Thom Yorke / photo by David Greenwald

If you’re clutching your three-day, $300 ticket with anxiety right now, wondering how you’re going to spend a weekend in the desert (outside of jeans company-sponsored hotel parties, of course), fret no longer. After the jump, the Rawkblog hour-by-hour guide to the 2010 Coachella Music Festival. Read the rest of this entry »

Mountshout is the solo project of Kristina Esfandiari, a Sacramento native with an acoustic guitar and a voice dripping with doomed romanticism. Her recordings in that respect recall the elegiac work of Marissa Nadler, only bruised, more ragged — “The Widower,” recorded and videotaped in shadowy low fidelity presumably due to both artistic purpose and financial limitations, captures those qualities perfectly. No MP3s yet, but you can buy the extremely limited run of The Last Book EP and hear more on her MySpace.

As a relative newcomer to Stanley Kubrick (I’ve seen The Killers, Spartacus and bits of Full Metal Jacket), it’s hard not to be blown away by the directorial verve of Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Released just two years after the Cuban Missile Crisis and one before Vietnam, the film filters Cold War paranoia through a series of thinly veiled comedy routines, making a mockery out of government incompetence and military short-sightedness. Shot in gorgeously contrasted black-and-white with the occasional wide-angle lens to add to the cartoonish humor of the proceedings, it’s an energetic cinematic effort even as it documents men in confined spaces (the multi-talented, multi-roled Peter Sellers, in particular), blustering in circles. Kubrick’s message — escalation never ends (and never thinks), even in the face of doomsday — was a bold one at the time, but in the still-fresh wake of eight years of the Bush administration, it’s no less audacious, or affecting, now.

More: Deeper Into Movies | Film + Television

All photos by David Greenwald

Toro Y Moi (roughly, “Bull and I”) is the matadorial project of Chaz Bundick, a 23-year-old South Carolina native. After a pair of self-released CD-Rs began circulating through blogs and message boards in 2009, Toro Y Moi’s official debut, Causers of This, became one of 2010′s most anticipated albums. With influences ranging from hip-hop to house to New Wave, Causers is the most fascinating release yet under the broadening quote-unquote chillwave umbrella. Bundick sat down with me at SXSW last month to talk about his upcoming sophomore album, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Lady Gaga and becoming a style icon. He plays the Echo tonight with the Ruby Suns and busy bunnies Pepper Rabbit. Read the rest of this entry »

Congratulations, indeed! MGMT — who, by all accounts, are some pretty good dudes — have achieved something really admirable here: they’ve parlayed a handful of unfuckwithable hipster-turned-frat party singles into having Columbia pay for them to make an album in a studio that of Montreal or Olivia Tremor Control would’ve made on a four-track in 1999. Beyond that worthy aspiration, the band’s decidedly non-dance-y take on Elephant Six-meets-a-budget neo-psychedelia is an assured one. The songs are pretty, a little weird and yes, catchy enough, though MGMT never reaches again for the huge hooks of “Kids” or “Time To Pretend.” Instead, they’ve turned out a surprisingly modest record that satisfies end-to-end and has Sonic the Hedgehog on the cover. If they name-drop Circulatory System in the liner notes, I might even buy this thing.

More: New Music | 2010 Album Release Calendar

After Harlem Shakes split last year, it was heartening to hear that guitarist Todd Goldstein would be soldiering on by resuming his dormant ARMS solo project – and more heartening to finally hear him play the new songs at SXSW. Along with ARMS’ Austin dates, the band released a free, five-track EP that week which offers a taster of sounds of the full-length to come.

The EP (titled, simply, EP) is a grimy, reverb-splattered collection – less direct and straightforwardly beautiful than the songs sounded live. What they lose in brightness, though, the songs gain in hypnotic draw. Harlem Shakes were a spastic, unmedicated and ADD-suffering indie-pop band, but ARMS’ stuff is more introverted, full of luminous guitar arpeggios and mournful vocals. Which is not to say the band shows no muscle – Goldstein allows himself enough guitar breakdowns to keep the songs as sweaty as they are self-aware. Body and mind after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s no secret that almost every music journalist is or was a struggling musician. If this video is any indication, Los Angeles Times writer (and, full disclosure, my former co-worker) August Brown’s Death Kit won’t be struggling for long. The clip for “I Can Make You Love Me” comes in answer to a number of unposed questions: What would Moby look like playing drums? Where are Where The Wild Things Are, really? What does the best synth-pop song of the year sound like? Press play and find out. (Via Greg Katz)

The sun is back. Jersey Shore is filming its second season. J. Crew spring sales are over. Yes, friends, summer is almost here. To help you welcome it, I present Rawkblog’s Warm Weather Vol. 1 | S/S 2010, 12 tracks and 49 minutes of blissed-out solar-powered audio. Don’t forget your Coppertone. Tracklist and MP3s after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »