2:54 are a sister act. They make the kind of music that makes you feel things. Not bad things, just things that creep up on you and stay there for a few minutes after the speakers go quiet. Its a musical partnership so important they got matching tattoos on their right arms to seal it, so intuitive they can't even describe it. They treat music like a drug, always after that next aural high. Lucky for them, there's been no shortage of people supporting this habit and their place in the indie hype-o-sphere has been pretty well ...

Songs about bushfires, pink sunsets and an emu named Tya – JOE MCKEE leads us through his debut solo album, ‘Burning Boy’, his first post-Snowman release. ‘Lunar Sea’ I was sitting in my flat in London when that opening passage of music appeared out of nowhere. I think I’d been humming it in the shower and it must’ve gradually materialised over a few weeks. That shifting scale is pretty unsettling and from that feeling the words were born. Snowman had disbanded and I was scrambling around frantically trying to find something to fill the void. Eventually I rediscovered why ...

It's been a second since we checked in with our favorite 80s worshiping duo from the UK, Summer Camp , and we're a little behind on posting this news, but their new track 'Life' is pretty much the only thing cutting through the perpetual NY fog this morning. Also, this establishes the rule that if you post photos of yourself in turtlenecks on FB, we'll put you on the blog. While "Life", the first track from their new Always EP (July 10), doesn't hit the heights of the still amazing debut, Welcome to Condale ( buy ), it's ...

Whoever Brian Stefan is, thank you. So here’s the distillation of my “post-punk” anthology of Southern California bands. I’m having a hard time finding a truly accurate title for the comp, since many of the bands are from the county but from places with very particular scenes, like Pasadena and Long Beach, and a few are from outside of the city altogether (but within a two-hour drive). And to call these “post-punk” bands is not entirely accurate; many of them are “new wave,” “darkwave,” “deathrock,” “art rock,” even something like “freak folk.” Oh well. We strongly recommend reading ...

In honor of the birth of our Divine Lady of Perpetual Nebbishness, Tina Fey, who turns no age today because she is timeless (also because my mother taught me that if you reveal a lady’s age, they’re legally allowed to hit you in the balls with a pepper mill) and also in honor of 30 [...]

Antiquiet goes where art is a razor's edge of oppression, and the artist is in perpetual danger.

Mind Over Mirrors High & Upon [Aguirre; 2012] by J Arthur Bloom Rating: As I walked through the rain this weekend listening to Mind Over Mirrors’ High & Upon , hood pulled up over my immodestly large German headphones, I kept thinking of that bizarre Line">Firing Line interview where Allen Ginsburg starts singing Hare Krishnas to William F. Buckley. Sure, Bloom, they both play harmoniums (harmonia?). Some connection. It’s true — on the surface, they have very little in common. Jaime Fennelly doesn’t sing either. But the first track, “I’m Willing to Stagger,” lurches into its trebly opening with something like the assertiveness of poems like “Howl,” and the whole thing is shot through with pseudo-mystical overtones that feel more retro than the late rediscoveries of sacred geometry, tarot, pyramids, and whatnot. The pacific regionalism of “Wichita Vortex Sutra” is there somewhere in “Harmattan Morning,” the shorter track by 11 minutes. The whole album has a gorgeously warm sound, thanks to Fennelly’s other instrument — tape delay — but the effect is especially nice here, with countermelodies following one another in and out of intelligibility. The obscurity suggests the piece’s title, named after an easterly wind that brings dust and haze to West Africa, but it applies just as well to the place Fennelly first conceived the Mind Over Mirrors project: the Salish Sea of Washington State, land of heavy sky and perpetual deluge. Dust, rain, tape delay — they deny clarity, but they also pervade. Fennelly is “all about saturated sound,” according to the project’s Bandcamp. It would be tough for any single musician to achieve the kind of saturation he does with any other combination of instruments. Seriously, the compositions are fine and all, but the coolest part is the timbres; the harmonium’s thick overtones shimmering with tape delay, thick chords in “Mountain Convalescence” rising in volume from an accompaniment to a screen for the melody to an all-consuming wall of sound. His work with Peeesseye is excellent, but there’s a monastic quality to this solo work I really appreciate. And parts of the album — especially that lovely second track — sound like a Takoma Records tribute on keys, equally indebted to Fahey’s brand of ...

1967-1974: Steve Lacy Solo and Ensemble Works by Clifford Allen on 05-16-2012 There’s a famous adage in jazz that soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy (1934-2004) thought Thelonious Monk’s music was a “door to the other side,” which meant, for him, a transition from Dixieland into free improvisation by the mid-60s, later introducing a range of his own idiosyncratic compositional devices. In a sense, Lacy developed a sound world that his compatriots and followers have had to work through in much the same way as he did with Monk. And while Lacy was incredibly prolific during his lifetime, the last ...

Sunday 13th May - The Cube, Bristol Sadly only caught the last two tracks from Olan Mill … A shame, as their keystoke/violin driven landscapes had that Harold Budd 'light sensitive' vibe that I simply adore… A strange brew that seemed to be caught in a perpetual mirage of itself, leaving your ear to grasp at a fading patchwork of impressions… Eric Chenaux turned out to be a bizarre, pedal playing maestro… making his guitar bend, buckle and fizz with inventive zeal. His song style solid, wholesome beaming out the love… all the while imbued with a friendly informality that drew ...

As a member of Booker T. And The MGs, Donald "Duck" Dunn played with one of the best bands in rock, soul, and plain old human history. As the band's bassist, he was buried way down deep in a groove made famous by singers like Otis Redding, Sam And Dave, Wilson Pickett, and countless other greats of the '60s and '70s. Dunn was the one who made songs, and then millions of people, move. This perpetual forward motion was eloquent, undeniable, and sexy, but it was not inexhaustible. After playing two shows at the Blue Note Night Club in ...

68° already this morning. It is another lovely day. Skip, my factotum, is here and has a huge list of jobs. First is to fence in my small raised garden. Gracie has already been digging in a corner, luckily not where I’ve planted my peas. Next, Skip has to make the rail pretty where we [...]

2:54’s Thurlow sisters emerged from the perpetual darkness that which we imagine them only to play in to grace the afternoon stage of The FADER FORT Presented by Converse. They didn’t seem to mind the … read more »

Inocente The Job [Cumberland, Sunday April 29, 1:30 pm] The primary scene of this documentary is a French corporate boardroom of a job recruitment agency that pits a panel of headhunters against a ten job-seekers of varying ages and job experience.  As the perspective changes between four static, strategically-placed cameras, the viewer gets to observe the often-tense situations the job candidates go through over the course of two days. With the two days entailing entailing role-playing, mock debates and intimidating panel discussions, candidates are often confused with the techniques and at times even feels border-line demeaning. But there is ...

I won't be alone in saying the only music I've cared about since Friday has been the Beastie Boys' back catalogue. As I charged along Camden's pavements during the Crawl it was the Beasties I was listening to; even while watching the bands, I was just waiting to put my iPod back on. Adam Yauch's death was truly devastating, not since Kurt Cobain's suicide has someone so embedded into my musical upbringing, died. It was 1992 when my Nirvana obsession was broken by Yauch's Gratitude bass riff, then, two years later Sabotage's groove ...

Paul Thorn (http://e2.ma/click/y6ryc/eflr2d/ufcdz) will celebrate his new album What the Hell Is Goin’ On? (Perpetual Obscurity/Thirty Tigers (http://e2.ma/click/y6ryc/eflr2d/a8cdz), May 8) with a live webcast on StageIt.com (http://e2.ma/click/y6ryc/eflr2d/q0ddz) (performance portal at...