LEGO sequencer builds sound from colored blocks

Behold the awesome majesty of the Lego Sequencer MR II. This brilliant instrument is the work of Yoshi Akai, an avant garde artist/musician/audio mad scientist from Japan currently blowing the minds of folks the world over from his base in Sweden. Akai has turned a background in textile art and…

Sparklehorse’s Mark Linkous takes his own life

Over the weekend, singer-songwriter Mark Linkous, the mastermind of Sparklehorse (whom we profiled more than a decade ago), reportedly took his own life. He was most famous for his success with his own band, but he most recently worked with Danger Mouse and filmmaker David Lynch on Dark Night of…

Over the Weekend: 200 Million Years at the Meadowlark

200 Million Years • Achille Lauro • The Sunset Curse • Spouses 03.5.10 | Meadowlark It has been a long time since 200 Million Years played a show. The band’s been busy cutting a new EP and folding a hundred copies into little pyramids. Those were in the back of…

Lost Lake Lounge set to open tonight

Matt LaBarge, co-owner of the popular South Broadway spots hi-dive and Sputnik, says he’s all set to open his third spot, The Lost Lake Lounge, at 5 p.m. tonight. He’s turned the former Bulldog Bar space, and Mr. Von’s Almo before that, into something of a cabin-styled lounge since that’s…

The Oscars 2010: Nominees for best score dissected

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…

Find your way to Matt LaBarge’s Lost Lake Lounge

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…

200 Million Years at the Meadowlark

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…

BIRTH!

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…

A Sunny Day in Glasgow

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…

We Were Promised Jetpacks

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…

The Strange Boys

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…

The Congress

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…

David Rynhart

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

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

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…

Shackleton at Theory + Practice

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…