N.Y.C.-based editor/designer Hamish Robertson is a busy man. You would think that being the online design editor of Vanity Fair would be time-consuming enough, right? Yet somehow Robertson finds time to create websites for well-known businesses (like vegan treatery, Babycakes), publish zines and prints as Brown Griffin (from his Brooklyn apartment), and curate Afterzine, a beautifully compiled arts and culture ... Read More

  Montreal's Claire Boucher (aka Grimes) seemed a bit shy on stage in front of a sold out crowd at NYC's Bowery Ballroom recently. She confessed that she hadn’t played a show in a while and was forgetting songs. Well, I didn’t notice. Here’s what I did notice: Grimes’ songs are basically the perfect soundtrack for a f*ed up Grimm Brothers Fairytale. It’s that tense "Hansel & Gretel lost in the woods ... Read More

Stefanie Drootin has played in more bands than you or I could count on two hands; most recently duo Big Harp with husband Chris Senseney. But now she is tacking on a new title: executive director and founder of Omaha Girls Rock! camp, which makes its weeklong debut Monday, July 11. According to a recent interview with Lazy-i, Drootin considers herself lucky to have “had the confidence to be able to deal with a lot of the stuff that ... Read More

  Montreal’s sexy husband/wife combo Handsome Furs, is keeping it in the family once more with their third album Sound Kapital (Sub Pop). Are you ready for this? Because I’m not sure that you are. Their music on this LP is a f* ton of electric sound. A digital mink, if you will. Alexei Perry jams out so hard on the keyboard while hubby Dan Boeckner co-fronts with his ensnaring vocals and wily guitar riffs. Some tracks have ... Read More

No one underestimates Buddy Holly’s contribution to rock ’n’ roll, but it is easy to forget that by his death in 1959 at age 22—in a career spanning just a year and a half­—he had created such a wealth of infectious pop songs. The 19 artists paying tribute to the coolest rock ’n’ roll nerd of all time on Rave On Buddy Holly (Fantasy/Concord Music Group) reads like a who’s who of ... Read More

Are you ready to get blipped and bleeped until your jeans tight-roll themselves? Because Junior Boys' fourth album, It’s All True, (Domino) will probably make you think you’re live on Dance TV. The Canadian duo blends spaced out synths with a bevy of ’80s-inspired melodies and sensitive vocals. Junior Boys singer Jeremy Greenspan nails some lovely high notes on the pouty tune “Banana Ripple,” and I swear I ... Read More

  For a band with a radical name, Toronto’s sprawling hardcore collective Fucked Up sure do make one hell of an old-fashioned racket. There was once this thing called an “album,” and a subgenre of this archaic method of presentation was the monolithic “rock opera.” David Comes to Life (Matador) represents, in many ways, the most punk thing Fucked Up could do right now, because what’s more ... Read More

On Wit’s End (Domino), Cass McCombs shows us all that songs about debilitating sadness and unrelenting hopelessness can make for some pretty catchy tunes. Having cornered the market on bumming people out with 2009’s heavily instrumented Catacombs, McCombs appears to have moved on to making mascara run from the cheeks with just the sound of his voice and some accompanying clicks and clatters. While Catacombs provided what can ... Read More

Just in time for summer, Holly Golightly and The Brokeoffs deliver another round of dark Americana music perfect for your next moonshine tasting or impromptu back porch shindig—No Help Coming (Transdreamer). It has been four years, and four albums, since the duo consisting of Ms. Golightly and Lawyer Dave released their gritty 2007 debut, You Can’t Buy A Gun When You’re Crying, and the two don’t show any signs of ... Read More

If you've been to New York City's Terminal 5 venue, you know that it's essentially the cage in the apocalyptic film Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. Hordes of people are crammed into a two-tiered concrete arena with weird cable "fencing" on the 2nd floor to keep them from falling a few hundred feet to a live soundtrack. But it was actually not a bad place to see NYC-based band Cold Cave, now on tour to promote their sophomore album Cherish the ... Read More