Avicii has died. As Billboard reports, the Swedish DJ and EDM superstar was found dead this afternoon in Muscat, Oman. His publicist has confirmed his passing. No cause of death has yet been revealed. Avicii was 28. Avicii was born Tim Bergling in Stockholm. He signed his first contract when he was still a teenager, and he scored his first major international hit with the 2010 house-pop anthem "Seek...
Hugh Laurie, gaunt and bearded, limps down a hospital hallway as images from old medical textbooks fill the screen. Brad Pitt, ashy and greasy and still in his underwear, watches, horror-stricken, as flames consume his mother's trailer. Keanu Reeves, bathed in a sickly green glow, wakes up just in time for his computer to tell him that the Matrix has him. A young and Reznor-haired Ryan Gosling imagines...
Cecil Taylor died on April 5, less than two weeks after his 89th birthday. It would be impossible to condense his artistry into this intro, so I'm gonna talk about the time I personally spent with him. I hung out with him for two days in February 2016, writing a story for The Wire to coincide with "Cecil Taylor: Open Plan," an exhibit at the Whitney Museum that combined audio and video with posters,...
Remember ephemera? I mean, you're not supposed to -- it's short-term material meant to leave a vague informational imprint on your mind before receding to make room for more important things. But that kind of detritus is in short supply lately: The internet's tendency to preserve every last piece of tossed-off thought, whether it's a simple observation on the hour's news or a half-assed joke that gets...
If you're not doing anything else the evening of Friday, April 20, look in front of your closest independent record store. Go behind the store if there's an alley. If you see people with tents, empty pizza boxes, and a BlueTooth speaker, you know you're in the right place. Record Store Day hits thousands of US retailers the following day, Saturday, April 21. To vinyl enthusiasts and record collectors,...
Last year, an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester became the site of a terrible tragedy when a terrorist bombing outside the venue claimed 22 lives. Anyone would be shaken by witnessing an act of horrific violence like that -- and Grande was -- but she also handled the situation with grace, sharing a powerful statement and hosting a huge benefit concert to raise money for the families of the victims. Since...
Drake announced a new album this week, and depending on its tracklist, it may already be eligible for gold certification -- never mind that it's not out for another two months. This conclusion presumes that the project, which appears to be titled Scorpion, will include "God's Plan," his biggest single ever. "Nice For What" -- which debuted at #1 this week, making Drake the 13th artist to replace himself...
Kanye West just shared the release date for two new albums. According to Kanye's prolific, newly reactivated Twitter account, the follow-up to 2016's The Life Of Pablo will be out 6/1. (Yes, that's the same day as Father John Misty's new album. As commenter inthedeadofknight points out, "That’s a lot of ego being simultaneously squirted into the universe.") Kanye adds that the album only contains...
Flatbush Zombies’ Meechy Darko contains multitudes. On April’s first Friday at their album release concert in Rough Trade’s Brooklyn shop, he’s shirtless rapping in a gravelly voice alongside his two other crewmates — rapper-producer swingman Erick The Architect and long-bearded fast-spitter Zombie Juice. It’s a crowd that ranges from the Rawkus Records generation to Pro…
Ben Schneider, as is his tendency, is trying to remember the night we met. The Lord Huron mastermind believes it took place after a show where his fledgling band opened for Avi Buffalo. I always assumed it was Abe Vigoda. Either way, this is definitely an “LA indie rock in 2010″ story. That’s the world…
Twelve years is just a blip in the grand scheme of humanity, but for any living person, that’s a pretty significant chunk of time. And for Dear Nora, a project that started in 1999 and went on to put out three proper albums and a ton of ephemera in just under a decade, 12 years…
The late ’90s were a heady time for hopeful, plucky alt-rock hits that would forever soundtrack senior class montages, and I’m not sure I’ll ever understand why. Maybe it was the economy or the internet boom or just the general laissez les bons temps rouler vibes of the last days of Clinton that made opportunity…
Music fans can often be territorial. “That’s an understatement, my friend!” Michael Imperioli — the actor/writer/director best-known for his role as The Sopranos’ perennial fuckup Christopher Moltisanti — cackles over the phone when I make this statement to him in conversation. And the sentiment is extremely relevant to him right now: His just-released debut novel,…
The first thing I notice when I walk into Kacey Musgraves’ hotel room is a pair of heeled metallic boots. It feels like the perfect welcome. Like country divas before her, Musgraves is known for rocking rhinestones and all things sparkly, and though her new look has gotten definitively more space-aged on her Golden Hour…
And lo, there came a time when deep up in Heaven, the sainted Lester Bangs plied God with enough cough syrup to be allowed to create the perfect rock band. And when Bangs heard Iceage’s 2011 debut, New Brigade, he smiled, for he knew that it was good. Iceage were henceforth known as the Lord’s…
When she was a teenager, Frances Quinlan wanted to be as famous as Conor Oberst. She rolls her eyes as she says this, knowing how ridiculous it all sounds now.
If you’ve done so much as read this website today, odds are you’ve experienced the emotional polarity of modern music consumption — the giddy thrill of having instantaneous access to virtually every note of popular recorded music, countered by the much more powerful dread of realizing just how much of it you’ll never get to…
Lindsey Jordan feels like a jaded old man. She tells me this after ordering a burrito to-go, because she has a bunch of appointments after this one and isn’t all that hungry right now. Photoshoots, interviews, meetings, what have you; she’s ping-ponging between them, and I happen to have an hour with her at a…
Since adopting the Mount Eerie moniker almost 15 years ago, Phil Elverum’s mostly remained in the same place. In the early 2000s, he returned to his island hometown of Anacortes, Washington after spending five years in Olympia making music as the Microphones, and borrowed the name of the island’s tallest peak. Outside of tours and…
Spend any amount of time with Patrick Stickles, and you will often feel like you are in a movie where the voice-over narration, provided by Patrick Stickles, and the commentary track, also provided by Patrick Stickles, are playing at the same time.
Chatting with Nikki Sisti, Shari Page, and Kate Black of THICK feels like being at a slumber party. They laugh and talk over each other, rehashing stories of drunken memories and past relationships around an assortment of chips and beer. Mismatched clothes are strewn about Black’s bedroom for a makeshift photoshoot. “Would you rather be…
There’s a specter that hangs over Brianna Hunt’s first album as Many Rooms. Occasionally, it can be beautiful, but more often than not it’s looming and omnipotent. The Texas-based artist makes the kind of music that allows enough negative space for totalities — doubt, hope, fear, desire, and the lack of all the above. Or,…
Over the last few years, starting with 2014’s Zentropy, Frankie Cosmos has become less the sole outlet for Greta Kline and more a shifting coterie of musicians that are pulled into her orbit. Kline’s songs have become more confident and dexterous with time, and her third full-length, Vessel (out at the end of March), is…
