Sometimes, the right phrase is enough to get me to pick up an album. I’d gone to Academy Annex’s new space in Greenpoint a week or so ago to check out their selection of zines; while there, I also checked out some of the records hanging on the wall. One of them was from a group whose name I didn’t recognize: The Victor Dimisich Band. I saw that this was on Siltbreeze, which boded well; then I saw the staff […]

Among the albums I’m most excited about this year is Via Florum, the debut from Richmond, Virginia’s Positive No. These five songs head more into the “cathartic post-punk” territory: melodic in places, emotionally exhausting in others. 

As drummers go, Jim White is one of the best working today, equally at home playing frenzied fills in Dirty Three, taking a more restrained approach with his work with White Magic a couple of years ago, or providing the backbone of the all-star band providing the music for Jem Cohen’s We Have an Anchor at BAM. All of which has us especially eager to hear Xylouris White, his new project with lute player George Xylouris.