Exclusive Song Premiere: ‘Cooked Inside Out,’ Seasick Mama
November 4, 2013
“I’m not trying to dress up,” says Marial Maher, who records as Seasick Mama. “I’m not trying to do anything too kitschy or showy, and I think that’s what’s working.”
The Web Nico Muhly Weaves
October 28, 2013
When we first encounter composer Nico Muhly in the green room at the offices of WNYC, where he’s just done a radio interview, he asks if we can hold off for a moment while he answers an email. Afterward, he looks up and explains, with a laugh, that his mom wants him to send her $400 over the Internet.
The Wild Heart of Frankie Rose
September 23, 2013
Herein Wild, the third album from Brooklyn garage-pop musician Frankie Rose, opens with a statement: a driving bass drum and punches of guitar, building into the moment when Rose’s ethereal voice drifts in to temper the confrontational intro.
Delorean, Moving Forward
September 9, 2013
After touring material from their 2010 full-length Subiza for just about three years, Delorean decided to make a record more like a band and less like a production team.
D-Pryde: The Popstar Rapper
July 8, 2013
Whether D-Pryde is rightfully self-assured or cocky depends on whom you ask; but he’s certainly not going away anytime soon.
Discovery: White Prism
April 22, 2013
Dreamy, breathy vocals layered over uptempo beats and synthesized instrumentation that nimbly maneuvers between a sense of 21st-century melancholy and jubilation, without ever quite committing to either, characterize White Prism’s newest self-titled EP.
Emily Wells Lets Her Guard Down
April 4, 2012
Emily Wells has quite the internet following—her songs “Take it Easy” and “Passenger” and her surprisingly fluid Notorious B.I.G. cover “Juicy” are constantly topping the Hype Machine charts.
The Brilliant Complications of Heidi Julavits
March 28, 2012
A prediction: Long after the top-tens of 2012 are counted and the book prizes are shortlisted and announced, Heidi Julavits’s fourth novel The Vanishers (Doubleday) will stand as one of the great experimental novels of this decade. Julavits, author of the highly underrated 2003 terror novel The Effects of Living Backward, has used her narrative somersaults and female identity switches to frightening effect in the story of young psychic-in-training Julia Severn, who, while attending the Institute of Integrated Parapyschology in New Hampshire, crosses with her famous mentor who may or may not then seek revenge with a series of “psychic attacks” against her prodigal student.
Miles Klee’s Coast of Dystopia
March 7, 2012
In Miles Klee’s Ivyland (OR Books), the author vividly imagines a violent future where a giant pharmaceutical company rules most of New Jersey.
Discovery: Spree Wilson
March 1, 2012
As much as we would like to take full credit for discovering Nashville singer-guitar player-rapper, Spree Wilson, Q-Tip beat us to him. It was Q-Tip who first got hold of Spree’s demo and decided that he needed a record deal.
Celine Buckens’ Horse Sense
December 16, 2011
One of the sweetest vignettes in War Horse centers on a French girl, Emilie (Celine Buckens), who lives with her grandfather and finds the horse tied up in her barn after a couple of German boys try unsuccessfully to defect from their army and leave the horse when they’re captured.
Discovery: Zachary Kanin
November 21, 2011
Plenty of people have already “discovered” comedian Zachary Kanin—people who read The New Yorker, for which Kanin is one of the youngest-ever cartoonists; who perused the Harvard Lampoon when Zach was editor circa 2005; or who happened to notice the New York Times wedding announcements this summer.
Trash to Treasure: Ben Lear’s ‘Lillian’
October 25, 2011
Ben Lear, who graduated from NYU with a degree in music composition, started work on Lillian two and a half years ago, in spring 2009; it’s been staged in several iterations since then, but tonight’s performance is set to be the most complete—and ambitious—one yet.
M83, Deep in Dreams
October 17, 2011
Anthony Gonzalez, the French dream-pop musician better known for the last decade as the frontman of seminal electro act M83, doesn’t sound how you might expect him to.