music – Page 24 – Vol. 1 Brooklyn

Inside Alex Chilton: A Review of Holly George-Warren’s “A Man Called Destruction”

April 8, 2014 No Comments

A Man Called Destruction: The Life and Music of Alex Chilton from Box Tops to Big Star to Backdoor Man by Holly George-Warren Viking; 384 p. Though they’re often referred to as the definitive cult band, Big Star left the ranks of the obscure some time ago. The band’s story has been well told: A former ‘60s teen idol, Alex Chilton, hooked up with an old acquaintance from back home in Memphis, Chris Bell, to give the music business another […]

music

The Time Man Forever and William Basinski Collaborated

April 7, 2014 No Comments

It would be hard to think of two artists who we’re more fond of at Vol.1 Brooklyn than Kid Millions and William Basinski. One is the drummer whose work with Oneida and Man Forever; the other is the composer behind such works as The Disintegration Loops and A Red Score in Tile. As part of this year’s Ecstatic Music Festival, the two collaborated, and WQXR has images from their performance up now, as well as a recording, which you can hear below. […]

Featured, Interviews, music

Talking Feminist Science Fiction and Remaking Surf-Rock: An Interview with Seattle’s Tacocat

March 28, 2014 No Comments

NVM, the new album from Seattle’s Tacocat, abounds with blissed-out, catchy punk rock. At times it’s also slyly funny: consider the title, or the lyrics to “Crimson Wave,” a surf song like none that have come before it. As Devon Maloney noted in a review of NVM for Pitchfork, the group ably (and subtly) blends smart political critiques with massively catchy songs. I checked in with bassist Bree McKenna and vocalist Emily Nokes to learn more about the making of NVM, the […]

music

Listening to Kim Gordon’s “Walks With Men”

March 27, 2014 No Comments

Because it’s Thursday afternoon, we suspect that you might be in need of some music on the cathartic, experimental side. And thus, here’s (relatively) new music from Kim Gordon, which can be heard on a 12″ from White Columns, as part of their “The Sound of White Columns” series. And you can hear the whole ten-minute piece via SoundCloud; it’s also embedded below.

Books, music

An Excerpt from Sean Madigan Hoen’s “Songs Only You Know”

March 25, 2014 1 Comment

Sean Madigan Hoen first came onto our radar over a decade ago, given his involvement in a number of Michigan-based hardcore bands. These days, he’s receiving acclaim for his memoir Songs Only You Know, due out next month on Soho Press. Jaimy Gordon had this to say about it: “If there is ruefulness, now, for the way he treated his body, his girlfriends, and his family, he wisely reprises in his book, in neon detail, the fever that once placed him […]

music

Chain & The Gang’s “Minimum Rock N Roll” Gets a Minimalist Trailer

March 11, 2014 2 Comments

Come April, Ian Svenonius’s band Chain & the Gang will release album number four, with the amazing title Minimum Rock N Roll. If Svenonius’s discography is any indication, there will be nods to garage-rock, anthemic hooks, and more than a little conceptual thought on display. The group has also made a very DIY-looking commercial for the album, which looks like something that plays on an alternate universe’s late-night programming blocks, and features a lot of thematically-aligned containers being tossed away and […]

Books, music

Listening to Marissa Nadler, Benefiting 826 Valencia

March 6, 2014 No Comments

Things we like include the literary nonprofit and the music of talented artists like Marissa Nadler. Thus, the compilation You Be My Heart, which features the latter and benefits the former, falls very much into our proverbial wheelhouse. Does it hurt that Nadler’s contribution to the album, the shimmering “Half as Much,” serves as a pitch-perfect demonstration of her talents as a songwriter? (You can hear it below.)

Featured, Interviews, music

From Philadelphia to the Cosmos: A Conversation With Chris Forsyth

February 27, 2014 No Comments

Chris Forsyth‘s 2013 album Solar Motel came highly recommended from a friend whose taste in music is damn near impeccable. Looking more deeply into the album, I saw a quote that alluded to both Television and Pharaoh Sanders in describing it. Even more surprisingly, as hyperbolic as it seems, that comparison gets at the precision and the vastness of the music heard there. Soon enough, I delved into his back catalog, including 2012’s Kenzo Deluxe, in which Forsyth’s music veers in a […]