the 1980s for a second generation of eye-opening New York bands that sounded nothing like their predecessors. Dedicated to the proposition that the tired and huddled masses could still find comfort at CBGB (or at Maxwell’s across the Hudson River), the Bongos ruled the greater-NYC roost. A stimulating succession of solo releases, topped by this year’s Glow (Bar/None), leaves no doubt that Barone is still hitting on all cylinders, a vital and imaginative force in today’s music scene when most of his contemporaries have fallen by the wayside. Barone will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week.
“Gravity’s Pull” (download):
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The yearning voice and sullen temperament behind the languid and lush Scottish outfit Travis, Fran Healy has been laying low of late. The primary task on his to-do list: commune with his diverse surroundings while recording his first solo effort in New York, Vermont and (mostly) Berlin. Whether the new Wreckorder (Ryko) benefits from that far-flung trio of locales—or guest appearances from Neko Case (on hypnotic duet “Sing Me To Sleep”) and Paul McCartney (who plays bass on the demure “As It Comes”)—is largely irrelevant to anyone who’s not already smitten by Healy’s majestically restrained brand of mope-rock understatement. The 10-song collection occasionally recalls the quieter moments on the already-pretty-quiet The Invisible Band, Travis’ 2001 LP. Only here, Healy turns even more insular as he’s left to stew in his own introspective juices. The result can be at once captivating and sleep inducing. Healy will be guest-editing magnetmagazine.com all week.
“Buttercups”
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“As It Comes”
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Pete Yorn has been surprisingly prolific of late. Consider that it was three years between his sophomore outing, 2003′s Day I Forgot, and 2006′s bracingly eclectic Nightcrawler, the latter largely restoring the potential of his brazenly accomplished out-of-nowhere debut, 2001’s Musicforthemorningafter. Another three years between releases, and Montville, N.J.’s favorite boho chick magnet suddenly had a lot more to say. Last year saw the release of Back & Fourth, followed by Break Up, a wispy collaboration with Scarlett Johansson inspired by Serge Gainsbourg’s duets with Brigitte Bardot. Now Yorn has ditched his smokin’-hot muse for Frank Black, who encouraged the confessed perfectionist and overdub junky to strip away the studio varnish and rawk out for the new Pete Yorn (Vagrant). As you might expect, the results are mixed, even a smidge Pixie-esque (see “The Chase”). But they’re never boring—something that can’t be said about Back & Fourth, produced with relentless taste and restraint by Mike Mogis of Bright Eyes fame. Yorn will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week.
“Precious Stone” (download):
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Fans of Swedish indie rock, rejoice: After four years of inactivity, the eclectic popsters in Junip have reunited to record their first full-length album. The trio—vocalist/guitarist José González, keyboardist Tobias Winterkorn and drummer Elias Araya—formed more than a decade ago in its hometown of Gothenburg and released a well-regarded EP in 2005. Soon after, the trio parted ways to pursue different avenues. González made a major name for himself with his solo work, while Araya went off to study art and Winterkorn turned to teaching. Earlier this year, the three came back together to record a new EP, Rope And Summit, a teaser for the brand new Fields (Mute), an album that represents an extension of Junip’s delicately abstract sound, with loping organs, exotic rhythms and González’s trademark dreamy vocals. The trio’s intoxicating mix will soon get the live treatment, as it supports the release with tour dates in Europe and a trip stateside in the fall. The members of Junip will also be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week.
“Rope And Summit” (download):
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Don’t call it a comeback, Superchunk‘s been here for years. The band members just haven’t been doing anything since the release of 2001′s stellar Here’s To Shutting Up (a title that, coincidentally or not, proved partially prophetic). Well, not much together, anyway, apart from a few one-off gigs and the occasional single. Singer/guitarist Mac McCaughan and bassist Laura Ballance have their hands full running Merge Records and raising families (plus McCaughan has released a number of fine Portastatic records); drummer Jon Wurster has toured and/or hit the studio with the likes of Robert Pollard, the New Pornographers, Bob Mould and the Mountain Goats in between hilarious Facebook postings and Best Show On WFMU appearances; and while we’re not sure what guitarist Jim Wilbur has been up to, other than gigging with Portastatic, he probably has a lot on his plate, too. It’s a wonder the busy quartet was able to reconvene for the fine Majesty Shredding (Merge), a more-than-welcome return that’s accompanied by the band’s first full-on, albeit relatively brief, tour since 2001 (including a stop in Las Vegas for the three-day Matador At 21 shindig). And, yes, the new LP features plenty of shredding on tunes like the taut “Learned To Surf” and closing blowout “Everything At Once.” McCaughan and Ballance found empty moments in their schedules to discuss the joys of the road and how the band didn’t break up, even if you thought they did. Superchunk will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week.
“Digging For Something” (download):
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With I’m Having Fun Now (Warner Bros.), Jenny And Johnny are following in the grand tradition of girl/boy singing duos, a select conga line that stretches as far back as Sonny & Cher and X’s Exene Cervenka & John Doe to more recent warbling tandems like Mates Of State and She & Him. Jenny Lewis and Johnathan Rice are living proof the trend is still on the boil. Lewis cut her teeth in L.A.-based combo Rilo Kiley and has recently released two exciting solo efforts. Rice, a Scotsman transplanted to America as a teenager, has also issued a pair of solo albums and produced Lewis’ sophomore release, Acid Tongue, before teaming up with her for what could turn out to be the gold standard of indie-rock duos. Jenny And Johnny will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week.
“Scissor Runner” (download):
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In the ’90s, most indie rockers were white males who cultivated a cool, detached image. New York-based Versus stood out from its contemporaries for many reasons. Its lineup included two (and sometimes three) Filipino-American brothers, it had a female bassist/singer, and the band gleefully professed its love for sports, meat and classic rock. After several albums and lineup changes continuing through 2001, the group went on a recording hiatus, only occasionally performing live. However, a reinvigorated Versus returned two years ago, and the band has just released On The Ones And Threes (Merge), its first full-length in a decade. Now consisting of singer/guitarist Richard Baluyut, drummer Edward Baluyut, bassist/singer Fontaine Toups, plus live violinist/keyboardist Margaret White, Versus picks up where it left off sonically: hypnotic melodies, male/female vocals and the occasional heavy guitar squall. MAGNET recently caught up with Richard Baluyut and Toups. Versus will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week.
“Gone To Earth” (download):
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“Invincible Hero” (download):
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When Margo Timmins strolled up to the microphone in her low-cut black cocktail dress, wrapped in a scarlet shawl, with a rusty shock of hair draped over one eye a la Veronica Lake, even if you’d never seen Cowboy Junkies before, there was no mistaking her star power at the Villa Montalvo’s Garden Theatre in the summer of ’09. Timmins and two of her brothers, Michael on guitar and Peter on drums, along with bassist Alan Anton, have been doing the slow boil as Cowboy Junkies since 1985. As its name implies, the Toronto-based quartet specializes in quiet, ultra-slow tunes that might sound comforting to strung-out cowpokes hunkered down around a campfire after a long day rounding up stray dogies. MAGNET recently spoke to Margo, who, along with her band mates, will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week.
“Stranger Here” (download):
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For almost two decades, Rasputina has carved out one of the most interesting niches in contemporary music. Melora Creager founded the cello-based ensemble in Brooklyn in 1992, and although the band has gone through numerous lineup changes, it continues to produce its distinctive, heavy-yet-haunting sound. Despite near-constant performing, Creager, fellow cellist Daniel DeJesus and percussionist Catie D’Amica have managed to release two LPs a month apart: live album The Pregnant Concert (so-named because Creager was pregnant with her second daughter at the time) and sixth studio full-length Sister Kinderhook (both on the Filthy Bonnet label). Rasputina even found time to be the subject of a documentary titled Under The Corset, which chronicles its tour experience on the West Coast. The group has been crisscrossing North America all summer in support of the albums, giving its rabid fanbase more chances to party like it’s 1799. Creager will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week.
“Holocaust Of Giants” (download):
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Trans Am walks the same line between substance and style that its namesake car model did in its heyday. Often considered the leading light of the ’90s post-rock scene, the Maryland-based trio switches between big, loud rawk riffing and spacey, experimental ambience, sometimes within the same song. Criticized (or celebrated) as a bunch of arch ironists, Trans Am gleans imagery and sounds from the synth- and vocoder-heavy music of decades past, but also informs its songs with a detached, millennial indie attitude. Nathan Means, Philip Manley and Sebastian Thomson also have a tendency to refer to themselves in the collective third person and to assume unusual, even bizarre positions about music and society. Similarly, the group shifts gears from album to album, and this intellectual restlessness continues with the atmospheric, trippy Thing (Thrill Jockey). The LP should appeal both to new-school stoner-metal fans and the hippie oldheads at the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, where Trans Am will be playing a free show on August 18. Means will also be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week.
“Apparent Horizon” (download):
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Few indie artists have influenced as many musicians as Stuart Moxham has in his career. Whether as a member of Young Marble Giants, the G!st or solo, the Cardiff, Wales, native has produced one of the most distinctive catalogs of the past 30 years. His latest release, Personal Best (hABIT), is a 20-track compilation of solo material from 1981 to the present. The album is sequenced non-chronologically and kicks off with “Vampire Of Love,” a jaunty tune with intricate classical guitar and handclaps. “Save It,” from 2007’s The Huddle House collaboration with Louis Philippe, is a mournful highlight and proves that Moxham’s post-YMG output has been criminally overlooked by countless fans. The oldest track here, 1981’s “Settled Hash,” is actually one of the most forward-looking; its bleeps and whooshes remind one of the indie electro that’s become popular in music-geek circles over the past few years. Moxham and the other members of YMG have performed together again recently, and many longtime fanatics are hoping the group finally records a follow-up to 1980′s Colossal Youth, its sole album. Personal Best, however, proves that Moxham has turned out plenty of worthy music on his own. Moxham will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week.
“Autumn Song” (download):
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Talking to Apples in stereo frontman Robert Schneider is something like sitting around the kitchen table with a few friends and a six-pack while knocking out the screenplay for a new episode of Seinfeld. OK, give me four totally diverse topics and that will be a new show: Muffin tops, a kid in a germ-proof bubble, going out with Marisa Tomei and poisoned glue on envelopes. With Schneider at the controls of this magic-bus ride, he pulls the topics he likes out of thin air like some deranged conjurer, instantly discards and modifies them, apologizes for going off the tracks, backs the engine up to the starting point, begins talking about something entirely different, then excuses himself to take brief notes on some future project while humming a melody that’s just popped into his head. He’s easily the most dynamic, fascinating interview subject I’ve ever encountered—and I’ve done hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of ‘em. He’s also one of a handful of great songwriters to emerge over the past 20 years, a psych/pop genius whose knack for addictive melodies and memorable lyrics is perfectly obvious on Travellers In Space And Time (Simian/Yep Roc). To no one’s surprise, he’s also been discovered by nationally focused advertising agencies for high-profile TV ad campaigns. Schneider “relaxed” for as long as he could to speak with MAGNET from his home in Lexington, Ky. Schneider will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week.
“Dance Floor” (download):
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