Promising London-based indie folk purveyors, Noah & The Whale, led by composing guitarist Charlie Fink, deliver fragile romanticism to love-starved minions. Alongside Rain Machine (the solo premier from TV On The Radio’s lead voice, Kyp Malone), Noah’s Whale shows goodly restraint rendering their lovelorn retreats for the terminally pained.

For well-regarded ’08 debut, Peaceful, The World Lays Me Down, Fink’s Whale offered oblique tenderhearted sentimentality merging twee-pop charm with low key anti-folk sensitivity.

Whimsical hand-clapped whistle-bound ukelele-based affectation “5…

FOREWORD: Deeerhoof has managed to spread out its semi-avant experiments over several prodigious  albums. Though co-guitarist Chris Cohen left to concentrate on his own band, The Curtains, whose ‘07 release, Calamity, collected an eclectic array of proggish psych abstractions, Deerhoof survived as a threesome. ’05s Runners Four and ’07s Friend Opportunity proved to be just as pertinently irresistible as the bands’ predeccesors. I spoke to Cohen in ‘04 to promote Milk Man. This article originally appeared in Aquarian Weekly.

 Unafraid to challenge melodic preconceptions, extraordinary San…

Trailblazing ‘70s punk combo, the Slits, paid the cost to be the most revolutionary female band in a male-dominated subculture. Having the innate ability to dress up artless guitar debris with minimalist dub-reggae rhythms, the innovative lasses were initially violently attacked and verbally assaulted because their rudimentary approach leaned towards Jamaican rude boy juvenility, seemingly at odds with the snotty nihilist rebellion the Sex Pistols’ ilk possessed.

Undoubtedly, the Slits also upset moshing neo-Nazi Oi! boys hooked on violently chanted…

Admirable anti-fascist South American hippie, Sergio Dias, gained international acclaim fronting Os Mutantes, rebellious bossa nova-based folk surrealists whose ceremonial Beatles-influenced Tropicalia clashed against politically-empowered authoritarian traditionalists during Brazil’s turbulent late ‘60s uprising. The Sao Paola-raised Dias, alongside percussionist-brother, Arnaldo Baptista, and female singing counterpart, Rita Lee Jones, helped devise an enduring musical style rooted in their country’s cultural heritage and inspired by contemporary absurdist pop.

Credited with being unintentional innovators of cut-n-paste technology, a sample-based technique utilizing electronic affects…

Rocking all over America since age seventeen, contentious bad-ass punk diva, Jemina Pearl, hit the ground running in the now-defunct Be Your Own Pet before hijacking their drummer to co-compose a few tunes as lead guitarist in a solo venture she only hoped would satisfy loyal minions. The oldest daughter of churchgoing Jesus-worshipping hippies whose father played in a local rock and roll band, Pearl’s cutesy snot-nosed tomboy image and volatile onstage disposition proceed her.

Drawing listeners in with prudently…

Though he’s known for spreading surrealist sociopolitical surreptitiousness in Brooklyn’s praiseworthy TV On The Radio, bespectacled wooly-bearded natty-haired singer-guitarist, Kyp Malone, strove to delve deeper, mining tearful expressions of the heart under the stormy nom de plume, Rain Machine. But it took the urging, benevolence, and planning of respected producer, Ian Brennan, to get Malone’s solo project as Rain Machine off the ground instead of staying on the backburner forever.

As a youngster, Malone studied violin and viola,…

These days, Brooklyn’s filled with an influx of experimental rock bands traversing all across America to get there before the magic runs out. Since the late ‘90s, many talented and variegated musical artists have seemingly come out of the woodwork, or more likely, the red-bricked apartments of Williamsburg – Manhattan’s cheaper alternative conveniently located just across the Hudson River. Currently residing in or around the Kings County hotbed are internationally renowned indie bands such as Animal Collective (Baltimore), The National…

Captivating Toronto-based singer-guitarist Chris Eaton brings a refreshingly spontaneous literary perspective to Old World Anglo-folk. As Rock Plaza Central’s principal songwriter, Eaton approaches each full-length studio album as if it’s a bittersweet novel. His evolving lineup, extended beyond its formatively minimal cello-banjo mode, helps celebrate each sad homecoming and broken hero with similarly sullen nautical retreats.

At particular intervals, Eaton’s crackled nasal baritone squeal brings to mind warped folk-blues dilettante, Michael Hurley, or hauntingly bedeviled lost soul, Syd Barrett. A…

 Branching out beyond reflective folk-based singer-songwriter to artful Jazz-affected rhapsodist, multi-talented acoustic guitarist-pianist Joe Henry’s a roving chameleon who has become entrusted producer for several veteran singers. Fact is, the unrivaled Los Angeles transplant refined and redefined his widening artistic profile over the course of a dozen evolving albums while commendably reintroducing respectful aged-in-the-wool vocalists who’d been unfairly neglected in recent years.

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Ex-Grandaddy mastermind, Jason Lytle, relies on beautifully textured symphonic moods and swooning sad-voiced ethereality to reach nirvana. Taking a surrealistic pilgrimage beyond the Flaming Lips astral weeps, Grandaddy’s subtle orchestral provocations attached Lytle’s diligently detailed compositional mastery and gorgeously sequenced keyboard regalia to main comrade Jim Fairchild’s interlaced fuzzy guitar gauze, helping define the minimalist computer-generated rock landscape of the late ‘90s.

Now a venturing soloist after an uneasy breakup with his fellow Californian pals, ex-skateboard pro, Lytle, still manages…

Au Revoir Simone are three long-legged long-haired lasses living in Brooklyn who weave gossamer pillow-talked seductions through minimalist melodic symphonies, futurist lounge pop, celestial ambient abstractions, and buoyant cybernetic Kraut-rock. Customarily using vintage manual input devices, their most accomplished set yet, ‘09s Still Night, Still Light, refines the ethereal Casio-glazed gauzy linearity, buzz-y electro whirs, and pulsating crystalline balladry previously put forth.

Heather, who’d been watching Pee Wee’s Playhouse religiously, took their French moniker from a line in the movie

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Under the unassuming pseudonym, The Field, minimalist Swedish electronic music designer, Axel Willner, makes some of the most hypnotizing transcendental meditations and brusque instrumental contraptions currently making the rounds worldwide.

A brilliant laptop-toting tape-manipulating loop-sampling mastermind splattering cold robotic machinations onto lavishly warm hypnotizing euphoria, the formerly Stockholm-based architect corrupts majestically mellifluent processed sound-waves with surrealistic shoegazer-informed sonic droning (pioneered by ‘80s icons My Bloody Valentine and Jesus & Mary Chain) to create fascinatingly ambient symphonies.

The Field’s most popular…