Blog: Stereogum

The where-does-that-other-sock-go mystery has been solved in the video for the Postal Service's " A Tattered Line Of String ." In the clip for the Give Up anniversary edition bonus track, we venture into the dirty clothes-filled alternate universe of an otherwise standard issue laundromat. Check it out below. Read More...

In a year already frontloaded with critically beloved and big name releases, it might be easy to overlook one of the year’s most wonderful records — Matthew E. White’s Big Inner . Originally released in 2012 on Hometapes and given a proper re-release earlier this year via Domino, Big Inner is, in some ways, something of a lark. Recorded in White’s attic at home in Richmond, Virginia alongside the Spacebomb House Band (a coterie of local Richmond musicians White has assembled to work as an ongoing collective), the album originally created as a kind of experiment. (“Originally [...]

At Rock The Garden 2013 this week Low (who we recently did a Counting Down on) gave a performance that, according to Minneapolis' Star Tribune , left some audience members really confused and angry. The band decided to take a risk and played a 30-minute version of the stormy drone epic "Do You Know How To Waltz?" to the thousands attending the rainy outdoor show. Now that might sound awesome to you (it does to me), but keep in mind this was during a big outdoor show opening for Silversun Pickups and Metric. As Star Tribune [...]

Last month, Brooklyn's Small Black released Limits Of Desire , an absolutely lovely album of starstruck small-stakes synthpop. Today, they drop a video for " No Stranger ," one of its highlights. The clip tells the story of a dude who sees a girl on a train, thinks about talking to her, chickens out, and then imagines how things might've turned out differently if he'd taken the leap. I feel for you, guy in the video. It's a completely gorgeous and romantic piece of work, with a few vaguely NSFW bits; Mandy Mandelstein and Addison Mehr [...]

Music critics make mistakes all the time, and I made one two years ago, when I reviewed Austra's debut album Feel It Break for Pitchfork. I gave that album a positive review, but it was one of those wait-and-see positive reviews, like, "They're onto something here! Let's see what they can do next time around!" This was wrong. They were not onto something. They did something. Austra was, and is, the group led by Katie Stelmanis, a much-admired fixture on Toronto's art-punk scene with a voice like a heavily medicated soaring eagle. She'd linked [...]

Yeezus has risen, Tom has weighed in , and you can hear it legally now. But if you want to dig a little bit deeper into your listening, Babylon Cartel's Gianni Lee and Mike Blud have made a mix of songs they think Kanye West sampled for the album. The collection is not perfect - "Black Skinhead" does not actually sample Marilyn Manson's "The Beautiful People," as per the credits. It also nods to the C-Murder reference by calling the song West quotes on "Blood On The Leaves" a Snoop Dogg song, but hey! Yeezy name-dropped the wrong [...]

• GianniLee - Yeezus - The Samples ( Mixtape Stream ) Gianni Lee x Mike Blud #NoTrackList

Portland duo Blouse offer up minimal, gauzy track "No Shelter" from their upcoming Captured Tracks release Imperium . The cut is a full blast of throwback pop that sounds almost liquid. Check it out here . Imperium is out 9/17 via Captured Tracks .

• capturedtracks - Blouse // No Shelter (OFFICIAL SINGLE)

Brooklyn's Nude Beach write buoyant, boisterous punk-based rock music made for drinking or driving - it's like they've taken all the best elements of your favorite Replacements and Cheap Trick songs, combined them, and used them in the service of crafting summertime party anthems. Following their excellent 2012 LP II, the band are back with a new EP, "What Can Ya Do," whose B-side, " I'm Giving Up ," we first listened to in April. Today we've got the A-side, in advance of the band's upcoming tour, and it's a goddamn blast, all jangle and fuzz and melody, like sunshine [...]

• Nude Beach - What Can Ya Do

The Daniel Portrait of Kamp Grizzly-directed video for Local Natives' "You & I" is truly upsetting until the last twenty seconds. Puppy enthusiasts be forewarned: This clip takes place in a future where dogs become extinct. Fortunately, in this terrible future there are also dog detectives (not like Wishbone, who is a dog that is also a detective, but actual human people who sleuth to find pups) and there is hope! Check it out below. Read More...

If you ever wanted to see Yolandi from Die Antwoord pee her pants, now is your opportunity with their new video for "Cookie Thumper." This is the least troubling part of the whole thing, as the song is seemingly about being victimized by a recently-freed-from-jail drug dealer. I guess it's better than black face ? Major trigger warning. Read More...

Ambient-music soul-stirrer Julianna Barwick builds gorgeous landscapes out of her own voice, and her new album Nepenthe looms; we've already heard the early track " Forever ." "One Half," the next song she's shared from the album, might be the closest thing to an actual song , rather than undulating whisper-cloud, that Barwick has ever made, though it still works as an undulating whisper-cloud. The track makes room for string-sighs and actual words, and you can hear it below. Read More...

In the two years since Wilco released their eighth album, The Whole Love , frontman Jeff Tweedy has busied himself with an impressive array of extracurriculars. He applied starkly organic production to Low's recent The Invisible Way and Mavis Staples' forthcoming One True Vine , the legendary soul singer's "Johnny Cash meets Rick Rubin" turn. He helped organize Wilco's latest Solid Sound Festival , which returns to MASS MoCA this weekend after a one-year hiatus. He helped usher his sons into internet stardom — The Raccoonists [...]

UK noiseniks Fuck Buttons are back with a record four years in the making, titled Slow Focus . It's out this summer, which isn't soon enough. " The Red Wing " is its third track, and the band's Andrew Hung has made it a video true to the song/album title (very red, less-than-focused). Slow Focus the band's first self-produced record, so pay attention to what's happening with the sound: Benjamin and Andrew cite fear, loneliness, and urban abandonment as referential touchpoints for their sonic intention, and they're conveying that here with a mix of industrial-grade distorted keyboards [...]

Here's something sad: "The Rock," the new song from Providence scraggle-rock traditionalists Deer Tick, has nothing to do with the movie star and occasional professional wrestler Dwayne Johnson. Instead, it's a love song, and a perfectly decent one, with an assured build and a rousing horn line. But can you imagine how much better this thing would be if it were an ode to Johnson and his amazing 2013? Great turns in Furious 6 and Snitch ? Being the best part of the otherwise-awful Pain & Gain ? A WWE title run and a [...]

• Deer Tick - The Rock

In the spring of 2011, I heard Ally Einbeinder speak at Ladyfest Easthampton panel on “Women In Punk And Hardcore.” Sitting in a circle of folding chairs in the showspace at the Western Mass community-centric venue Flywheel, Einbeinder reflected on her frustrating experiences booking DIY shows in a male-dominated community, as well as playing bass in the punk bands Outdates and Honeysuck. After hearing Einbeinder speak on that panel, I wasn’t too surprised when just a few months later I came across her new project, an all-female pop-leaning 4-piece called Potty Mouth. Read More...

• Potty Mouth - The Spins

The Gary, Indiana tough guy Freddie Gibbs is back on the rap underground after a stint on Young Jeezy's CTE label. His new album ESGN arrives next month, and we've already posted the Problem collab " One Eighty Seven ." Now Gibbs has released the John Colombo -directed video for the hard-minded, hoarse ESGN track "Eastside Moonwalker." It's pretty much just low-budget rap-video posturing, but Freddie Gibbs is really good at low-budget rap-video posturing. Watch it below. Read More...

Bill Callahan has been in the game a long, long time; he released his first album as Smog 23 years ago. But until this moment, I don't think I've ever seen a press photo of him smiling. Take that as an indication, then, that Callahan's next album won't showcase the dark, mordant wit that made him indie-famous - or maybe that that wit will take different forms. In a few months, Callahan will release Dream River , his follow-up to 20112s much-loved Apocalypse . Callahan recorded the album earlier this year in the amazingly [...]

If you can wrap your mind around the idea that there's a fucking band called Twin Peaks now, then you can hear that the Chicago teenagers who make up the band Twin Peaks make a confident old-school indie rock chug that should be beyond their years. We've already posted their song " Stand In The Sand ," and now we've got the video for "Fast Eddie," in which director Ryan Ohm follows the band as they go lamping on a Lake Michigan beach. Spoiler alert: Nobody finds Laura Palmer's body wrapped in plastic. Watch it below. [...]

As we reported on Saturday , one of the unlikely promotions for Kanye West's Yeezus is a recreation of a memorable American Psycho scene with Scott Disick in Christian Bale's role and Jonathan Cheban in Jared Leto's role. It was screened at a listening party in Los Angeles last week, and is now online. Watch it below. Read More...

Sonny & The Sunsets have delivered a quirky animated video for their track "Green Blood." The tune comes from their most recent album, Antenna To The Afterworld , which is about space and death, but here they explore interplanetary romance. Watch for the Crystal Pepsi reference. Check it out below. Read More...