What Chaos Is Imaginary is Girlpool’s third LP, and finds duo Cleo Tucker and Harmony Tividad shedding past selves like an old skin. The work revolves around gradual personal growth, the pain of becoming someone else and trying to abandon the echo of who you once were. This is the first album the band has released since Tucker’s transition, and the drop of their voice into a lower tenor has changed the core of the songs. Before, their voices blended in gentle harmonies, but now there is sharp division. On previous works, everything was shared, a constant collaboration. Now […]
BEING THERE: The 2019 Philadelphia Auto Show
At the 2019 Philadelphia Auto Show, there were many different types of cars that can get you from point A to point B. These cars boasted a range of gee-whiz capabilities, and there were a lot of new cars that employ two different sources of fuel: gasoline and electricity. This year, there were more brands that offered EV’s (Electric powered Vehicles). Chevrolet and Nissan pioneered the first mass produced electric cars, but this year there were electric cars in the Mercedes, BMW, and Audi lines, and Ford had a wider range of EV versions of their most popular models […]
RETROSPECTIVE: Earl Sweatshirt, The Understated Young Poet Laureate Of The Mumble Generation
Illustration by @KingJediah via Instagram BY SEAN HECK In 2011, Los Angeles-based hip-hop collective Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All were at the zenith of their fame. By then, the group of boisterous young rappers, producers, crooners, skaters, fashion designers and hype men had collectively released 12 mixtapes, with a few members showcasing a large array of distinct influences, personalities, and sounds. The group’s ringleader, Tyler the Creator, seemed to get his kicks from simultaneously worrying and intriguing white Americans with repulsive, predatory lyrics about rape, murder and mutilation juxtaposed with murky, jazzy, and at times quirkily beautiful piano […]
BOOKS: The Great Gritsby
PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINE: Gritty is only four months old, but in that time he’s shown up everywhere. On wedding cakes, on Jimmy Fallon, on Christmas ornaments, on a fake (hopeful?) cover of Time magazine. So consider us highly un-shocked to discover that our favorite orange fur-ball made an appearance on some more fake covers: This time of the literary variety, thanks to a series of mock-ups by local indie publisher Quirk Books. MORE
BEING THERE: Amen Dunes + Arthur @ UT
Photo by MATT SHAVER Despite the frigid wind and snow of a polar vortex—whatever that is—Union Transfer was packed with beanie-wearing, beer-guzzling indie kids last night. At first, the crowd was largely friends and family of opener Arthur, the experimental pop project of Arthur Shea. Shea also plays in Philly band Joy Again, who I’ve been following on the DIY scene for several years, watching them grow from playing in dingy basements to touring with Rostam (Vampire Weekend). Arthur’s music is surreal and alien, full of bizarre sound effects and skittering pop keyboards. The overall impression is frenzied, like an […]
IN THE BEGINNING: Vinyl Mini-Box Set Of David Bowie’s Earliest Demos Lands On Earth April 5th
With 2019 marking 50 years since David Bowie’s first hit, “Space Oddity,” Parlophone is set to release a 7″ vinyl singles boxed set of nine previously unreleased recordings* from the era during which “Space Oddity” was first conceived. The title SPYING THROUGH A KEYHOLE is a lyric taken from the previously unknown song “Love All Around” and though most of the other titles are known, these versions have never been officially released until late last year (see footnote). Most of the recordings are solo vocal and acoustic home demo performances, unless otherwise stated. The photography that adorns the box […]
BOOKS: The Importance Of Being Edward Gorey
THE ATLANTIC: When the war was over, Gorey went to Harvard, where he set about the business of—as Dery puts it—“becoming Gorey.” His assistant dean found him to be a “queer looking egg.” But his best buddy was the poet Frank O’Hara, so who cares? There began the long coats, the many rings, the weary supremacy. He had crushes on other men. No sex, though, as far as Dery can ascertain, and no long-term companionship. Sedulous bachelorhood became the MO. Morrissey again: The hills are alive with celibate cries. Gorey moved to Manhattan in 1953 and churned out book […]
AVEY TARE: Saturdays (Again)
Avey Tare, a.k.a Dave Portner of Animal Collective, has announced the new album Cows On Hourglass Pond, for release on March 22, 2019. Cows On Hourglass Pond was recorded between January – March 2018 by Dave Portner at Laughing Gas in Asheville, NC on a Tascam 48 half-inch reel-to-reel tape machine. The album was mixed by Adam McDaniel and Dave Portner at Drop of Sun in Asheville, NC. Tour dates after the jump…
INCOMING: The Girl With The Most Cake
In comedy circles, Amy Schumer is the girl with the most cake these days. Given her hard-won red carpet ubiquity — between Comedy Central’s Inside Amy Schumer, her big-hit sketch comedy show now on apparent hiatus after four seasons, Trainwreck, the 2015 hit comedy film she wrote and starred in, and her Chris Rock-directed 2015 HBO comedy special Live At The Apollo, and all the attendant rounds of transcontinental interviews and talking head commentary, social media hand-wringing and blogospheric pearl-clutching that accompany such affairs — there’s no real need to explain who Amy Schumer is to anyone who hasn’t […]
TIM HEIDECKER: Ballad Of ICE Agent Ray
Today, Tim Heidecker releases the Another Year In Hell: Collected Songs from 2018 EP via Jagjaguwar, the follow up to 2016’s acclaimed Too Dumb For Suicide: Tim Heidecker’s Trump Songs. He also shares a lyric video for “Ballad of ICE Agent Ray,” edited by Vic Berger and stylized with a still of Trump’s twitter and his comically characteristic misspellings. Featuring six songs that are caustic renderings of MAGA characters, both imagined and real, Another Year In Hell boasts the same signature piano and guitar lines from Heidecker’s previous release, but with a sharper bite. While Too Dumb For Suicide made […]
GEEK SQUAD: The Birds Of Prey Teaser
The Birds of Prey are an all female superhero team of mostly Gotham (the city where Batman lives) heroes. In addition of Margot Robbie reprising her role as Harley Quinn, the film will feature Jurnett Smollett-Bell (Friday Night Lights, True Blood) as Black Canary, Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, 10 Cloverfield LaneI) as Huntress , Rosie Perez as Renee Montoya, Ella Jay Basco as Cassandra Cain, the Star Wars prequel’s Obi Wan Ewan McGregor as the villain Black Mask, and Chris Messina (The Newsroom, The Mindy Project) as serial killer Victor Zsasz star. Birds of Prey (And […]
BEING THERE: Neko Case @ The Keswick
Photo by MATT SHAVER The first time I heard Neko Case sing was at a live show and she was singing just to me. The year was 2004 and I was at the Tower Theater, er, sorry, Tower Records, in Fairfax Virginia. The listening stations were a favorite spot of mine after classes. I’d post up on those shiny red stools and bury myself in whatever the staff was recommending at the moment, and in this moment it was The Tigers Have Spoken. I was hooked from song one and have been enthralled ever since. Neko has THE voice – […]
Q&A With Daily Show Correspondent Dulce Sloan
As a correspondent on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show with Trevor Noah and hailed by Variety Magazine as a Top 10 Comedian To Watch, Dulcé Sloan is one of the sharpest, fastest rising voices in comedy. She has been named by Rolling Stone as one of the 10 Comedians You Need To Know and was hailed by Timeout LA as a 2017 Comedian to Watch. She has also been honored as the 2016 NBC Stand Up Showcase Winner, a Montreal Just For Laughs New Face and as a Comedian to Watch on The Steve Harvey Show. Dulcé has “a […]