Blog
A Visual Sound
When the Stereo Skateboards video A Visual Sound came out in 1994, many skateboarders were confused by it. With its 8mm film aesthetic, arty interludes, and post-bop jazz tunes, it didn’t look or sound like any other skate videos at the time.1 It may have featured some of
Proto-Hobbits and Income Babies
Shortly into the new year, my wife and I picked up my oldest son, who is living in an apartment with friends, and went to the art museum (a place we all love). During the car ride, he was telling us about how he had been spending time until classes
Stop Me If You Think That You’ve Heard This One Before
One testament to my affection for the Smiths is the fact that I desperately wanted to hate them. My girlfriend in high school sung their praises, but we weren’t totally in sync in the music department. I was turned off by what I saw as the pretentiousness of Morrissey,
King Cnut
London-based outfit Mandrake Handshake has something like a psychadelic+ sound. Or as they call it themselves—flowerkraut. They probably owe as much to Stereolab as anyone else. In their song “Hypersonic Super-Asterid,” they actually use the phrase “metronomic underground," which is the first track from Stereolab’s Emperor Tomato
Playing Through
Those of us in Central North Carolina are looking at a nasty ice storm this weekend. In preparation, I did something I hadn’t done in a long time: I bought a video game. Until a few days ago, our PS4 wasn’t even working because you couldn’t connect
It Could Have Been You
Last week I made it to an art exhibit I had been anticipating since its announcement: The Book of Esther in the Age of Rembrandt. Having read the book of Esther several times, I was familiar with the subject material, but I learned quite a bit about how the book
Too Fast To Last
Longtime readers know I’m a big fan of Scout Gillett, who I first discovered via her beguiling cover of Broadcast’s “Come On, Let’s Go.” I had her first full-length, 2022’s No Roof No Floor, on very heavy rotation for a couple of months after its release.
The Loudness Wars
Music quality suffered serious casualties in the nineties and aughts in what are colloquially known as "The Loudness Wars.” Album mastering favored compression and boosting the volume at the expense of dynamic range—an attribute that can increase enjoyment of music and decrease listener fatigue. With the advent of
Lonely Road
I was unfamiliar with Natalie Bergman and discovered her new material while combing through this post by Jason Morehead about some of his favorite songs of 2025. This track leads off Bergman's 2025 release, My Home Is Not In This World. It's got a Brill Building
120 Minutes That Saved My Life
When I was starting to explore the scope of music in what used to be called the “alternative” scene in the late ’80s and early ’90s, the MTV show 120 Minutes was an effective teacher. The label described a loosely knit category—if you can even call it that—in