“It is strange – and rather disturbing – to discover how important classical music was to two of the most genocidal monsters of the 20th century, Hitler and Stalin.” Der Spiegel recently published a list of the 100 classical recordings found in Hitler’s bunker at the end of WWII, which had been secretly kept by a […]

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It’s sort of pedantic in its brief historical glossing-over of entire musical movements, having been written from the perspective that the reader knows next to nothing about the subject, but Frere-Jones’ piece about how an English pop star of Damon Albarn’s pedigree came to score an opera is also informative and edifying. http://www.myspace.com/monkeyjourneytothewest

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Now that he’s over a year sober, Ryan Adams is reluctant to admit it has any effect on his music, although he is well aware that his tantrums and occasionally questionable performances have dampened his star’s rise. But his latest, Easy Tiger, does, admittedly, show signs of an ear for commerciality. I have a feeling […]

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With the corporate music world still foundering in its colossal ineptitude as to how to deal with that whole Internet thing, underground music and, especially, independent labels are reaping the benefits. It’s practically business as usual for the underground, where money and chart positions have little to no bearing on how success is measured. Columbia, […]

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Being big in Iceland doesn’t exactly have a lot of perks. For Benni Hemm Hemm, three years of hype (Rolling Stone said he “evoked the sunshine prospect of Brian Wilson conducting a troupe of Salvation Army horns at a 1967 Smile session”) and selling 30,000 records in a country with a population of 300,000 meant […]

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The electronic duo’s cinematic debut, Electroma, is self-described as “experimental and inaccessible; however, it’s a movie that does not require your brain to function.” What the cock could this film be about? Evidently, it’s even weirder than you might well imagine. The film is 70 minutes long, has no talking, and features no original music […]

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To watch the Battles feature on Vice TV go here. The host hangs out with the band, watches them eat, and checks out all their crazy equipment that makes those sweet, sweet yet mostly unrecognizable sounds.

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