2.7.2012

Hometown: BrooklynMembers: Amber Papini (vocals, guitar), Brian Betancourt (bass), Nathan Michel (percussion, other instruments)Album: HospitalityFor Fans of: Belle & Sebastian, Tennis, Vampire...

Hometown: Perth, AustraliaAlbum: Always WantFor Fans Of: Norah Jones, Diana Krall, Cat Power Grace Woodroofe’s voice calls to mind Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone and Etta James—maybe even the weighty,...

When Chronicle premiered last weekend as the #1 film in America, it was a long time coming for one of its young stars. Ashley Hinshaw has been making the transition to film acting for a while, but her...

When Catalan midfielder Xavi Hernandez—who plays for the Spanish national team and FC Barcelona—was asked last year to describe how he deals with...

Forty-thousand people were staring at me, and the second song wasn’t starting. We were opening for U2 in our Denver hometown stadium last summer. We finished our first song of the set and after the...

An L.A. catering company run by the city’s second class. An arrogant wannabe writer whose only genre is “hard sci-fi.” A lovely comedian desperately seeking to pry open the Hollywood doors. A failed...

How Kwell-sauce manages to channel the Fab Four so adeptly without sounding like a blatant ripoff artist is beyond me. There’s a certain threshold which separates inspiration from outright theft, and...

Philadelphia’s Dr. Dog has been churning out jangly, earnest pop with a less-than-subtle nod to classic influences such as Neil Young, The Band, The Beach Boys, etc. for six records. And on its...

“I am alone in this room with you,” sings bruised Brooklyn angel Sharon Van Etten on Tramp, her breakout third album. Her words float in a slow-motion mist above barely-there acoustics and underwater...

What marriage of film and music could be more perfect? Evidence: Air, the pioneering ambient French duo, released a debut album called Moon Safari way back in 1998. Ever since, they’ve reveled in an...

Neil Young once said if you live long enough, you’ll be so far behind the times that eventually things will come around and you’ll be on the cutting edge again. He could have been talking about his...

When you call Grammy-winning producer John Chelew, the man behind John Hiatt’s career-resurrecting Bring The Family, you’ve got to want to be real. Thankfully, Ruthie Foster—also a Grammy nominee for...

Anyone who was hoping that Old Ideas, the long-awaited new studio album from Leonard Cohen would reveal a poet who finally realized that the glass might be half full after all, will be sorely...

Careful fans of modern indie rock probably think they know Mark Lanegan fairly well—better, even, than the Screaming Trees from whence he once came. Latter-day Lanegan, the guttural purveyor of dark...

If you expect a guy called Bahamas to make laid-back, tropical music, you’d be half-right. On Barchords, Bahamas (or Afie Jurvanen, as his mamma calls him) crafts a collection of light, sometimes even...

Not since Lou Reed paid homage to the city and era that forged him with New York has there been a song cycle dedicated to a place and reality that offers the core immediacy with the thump, churn and...

In advance of the premier of I Hate My Teenage Daughter, one of Fox’s newest sitcoms about just that, Slate published a thought-provoking, if somewhat cumbersome, piece by contributing writer Jacob...

What does it mean, on a spiritual and moral level, to be a man? What is our place in nature? When all the chips are down, what do we cling to as the measure of our character and worth as we leave the...

Internationally renowned photographer Kurt Markus and his son Ian accepted an invitation from roots-rocker John Mellencamp to follow him on tour and produce a documentary about their experience....

Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, co-written and directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan, is a Turkish police procedural based on the real-life experiences of one...

Under the category of “things we don’t really notice” is the set and costume design for a television series. In this, Shameless does impeccable work. From an upscale garden wedding to the dried vomit...

With every season of Archer, the ISIS team leaves the confines of the office and goes on a trip together, intentional or not, that ends up being one of the funniest episodes of the season. In the...

We’re six episodes into NBC’s The Firm, and new characters just keep getting thrown our way, causing a messy web of plots. It doesn’t help that there’s always a trial of the week to distract viewers...

One of the things that I’ve loved about Parks and Recreation more than nearly any other sitcom I’ve ever seen is the show’s worldbuilding. This isn’t a surprise, given that traditionally sitcoms...

“I didn’t come all the way out here to discuss ideology.” -Boyd Crowder For those looking for “shades of gray,” may I suggest tuning in to the FX Network Tuesday nights at 10 p.m. This week’s episode...

Bitch, and ye shall receive: Where Luck’s pilot lacked astoundingly in character development, the following episode compensated by cutting the horseshit—except for one (amazing) scene. The episode...

Portlandia, IFC’s sketch comedy show that stars Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein, continues to keep things fresh each week when tackling the same subject matter: the ups and downs of hipster living....

How I Met Your Mother has only had two episodes since the New Year, but they were both pretty top-notch. This week the show returned after a few weeks off with a concept episode similar to the early...

In Alcatraz’s premiere, we were given a look at how Rebecca Madsen’s life seemed to be intertwined with the inhabitants of Alcatraz. Her grandfather Tommy was imprisoned for killing her grandmother,...

“You’re not you, are you?” -Walter Bishop Two weeks ago I gave kudos to John Noble for his nuanced performances as the many versions of Walter Bishop, and I stand by that appraisal. That said,...

Sea WolfPlatform: iOSPublisher: Coastal AmusementsRelease Date: 1/31/2012Price: $1.99 Games are about the impossible, and back in the arcade days designers would often extend that wish fulfillment...

If you ever have the bounty of standing on the rim and looking down into the astounding beauty of the sacred Navajo landscape of Canyon de Chelly, you might possibly have a sudden urge to stay longer...

Last month, Pepper Rabbit announced their breakup. The Los Angeles electronic-rock group put out two records—Beauregard and last year’s underrated album Red Velvet Snow Ball. We brought the group in...

Alex Schaaf, the mastermind behind Yellow Ostrich, is back in his adopted hometown of New York City awaiting the release of Strange Land, the follow-up to The Mistress which featured one of the...

From a young age, Grace Woodroofe has had great opportunities with collaborators. She ended up working with Mark Eitzel with the American Music Club and Beck’s former bassist Justin Meldal-Johnsen...

Air’s highly anticipated Le Voyage Dans la Lune, an album set to work alongside the 1902 silent film of the same name by George Méliès, is set for a Feb. 6 release. In celebration of the album’s...

South Dakota has the Badlands and Deadwood. It’s got a history rich with bad-ass outlaws and the kind of tumbleweed mentality that allowed a person to blow into town, cause a stink and then blow right...