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    Music, Reviewed Goldfrapp

    Goldfrapp

    Eight years ago, English electronic act Goldfrapp (singer Alison Goldfrapp and composer Will Gregory) introduced themselves with Felt Mountain, a collection of moody, John Barry–inspired numbers that positioned the duo as logical heirs to Portishead. On subsequent discs, however, Goldfrapp…
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    Music, Reviewed Sigur Rós

    Sigur Rós

    In its first year, Von — the 1997 debut disc from Sigur Rós — moved a whopping 313 copies. A decade and nearly a half-dozen releases later, the ethereal Icelandic quartet has sold considerably more albums, and has become mightily…
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    Music, Reviewed Sebastian Bach

    Sebastian Bach

    Say what you will about his hair-metal pedigree. Talk dismissively about his being firmly ensconced in the reality TV wasteland (Supergroup, Celebrity Rap Superstar, I Married ... Sebastian Bach, etc.). The truth is Sebastian Bach has a great fucking voice,…
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    Music, Reviewed Editors

    Editors

    Surely, the pressing philosophical quandary of our time is whether it's OK for a modern rock singer to sound like Ian Curtis. Editors frontman Tom Smith performs his answer in the affirmative, using that sooty, shuddering, we're-all-fooked-now tenor of his.…
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    Music, Reviewed High on Fire

    High on Fire

    Already regarded as one of modern metal's most face-meltingly fantastic bands, High on Fire further solidifies its reputation with Death is This Communion, the Oakland trio's fourth, most commanding album. For this outing, the band swapped one rock superproducer (Steve…
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    Music, Reviewed Kinski

    Kinski

    Kinski is a wet dream for space-rock and psych-garage aficionados. When it comes to its namesake, the primarily instrumental Seattle quartet is about 75 percent Klaus and 25 percent Nastassja. Intense, explosive, and menacing when the rough-and-tumble guitar tempests strike,…
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    Music, Reviewed Tiny Vipers

    Tiny Vipers

    Tiny Vipers is the nom de indie-folk of Seattle songstress Jesy Fortino, and the seven austere numbers on her debut full-length live up to the moniker. Fashioned mostly from her vocals and her rudimentary, minor-chord acoustic strumming, the tracks seem…
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    Music, Reviewed Two Gallants

    Two Gallants

    Best known for playing boozy Southern blues shot through with punk ethos — and for getting tasered by Houston police after a nightclub fracas last fall — San Francisco duo Two Gallants steer clear of all things electric on this…
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    Music, Reviewed Lifesavas

    Lifesavas

    Expectations for Portland's Lifesavas ran high from the start. MCs Vursatyl and Jumbo the Garbageman and DJ Shines comprised the first act to ink with Quannum Projects outside the local label's original Solesides crew (DJ Shadow, Blackalicious, Lyrics Born, et…
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    Music, Reviewed Lansing-Dreiden

    Lansing-Dreiden

    Secret society Skull and Bones has nothing on Lansing-Dreiden: The latter, a highly enigmatic New York-based multimedia "company" was founded in 2000 and is responsible for music, video, art gallery installations, and a literary magazine. It's known to have three…
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    Music, Reviewed MSTRKRFT

    MSTRKRFT

    When not causing a dance-rock ruckus with his bass-drums duo Death From Above 1979, mustachioed four-stringer Jesse Keeler likes to team up with pal Al-P to form the equally Canadian, increasingly prolific, vowel-challenged production team MSTRKRFT. Over the past year…
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    Music, Reviewed Mojave 3

    Mojave 3

    Neil Halstead and Rachel Goswell have been down the reinvention road before. Back when they were the core of British shoegazers Slowdive, the pair concluded that the noisy, swirling sound they'd helped advance was a creative dead-end and they'd better…
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    Music, Reviewed Young People

    Young People

    It's interesting, yet not all that surprising, to learn that when not working with the bicoastal, avant-garde duo Young People, singer Katie Eastburn is a dancer and choreographer. The band's brooding third album bears aesthetics similar to a modern dance…
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    Music, Reviewed Mates of State

    Mates of State

    Nick & Jessica, Eminem & Kim, Lindsay & whomever ... jeepers, isn't there one celebrity couple around that can keep their shit together for the long haul? Oh right, there's Connecticut lovebirds Kori Gardner and Jason Hammel, aka Mates of…
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    Music, Reviewed Beth Orton

    Beth Orton

    For her fourth solo album, British singer Beth Orton — whose early career was all about merging techno and trip hop with Nick Drake-inspired folk — teamed up with producer/musician Jim O'Rourke, best known for weirding up albums by Wilco,…
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    Music, Reviewed Ester Drang

    Ester Drang

    Multi-instrumentalists James McAlister and Jeff Shoop, who constitute two-thirds of Ester Drang, spent much of the past year and a half recording Illinois with Sufjan Stevens, backing the lauded troubadour in concert, and no doubt lobbying Young Soofy to make…
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    Music, Reviewed Early Man

    Early Man

    When I listen to Closing In, the new riff-fucking-tastic retro-metalfest from Early Man -- the duo of singer/ guitarist/bassist Mike Conte and drummer Adam Bennati that, thanks to the power of overdubbing, sounds at least three members larger -- several…
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    Music, Reviewed Adult.

    Adult.

    "I'm falling apart, I'm coming unglued," Adult. singer Nicola Kuperus yelps over the fluid, flanged bass line, coldhearted robo-drum snap, and brain-drilling electronic squelches of "In My Nerves." That's the spirit, lady! On its third full-length, the Detroit trio of…
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    Music, Reviewed Morcheeba

    Morcheeba

    Vocalists for the decade-old, formerly trip-hop British band Morcheeba are disappearing more frequently than Spinal Tap drummers: Original chanteuse Skye Edwards departed last year (she quit; she wasn't the victim of a "bizarre gardening accident") and was replaced by Daisy…
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    Music, Reviewed The Kingsbury Manx

    The Kingsbury Manx

    I can't even imagine the confusion during marketing meetings at Yep Roc headquarters as the staff tried to figure out which indie-pop niche to target with The Fast Rise and Fall of the South, the fourth full-length album in six…
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    Music, Reviewed Various Artists

    Various Artists

    The 1972 double LP Nuggets, as many a rock 'n' roll aficionado can tell you, was a treasure trove of overlooked 1960s American garage-punk, psychedelia, and fuzz-pop rounded up by rock critic and musician Lenny Kaye. Rhino expanded Nuggets into…
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    Music, Reviewed Various Artists

    Various Artists

    There's little doubt that Sire Records is deserving of the box-set treatment. Co-founder Seymour Stein had an uncanny knack for signing punk, pop, new wave, dance, shoegazer, and altcountry acts that were destined to make great, groundbreaking albums, or at…
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    Music, Reviewed Yo La Tengo

    Yo La Tengo

    The 42 songs on this three-CD Yo La Tengo career retrospective aren't sequenced chronologically, but it wouldn't much matter if they were. The two-decade tale of Hoboken, N.J.'s finest indie rock band resists a linear celebration; rather than an evolutionary…
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    Music, Reviewed Marianne Faithfull

    Marianne Faithfull

    Marianne Faithfull's majestically unnerving croak is the sound of funerals on drizzly days; of midnight ashtrays overflowing with stubbed regrets. Yep, it's often a downer, but absolutely magnetically so, which is one reason the 58-year-old "unsinkable Molly Brown" of the…
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    Music, Reviewed Frausdots

    Frausdots

    In the mid-'90s, scads of U.K. guitar bands began looking toward America -- Southern California, especially -- for inspiration, and many a shoegazer or Britpop act started country-folkin' up its sound after a literal or psychic trip to the Joshua…
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  • clipping at Brava Theater Sept. 11
    Sub Pop recording artists 'clipping.' brought their brand of noise-driven experimental hip hop to the closing night of 2016's San Francisco Electronic Music Fest this past Sunday. The packed Brava Theater hosted an initially seated crowd that ended the night jumping and dancing against the front of the stage. The trio performed a set focused on their recently released Sci-Fi Horror concept album, 'Splendor & Misery', then delved into their dancier and more aggressive back catalogue, and recent single 'Wriggle'. Opening performances included local experimental electronic duo 'Tujurikkuja' and computer music artist 'Madalyn Merkey.'"

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