In 1995, Timothy McVeigh blew up an Oklahoma City federal building; umpteen thousands were slaughtered in Bosnia and Rwanda; O.J. Simpson was acquitted of double murder; Forrest Gump beat out Pulp Fiction for the best picture Oscar; and Mickey Mantle died. But there was a tiny bright spot amid all…

“You get, you get, you get what you put in.” Those are the impassioned first words that pour out of vocalist Keeley Davis’s mouth on “Rogue,” leading off Engine Down’s upcoming self-titled disc — the Richmond, Virginia quartet’s fourth full-length since forming in 1996 — and neatly epitomizing the group’s…

Although I slept through my freshman microeconomics course far more than I attended it, and thus am hardly an expert in such matters, I believe a band may safely be deemed “efficient” if it can make an entire album for six dollars (no matter how long it takes) or in…

There are tons of great DJ Shadow concert bootlegs floating around out there on disc and vinyl, but the stunning clarity and seamlessly mixed content of the official Live! In Tune and On Time puts all the rest to shame. This 20-track, 78-minute CD (packaged together with a 24-track DVD)…

Midlake comprises five guys from Denton, Texas who sound like they’ve been shipwrecked on a deserted island for a couple of years with only a steamer trunk full of Victorian English novels, Flaming Lips and Sparklehorse CDs, and some really dodgy acid tabs to keep them entertained. That is, until…

Several years ago, U2 singer Bono told Rolling Stone magazine about a visit he and bassist Adam Clayton once made to the home of fellow devout Christians Johnny and June Carter Cash. As they sat down to eat dinner, Bono recalled, “John spoke this beautiful, poetic grace, and we were…

There’s a wondrous duality to the Southern California coastline. In the daytime, it’s a carefree paradise of sand, surf, rays, and an endless loop of Beach Boys songs running through the mind. And at night, as bonfires and blankets dot the beaches, the same turf takes on expansive, reflective, near-mystical…

There are two criticisms frequently leveled at the current jazz scene: The musicians are too slick and averse to risk, and the industry is concentrating on repackaging past glories rather than encouraging innovation. Both of these concerns apply in some measure to Adam Dorn. He’s definitely a jazz guy, a…

Under most circumstances, the notion of six box sets — for a grand total of 36 discs, 245 tracks, and a shade under 23 hours of music — dedicated to one band would seem a tad excessive, no? But then again, we’re talking about Depeche Mode. Few groups have been…

It was so easy to despise the Vines when they emerged like creatures from the garage lagoon back in 2002 with Highly Evolved. The Australian-turned-Los Angeles quartet was jammed down our throat ad nauseam; they had a nitwit, room-trashing poseur of a frontman in Craig Nicholls; and they unabashedly ransacked…

Goodbye skronky art-noise, hello lush dream-pop! Such a makeover worked wonders for Mercury Rev, and now Blonde Redhead has fully embraced its collective inner softie on Misery is a Butterfly, the band’s sixth studio album. The transformation might not be quite as jarring to steady followers of the New York-based…

Apparently there’s a standing offer of one million dollars from the Clay Mathematics Institute in Boston to anyone who can solve the Poincaré Conjecture, a geometrical problem that has baffled the world’s brightest minds for a century. There should probably be a similar reward for anyone who can figure out…

The World of Lady A — British-born chanteuse Anjali Bathia — is a deliciously decadent dimension where Russ Meyer directs James Bond flicks on the streets of Calcutta, and orbiting spacecraft are equipped with fur-lined cocktail nooks, hot tubs, and Martin Denny LPs to facilitate swanky zero-gravity copulation. Sprawling strings,…

Heather Duby’s 1999 debut, Post to Wire, is still a splendid listening experience. On it the Seattle songstress used her remarkable voice to deliver intimate, haunting, and uncontrived ruminations on love and loss over layered, autumnal trip-pop arrangements co-written and produced by Pacific Northwest über-knob twiddler Steve Fisk. There was,…

After more than a decade of relative silence following the dissolution of the Clash, the iconic singer-guitarist formed a new rock and roll outfit, the Mescaleros, which cooked with more Caribbean, African, and South American flavors than his old globally minded group ever had. Two warmly received albums later, he…

In space, no one can hear you scream, so you might as well chill the fuck out. That’s been the modus operandi of London’s Laika, named after the Russian dog that rode Sputnik II into orbit in 1957. Since the early Nineties the band has offered a uniquely seductive and…

Dear Frank Black (or is it Black Francis again?), Kim Deal, Joey Santiago, and David Lovering: I love you. Or rather, I did love you. Or, I mean … Aw shucks guys, this is difficult and confusing! Okay, I still love you, in that “fond remembrance” kinda way. That’s what…

Every year a ragtag caravan of musicians speeds through the California wasteland, kicking up a cloud of sand as it heads toward its remote, mystical destination. Burning Man? Nah. They’re going to Rancho de la Luna in Joshua Tree, where Queens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme has presided…