Speedy Ortiz with Grass Is Green, Blanko Basnet Tuesday, Jan. 7 $5, 8 p.m. Local 506 After a short string of singles and EPs, Speedy Ortiz released their debut LP, Major Arcana, last year to widespread acclaim. Mixing punk energy with gritty and occasionally witty poetry, the Boston quartet paired sharp songs with the occasionally […]
Brandon Soderberg
Bio: Brandon Soderberg lives in Baltimore, where he writes the No Trivia hip-hop column for Spin.Link: http://no-trivia.tumblr.comTwitter: http://twitter.com/notrivia
Posted inMusic
The Hot at Nights’ ¡Try This!
The Hot At Nights record release show with Canine Heart Sounds The Pour House Saturday, Nov. 2, 9 p.m. $10–$12 A nine-minute, smoked-out cover of Nirvana’s “In Bloom” is the immediate stand-out on the second album by academic/goofball jazz trio The Hot At Nights. At the three-and-a-half-minute mark, the Raleigh group’s slippery take on the […]
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Ivan Howard talks his new project, Howard Ivans, and hints at a new Rosebuds LP early next year
Howard Ivans is not only the new orchestrated-dance project from Ivan Howard of The Rosebuds; it’s also a collaboration with Richmond, Va.,’s Matthew E. White and his Spacebomb Orchestra, experts in big pop majesty. One song—the nervous, full-stop funk of “Red Face Boy”—hit the Internet last week (stream it below). When it’s released through White’s […]
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The Foreign Exchange’s Love in Flying Colors
The Foreign Exchange with DJ Castro Lincoln Theatre Thursday, Oct. 24 9 p.m., $20-$25 When The Foreign Exchange released its debut album, Connected, in 2004, the experience felt like a sigh of relief: For Phonte Coleman, it was a break from the brand of Little Brother, the then-buzzing, traditionalist rap trio suddenly saddled with the […]
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How the Internet, like George Clinton before it, has reinvigorated sampling
George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic with Maceo Parker Friday, Sept. 27, 8 p.m. $10, $59, $69 UNC-Chapel Hill’s Memorial Hall The musical output of George Clinton hinges on an unimpeachable run from 1970 to 1982. During that time, Clinton slapped together doped-up, proto-disco like “Give Up the Funk (Tear the Roof Off the Sucker)” and […]
Posted inFestivals
Holy Ghost! is Brooklyn cool, uncontrived and sincere
At the end of last month, the aging-out event that is the MTV Video Music Awards took place at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center. Through the most perfunctory of nods to the hippest New York borough, the hammy show attempted to graft a little bit of BK edge onto an easygoing industry event desperately in need of […]
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Cold Cave pushes the limits of ’80s nostalgia
Cold Cave with Douglas McCarthy Local 506, Chapel Hill Saturday, Sept. 7, 9 p.m. $10–$12 Wes Eisold, the mastermind behind frosty synth-poppers Cold Cave (and formerly of Boston hardcore heroes Give Up the Ghost), is missing his left hand. This isn’t mentioned to suggest some kind of grab for eerie authenticity points, or as some […]
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Unlikely hitmaker Ke$ha crashes the club-pop party with purpose
Ke$ha with Mike Posner and Semi Precious Weapons Red Hat Amphitheater Wednesday, Aug. 14 6:30 p.m., $40–$62.50 American party music has turned the club into an idyllic, even antiseptic place. In the club that’s collectively illustrated by modern hits, which pair European electro with this country’s long tradition of pandering pop, drinking too much is […]
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Interview: Zo! talks new album ManMade, DIY R&B and happy accidents
Lorenzo Ferguson, or Zo!, as he’s known to fans, released his new album ManMade — a rakish collection of house and ghettotech-tinged slow jams — back in May. It’s another idiosyncratic and uncompromising release from Foreign Exchange Music, fueled by intense collaborations between Zo! and the Foreign Exchange’s Phonte Coleman (credited as writer and producer). […]
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Frat-rapper-in-transition Mac Miller proves most anybody can make a pretty OK album
Mac Miller with Chance the Rapper, The Internet and Vince Staples Tuesday, July 9, 8 p.m. The Ritz, Raleigh Tickets $25 The problem with Pittsburgh-born, 21-year-old rapping white boy Mac Miller isn’t that he’s bad. It’s that he isn’t very good, and we’re now treating him like he’s great. To this point, Miller’s career hinges […]