Hannah Lew on Cold Beat’s New Album, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Music for Machines

Chaos By Invitation is the name of the third album by San Francsisco’s Cold Beat–though, to hear the band’s founder, Hannah Lew, talk about its genesis, chaos may be the last thing that comes to mind. The sound of the group’s albums have veered from urgent postpunk to a more ethereal sound, the main constants being Lew’s vocals and her distinctive lyrical sensibility. We talked about the role of science fiction in her work, how the work of Ursula K. […]

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We Will Happily Read Ursula K. Le Guin’s Recent Nonfiction

Ursula K. Le Guin’s name is one that has loomed large in American fiction for the last few decades. Her work in science fiction and speculative fiction has investigated bold and essential questions surrounding things that we take for granted, while her Earthsea books memorably display a different side of her storytelling abilities. Le Guin has also written an abundance of nonfiction, and a book due out from Small Beer Press in October, Words Are My Matter, collects fifteen years’ […]

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