Blog: Stereogum

It seems Fred Armisen is leaving Saturday Night Live . In addition to two epic Kanye West performances , last night's episode also featured a super-group of indie rock stars joining Armisen on stage for what appeared to be a send-off. Armisen (who hasn't officially announced he's leaving SNL) played his rock band character Ian Rubbish, leading a band featuring two other departing SNL staffers Bill Hader and Jason Sudeikis, as well as Armisen's friends Carrie Brownstein, Kim Gordon, J Mascis, Aimee Man, and Steve Jones. Watch them all play "I've Had A Lovely Night" below. [...]

Kanye West took the stage at Saturday Night Live last night to debut an aggressive new track, "Black Skinhead". He also performed "New Slaves", a song West debuted on Friday. The songs will appear on his next record , Yeezus . Dressed in a studded leather jacket, West's stage presence on SNL was full of rage. He performed in front of a projection flipping through images reading "Followers", "Special!" and "Discount Price" but always returning to the same statement: "Not For Sale." His new song begins with some screams. It [...]

Seattle's Big Eyes just released their sophomore full-length Almost Famous via Grave Mistake Records. The group have been playing around in various cities since 2009, and in 2011 released a debut full-length Hard Life . That record was an instant classic no-filler collection of poppy rock and roll songs, and their new LP is just as essential. Check out the second track "Wanted Sometimes" below, as well as all upcoming tour dates. Stream the record in its entirety via Bandcamp . Read More...

Last month we all heard the noisy melodic punk track "Pyro Hippies" by Cincinnati trio Vacation, from their forthcoming full-length for Don Giovanni, Candy Waves . Now the band have released another track from the album, the title track "Candy Waves." In a recent Q&A, drummer/vocalist Jerri Panic told us about the inspirations behind the Candy Waves : "To me, the majority of the first record was written from the perspective of how I viewed society at the time and some of it’s major flaws," Panic said. "Since then I’ve realized that perspective is obviously all relative, so [...]

• Vacation - Candy Waves

The first considerations when attending a music festival on the beach are sartorial. Do you opt for filp-flops to facilitate the inevitable footwear removal and thereby risk blisters from stomping on plastic slabs all day, or do you go with sneakers to account for all that pavement pounding and thereby risk carrying them around all day (or worse, trudging around with sand in your shoes)? Do you wear a swimsuit to allow for a quick dip or more conventional pants so you can keep your phone, wallet and other necessities safely close by? Do you bring along accessories like a [...]

Last month, Kurt Vile released his fifth studio album Wakin on A Pretty Daze via Matador. In support of its release, Vile and his band stopped by Late Show with David Letterman last night to play "Wakin on a Pretty Day." Head to CBS.com to stream last night's episode of Letterman; the performance is at 38:55.

Any Port In A Storm is the new record by Scott & Charlene's Wedding, the noisy indie-pop songwriting project of Craig Dermody. On "Fakin NYC," the native Australian deadpans lines about the confusion he's feeling after moving to New York. He chronicles his experiences working as a security guard at a super-exclusive nightclub and general disillusionment with the people he runs into there. "Fakin' in New York City / I'll let you in on a secret of mine," Dermody sings. "I don't know what I'm doing any of the time." Check it out below. Any Port is [...]

• Scott & Charlene's Wedding - Fakin' NYC

On June 4, Queens of the Stone Age will release a new record on Matador, Like Clockwork . In advance of the album, the band played Jools Holland last month . They also played again last night. Below watch last night's performance of "If I Had a Tail." The band was accompanied by the artist Boneface , who is responsible for the band's album artwork as well as art for several Queens of the Stone Age videos. Read More...

Tonight Kanye West premiered "New Slaves," the first single from his forthcoming LP, by projecting a video on buildings across the world. His site includes a map of times and locations for those projections, 66 in all. It's the same song Hudson Mohawke spun in Poland recently. Earlier this month, the rapper previewed new material at the Met Ball and Adult Swim's upfront , but decent recordings from those events have been scarce. Tonight's launch was better documented. Watch the full video (as it appeared on a building in Brooklyn) and a Vine [...]

This was the week we finally got to hear Daft Punk's Random Access Memories . As hosts of the album's official launch party, the town of Wee Waa, Australia was especially excited . We also had a party (of the unofficial, digital kind), at which you guys shared your initial reactions to the set. The LP's on track to top the Billboard charts next week and you can read our Premature Evaluation here . RAM is the topic that dominates this week's Shut Up, Dude, but we had other fun discussions [...]

Last night, Yo La Tengo performed at Portland's Wonder Ballroom. The trio did two sets, including one acoustic. Check out our photos of the show shot by Colin McLaughlin .

The foreboding synth experimenter Laurel Halo named her new EP Behind The Green Door after a famed '70s porn movie, and the latest track she's shared from it is called "Sex Mission," so maybe there's a theme developing here. Or maybe not; the eight-minute "Sex Mission" - like " Throw ," the last track she shared from the EP - is a rigid mechanical pound, with nothing sensual about it. If these tracks are about sex, they're about a particularly harsh and robotic form of it, which is maybe the point. Or maybe this is just the coldest [...]

Hey, another one of these! The fifth bloodily animated video for a song from the new Queens Of The Stone Age album ...Like Clockwor k is for the epic, churning, triumphant first single " My God Is The Sun ." In the clip, the dead stars of the videos for " I Appear Missing ," " Kalopsia ," " Keep Your Eyes Peeled ," and " If I Had A Tail " all reawaken as a gigantic winged sun rises in the sky. It all plays out like something a shop-class stoner might dream if he fell asleep watching [...]

Sebadoh were something of the “Beautiful Losers” of the ’90s indie scene. Lou Barlow emerged from Northamption hardcore act Deep Wound, and later Dinosaur Jr., having famously been acrimoniously dismissed from the latter. He’d certainly borrow from J Mascis’s pop instincts, as well as Deep Wound’s wonton aggression, throughout Sebadoh’s existence, while perfecting the art of the sensitive yet self-deprecating indie ballad. Read More...

Mood Rings are a genre-melding indie pop group from Atlanta. They're gearing up to make their Mexican Summer debut in June and with it comes "Hollow Dye." The song rattles from dreamy post-punk before making a measured turn into its hazy conclusion. It has levels. Check it out below. Read More...

When Le1f released Fly Zone this year, "Spa Day" was one of the tracks I immediately latched on to. One of the places where Le1f excels is picking beats that sound like they're the kind of rap tracks we'll be listening to when we have flying cars. Another is his way of throwing shade in the most nuanced ways. A lot of folks missed it on "Wut" because of how raspy the vocals are, but verse two on that song is littered with the most bravado-laden lyrics of 2012. "Spa Day" is equally aggressive, [...]

Alexander Von Mehren is a 29-year-old Norwegian who is on the verge of releasing a five-years-in-the-making LP titled Aéropop . He's the slash type: singer/songwriter/producer/mul ti-instrumentalist/human. On Aéropop , he's credited with playing upright piano, Rhodes, Moog, vibraphone, bass, guitars, drums, and singing. "La Chanson de Douche" is the record's first single, and rather indie-Francophilic at that, sung in French and registering as a deft blend of Serge and Stereolab. Aéropop was mixed by Chicago post-rock hero John McEntire (with Von Mehren), and features a member of Jaga Jazzist, and I mention these things to help you [...]

• Alexander von Mehren - La Chanson de Douche

Carrie Brownstein spent years as one third of Sleater-Kinney, arguably the greatest punk band in the world. During that time, it would've been a real head-exploder to imagine her in a credit card commercial. But Brownstein is now a sketch-comedy celebrity thanks to Portlandia , and in a new American Express ad, she plays a succession of goofy characters that would've been right at home on the show. Watch it below. Read More...

There were many strong music videos this week, and a couple that I loved, from actual adults. But no grown-up is going to beat a charged-up mob of Minneapolis children rapping about bikes and school uniforms. I'm sorry. It's just not ever going to happen. Our picks for the week are below. Read More...

For months now, the great gauzy-synthpop label Italians Do It Better has been promising a new label compilation called After Dark 2 , the sequel to 20072s After Dark . This is the rare case where a label compilation is a thing worth anticipating, since, acts on Italians Do It Better tend to share not just an aesthetic (slowly unfolding streaked-windshield nighttime Italo-disco) but an actual production visionary, Johnny Jewel. And today, the compilation - which features new music from Chromatics, Glass Candy, Mirage, Symmetry, Desire, and others - is out; you can cop it [...]