Watch St. Vincent & Isaac Brock On Portlandia + Fred Armisen’s 10 Favorite Portland Bands

Posted on 6 February 2012 | 3:09 pm
Portlandia is a show by, for, and about indie rock types, so it’s no surprise that indie big dogs show up in sketches every so often. This past weekend’s episode featured two. St. Vincent’s Annie Clark, who first collaborated with Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein back when they were the online sketch duo ThunderAnt, played [...]

Lotus Plaza – “Come Back”

Posted on 6 February 2012 | 2:41 pm
Lotus Plaza, the solo side project from Deerhunter’s Lockett Pundt, has a new split 10″ single coming out with Nice Weekend, otherwise known as Pundt’s fiancee Shayda Yavari. On the B-side, Pundt collaborates with Yavari on the song “Longest Days.” And the A-side, “Come Back,” is a dreamy, floaty nine-minute solo track called “Come Back.” [...]

Progress Report: Mark Lanegan

Posted on 6 February 2012 | 2:39 pm
Name: Mark Lanegan Progress Report: The songwriter talks about Blues Funeral, his first solo album in nearly 8 years. It should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with his music that Mark Lanegan is a man of relatively few words. Whether it be with his work as the frontman of Screaming Trees, his work [...]

Bear In Heaven – “The Reflection Of You” (Lovelock Remix)

Posted on 6 February 2012 | 1:59 pm
Bear In Heaven will drop their new album I Love You, It’s Cool in a couple of months, and we’ve already posted the awesomely synthy first track “The Reflection Of You.” Below, check out a reworking of the song from the prolific remixer Lovelock, who slows the track down and smooths it out, turning it [...]

Download Gucci Mane Trap Back Mixtape

Posted on 6 February 2012 | 1:10 pm
Atlanta rap great Gucci Mane has been in and out of prison for the last few years, and his music has gradually grown as erratic as you’d expect when you take that into account. BAYTL, his late-2011 collaborative album with the widely dismissed V-Nasty, wasn’t exactly an indicator of great things to come. But yesterday, [...]

Leonard Friend – “Everything For The Sake Of Everything (Luke Top Remix)”

Posted on 6 February 2012 | 12:51 pm
Leonard Friend is the electronic pop project of Alex Feder (ex-XYZ Affair), who initially showed up on our radar thanks to their ’90s-Nickolodeon-cameo-heavy clip for their song “All My Friends.” He’s got an EP out, and recently Fool’s Gold‘s Luke Top took time out to remix one of that release’s standouts, “Everything For The Sake [...]

Fort Lean – “Sunsick”

Posted on 6 February 2012 | 12:49 pm
The Brooklyn indie crew have a way with a clean power-pop melody that few can match, and their self-titled EP, still up for free download, is an absolute monster. The band has a new 7″ single on the way, and below, we’ve got their charged-up new song “Sunsick.” Fort Lean – “Sunsick” (via Spin) That [...]

The Shins – “September”

Posted on 6 February 2012 | 12:03 pm
Next week, the Shins will release the 7″ single version of “Simple Song,” the huge, world-beating single from their forthcoming Port Of Morrow album. That single will feature a new song called “September” on the B-side. And below, we’ve got the lyric video for the song, which has a delicate bossa nova lilt and some [...]

Hear James Blake’s D’Angelo Remix

Posted on 6 February 2012 | 11:51 am
James Blake has long been interested in keening R&B longing and warped, diffuse songwriting, so it’s only natural that he’d be a D’Angelo fan. And during a guest DJ set on BBC Radio 1 this past weekend, he busted out a remix of “Left & Right,” the Method Man/Redman collab from D’Angelo’s classic 2000 album [...]

Stream Shearwater Animal Joy

Posted on 6 February 2012 | 11:49 am
Shearwater’s new album is out next week, and we’ve already heard three quite-nice takes from that affair, “You As You Were,” “Breaking The Yearlings” and “Animal Joy.” And now, as part of NPR’s first listen, Animal Joy is streaming in full. It’s out next week on Sub Pop.