Looking over the Oscar nominations for best scores this year is a bit underwhelming, but with the event just of couple days away we figured now was the best time to really break down the nominations and take a close look. Listening through the nominations we see a pretty good…
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences: Ever notice that the word “music” doesn’t appear anywhere in there? And yet the Academy takes it upon itself each year to choose the best original song from movie soundtracks. Beside the occasional dark-horse fluke in the form of Elliott Smith or…
The sign posted by the door at 3602 East Colfax Avenue reads: “Bar Closed. Remember the Alamo!” But few dive-bar lovers would remember this Alamo, the first piano bar on Colfax that opened back in the early ’40s. After that, the space became Mr. Von’s Alamo, then the Monroe Tavern…
Like most atmospheric bands of the last decade and a half, 200 Million Years (due at the Meadowlark on Friday, March 5) definitely learned a thing or two from Radiohead’s penchant for mixing ambitious pop music with a deep experimental streak. The act also probably gleaned a bit from Sigur…
Years ago in Denver, there was a band that probably should have been lumped in with the goth scene but wasn’t really having it. Radio Scarlet definitely looked the part of death-rock fashion victims, and it’s entirely possible that these guys may have borrowed more than a bit from Rozz…
Despite the Anglocentricity of its name, Philadelphia’s A Sunny Day in Glasgow is far from some Belle and Sebastian clone. Instead, the coed ensemble reaches toward the heavens with a wispy, wintry shoegaze sound that’s as abstract as it is dizzying. Like a shitstorm in a teacup, A Sunny Day’s…
Part of the Scottish cabal (including the Twilight Sad and Frightened Rabbit) that threatens to turn indie rock into a weepy wasteland of butt-hurt crybabies — yes, one of their signature songs is called “Quiet Little Voices” — We Were Promised Jetpacks should, by all rights, totally suck. The fact…
It would be a fool’s errand to try to count everyone raiding the coffers of ’60s garage-rock psychedelia and shaking down Roky Erickson’s beleaguered psyche looking for their own two-headed dogs. The Strange Boys have been guilty of their fair share of similar artistic heists. On the surface, they just…
Co-produced by heavyweights Daniel Clarke, Scott Lane and Jonathan Meadows, The Congress draws on music of all sorts, from blues and gospel to country and jazz and just a little bit of reggae. The result is expressive and confident, subtle in parts and brazen in others. The album is at…
Just from looking at the liner notes of David Rynhart’s By the Hollow Tree, which quote Henry Miller, Paul Gaugin and Vincent Van Gogh, it’s evident the guy has some depth. But Rynhart’s not just name-dropping. In fact, “A Puddle on the Ground,” one of the album’s many high points,…
Mustangs & Madras had a rare ability to write introspective songs filled with nuanced emotional colorings and utterly convincing intensity. “I’ll Never Live Long Enough to Spend All My Money (South Beach Bitch)” bears this out, and the streaming guitar swirls sound like a perfect marriage of post-hardcore urgency and…
Great American Taxi’s sophomore release finds the band in strong form, despite some personnel shifts over the past few years. The group continues to lean on the honky-tonk pedal to produce engaging roots-based ditties, including the title cut, “Reckless Habits,” an infectious ode to late country rocker Gram Parsons, and…
The music of London-based Shackleton is a dark, dense and altogether disconcerting affair, like paranoia rendered in sound. The famed dubstep producer and co-head of the Skull Disco label has displayed a predilection for crafting long, hypnotic patterns of conga-heavy percussion punctuated by gut-punching bass drops and dubbed-out, echoing trails…
I can’t believe we lasted so long without a bass,” declares Tyler Breuer, the Knew’s guitarist, recalling the early days of the band when the low end wasn’t much of a consideration. “What were we thinking?” Evidently, they weren’t. And that’s actually been the secret to the band’s success so…
On the cover of her latest album, Neko Case wields a sword in her right hand while looking straight ahead and crouching down on the hood of a late-’60s Cougar. In a way, the image sort of evokes Zoe Belle hanging on the hood of that Challenger in Death Proof,…
cEvin Key is one of the founding members of Skinny Puppy. By mixing the aesthetics of power electronics, noise and early industrial music with politically conscious lyrics, Skinny Puppy has had a strong, enduring influence on anyone trying to make music outside the mainstream context of basic rock arrangements (guitars,…
Thoughts and prayers go out to our Northern Colorado brethren who lost one of their own this past week. David Andrew Ramirez (aka “Mexi”) suffered a heart attack last Wednesday, February 24, and passed away. Tragically, he was just 28-years-old. A Fort Collins memorial service will be held at 1…
The Bottesini Project is based on free improvisations, which means each of the group’s shows offer entirely different experiences. The results are often as diverse as the musicians leader Paul Riola recruits for concerts and albums. His group of constantly revolving players has included nationally known musicians like Wilco guitarist…
This week’s flier is all about the design and a brilliant design it is. Without a kitschy image of Gamera, a nostalgic pic of a TV dinner or some mind-bending, trippy-ass collage work to grab attention, it’s all about the subtle interaction of simple design elements here. The resulting flier…
Got your tickets for Showcase yet? Talk about the steal of the century! Ghostland Observatory, Superchunk, Dirty Projectors, Neon Indian, Single File and Oh My Stars? Holy crap! Oh and let’s not forget the more than eighty of the city’s best and brightest that will be on hand — and…
Three years ago, DJs Low Key and Sounds Supreme started the Solution as a way to create the kind of party they’d want to go to. And while the weekly, underground hip-hop parties have gotten bigger and better over the years, Low Key says, it’s the still the same party…
Nathaniel Rateliff is just returning from London after having played a pair of very well received performances last week, including one sitting in with Liam Gerner, an Aussie singer-songwriter, at the Half Moon in Putney that attracted that dude from Twilight — whose sister was also on the bill, evidently…
