Everybody and their momma got a chance to audition for The Postal Service. I’m a weird genius, shit, where’s my time to shine Mr. Sub Pop, why didn’t you call L.A. RECORD’s office? We got all the talent right here! I’ll take my shirt off and swing it around on stage while Jimmy Tamborello does [...]

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The Postal Service is back.

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This amazing comeback album has both the intelligence of their early work and the mastery they came to know later, though it takes after some new inspirations, including the Grateful Dead (though that just may be the lilt in Farmer Dave Scher’s voice), and country-fied Neil Young (just check out the harmonica in “Alone Together”), and even post-Syd Barrett, pre-Wall Pink Floyd—there’s something very strange and Meddle-like in the chord changes of “Talk About Lonesome,” even more so in the song “Mollusk,” which has haunting steel guitar and chimes straight out of the Zabriskie Point soundtrack.

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Low is one of those bands from the 1990s that continue to be–and pretty much always were–absolutely timeless. They self-indentify as “slowcore”, making music that is austere, subdued, and hypnotic. They play with Bachelorette, a.k.a. Annabel Alpers, whose mix of 60s psyche and girl group pop sounds like a computer took a bunch of ecstasy, [...]

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He started out in the early 90s as Butterfly of Grammy-winning, jazzy, smooth-rapping trio Digable Planets (remember who taught you how to be “Cool Like Dat?”), and then, after a seven-year hiatus, he returned as the singer of velvety electro-funk band Cherrywine. Six years later, he dropped twin EPs with Afro-Arabian imagery, Shabazz Palaces and Of Light, as the mysterious and press-evasive Palaceer Lazaro of Shabazz Palaces. Black Up is Butler’s debut LP as “Shabazz”—the first hip hop record ever for Seattle indie powerhouse Sub Pop—and here we find Ish at the top of his game

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Ishmael Butler is known by many names, most of which we aren’t meant to ever discover. Now he stands at the center of the universe of the mysterious Shabazz Palaces, holding court as Palaceer Lazaro in the first hip-hop group ever signed to Sub Pop. He speaks here about divine inspiration, being in love, and keeping perspective. This interview by Lainna Fader.

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Shabazz Palaces’ Black Up out June 28, 2011 on Sub Pop Seattle’s experimental hip-hop collective Shabazz Palaces is coming to town and playing this Thursday at the Troubadour and we wanna see you there! The fine folks at Sub Pop have offered us two pairs of tickets to give away to L.A. RECORD readers so [...]

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Somehow, Avi Buffalo takes a sound I thought I had no love for and makes it rekindle my faith in guitar rock. Not since the Smiths has a band taken recent tradition to such new heights, and I suspect this won’t be Avi Buffalo’s last great album.

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A new No Age record called Everything In Between is coming out September 28 on Sup Pop. The tracklist: 1. Life Prowler 2. Glitter 3. Fever Dreaming 4. Depletion 5. Common Heat 6. Skinned 7. Katerpillar 8. Valley Hump Crash 9. Sorts 10. Dusted 11. Positive Amputation 12. Shred and Trascend 13. Chem Trails Here [...]

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Via: Pitchfork Bummer city: After two televison seasons and two albums of quirky musical comedy, the Flight of the Conchords guys are calling it quits. “We won’t be returning for a 3rd season,” wrote the duo on their official site. “While the characters Bret and Jemaine will no longer be around, the real Bret and [...]

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