1. EMA - Past Life Martyred Saints (Souterrain Transmissions) Listen: Anteroom Martyrs are not victims. There is no self-pity or cool detachment to their pain. Past Life Martyred Saints is an intimate but uncomfortable album, it will make you feel guilty for the hearts you've torn apart and it will make you feel weak for all the times you've been hurt and felt victimized for it. 2. Colin Stetson - New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges [...]

It finally happened. Winter arrived. Snow fell and we woke up this past Sunday with about three inches of the stuff. I'm glad it didn't arrive earlier, as Friday saw me at KSVR for a four hour stint of music. The first two hours flirted with folk music and the latter half was full-on garage rock, garage pop and psychedelic pop. Much of the 10 to midnight show came courtesy Finest Kiss , who posted some great 2011 lists. Taking [...]
We thought we'd introduce a new " track of the day" feature on The Von Pip Musical Express, " track " you see fits in with the old "express train" logo- Genius eh! As well as interviews, reviews and our "Songs To learn And Sing" feature, track of the day is for those songs we simply can't wait to share. And so our first track of the day is *drum roll* *fanfare*. . . FRANKIE ROSE. Its out with [...]

I waited till 2011 to finalize my albums list - all my lists - partially due to laziness, being busy, the holidays... but mainly because I'm not sure what the hurry is. I don't do this for the web traffic (clearly), so I gave myself a little more time to decide than usual. (And as long as this goes up before the Village Voice' s Pazz n' Jop, I don't feel delinquent.) So here's my list, the top five or so have been a lock for almost half a year, but the rest were in flux right till I [...]

Frankie Rose ex-integrante de Crystal Stilts, Dum Dum Girls y Vivian Girls nos regala su nuevo sencillo llamado "Know Me" de su nueva producción Interstellar . El nuevo disco saldrá el próximo 21 de Febrero en Slumberland Records. ♩ Frankie Rose - Know Me
Upon publishing our last post, I noticed our post count was at 999. I couldn't just sit here and not complete my 1000th post (well, I had a few guest writers, but I "wrote" most of these "really good posts" mostly all myself) before we began a brand new year, could I? So, on the actual last day of the year, what better way to celebrate 1000 horrible pieces of written prose and musical delight than with my last minute, totally unplanned list of Top Albums I Listened To The Most In 2011? These are not the "best albums of [...]
It's been a blast having the Hand Drawn Dracula gang contribute guest posts this week, and a big thanks go out to label founder James Mejia for helping put this all together. Not only is James the founder of Hand Drawn Dracula, he's responsible for the iconoclastic cover art of the label's records. For our final installment, James give us a run-down of his highlights for 2011. [...]

A year end albums list is kind of a strange thing, especially when it's one person compiling it. Since this blog is a committe of one, it can become quite capricious. In all likelyhood I wrote about some records this past year that I was overtly enthusiastic about at the time. Now the end of the year rolls around and some of those records are not on the list. "What gives?" you might ask. It's hard to remember which label flew me to Tahiti and which one comp'd my CMJ this year, so I may have forgotten to include a [...]

ALBUMS OF 2011 #45 - #41 #45 Crystal Stilts - In Love With Oblivion - Shake The Shackles ( MP3 ) Brooklyn garage rock at its finest; 'In Love With Oblivion' comprises of crisp and courageous, and occasionally gallant post-punk from apparent veterans of the scene Crystal Stilts . The 2011 Slumberland release is afflicted with the dark and incommutable vocals, strange key changes and strikingly full melody. An instant classic of the era it evokes, summed up thematically in the black and white colouration of above album cover. [...]
Download / RSS Feed This is part two of our series looking back on the best records of 2011.

Words, videos and photos by Brendan Sullivan This past year, I witnessed somewhere between 80 and 90 concerts, depending on your definition of what qualifies as a "concert" and also on my list-making abilities and forgetfulness. I can't think of any that I genuinely hated. I can think of some that were lackluster, some that I had high hopes for that let me down, some that were fun at the time but leave me with nothing stellar to write about now, and some that were really good but didn't quite make the grade. [...]

11.David Thomas Broughton - Ain't Got No Sole The first song we heard from DTB's fantastic album, and perhaps the poppiest of the lot. Catchy, unusual and immensely hummable. 12.Kurt Vile - Baby's Arms Another album from which it is tricky to extricate just one song as a highlight, but for some reason I'm giving this the nod above Jesus Fever or Puppet to the Man . I think it's the most late night and glass of red winey song on the album, but it's close. 13.The [...]

Louise Quinn is a singer/ songwriter with A Band Called Quinn . She has sung on several Kid Loco albums & he joins her on forthcoming single 'Oh Jackie' to be released on Tromolo Records in the New Year alongside the band's much anticipated new album Red Light Means Go. The band have three tracks featured on Series 2 of Lip Service which airs on BBC3 this spring. Here are her thoughts on the top 5 albums of 2011; I've not sought out any new music this year but through the ether certain albums have [...]

So we would normally have our new releases out this week on Tuesday, but the new releases this time of year are few and far between. We decided to compile some tracks for your listening pleasure as you hang with family and friends around the tree, or cuddling up with your significant other in front of the yule log. Props to Vague Space for making our job pretty easy, by hosting some rad Christmas flavored tracks. Cheers. The Raveonettes; Christmas Song [...]

Sharon Van Etten Editor's Note: I don't do "Best of" or "Top" lists, but I do like things … as hard as it might seem to believe. I'm going to post a few editorials between now and the end of the year about the various things I've liked about 2011. For me to do a post on all the songs I liked that came out in 2011 I'd have to type for about 20 hours straight. I'm going to pair down the list through a couple of parameters. [...]

Let me start by saying nothing in 2011 has come close to the affection I still have for my two favorite records of 2010: The Walkmen's masterful Lisbon and Blake Mills' so-good-why-the-fuck-haven't-y ou-listened-to-it-yet Break Mirrors . But that's not to say 2011 hasn't been a great year in music. In fact, I don't think I've ever discovered so many favorite new bands (Natural Child, Stone Darling, Breakfast In Fur, Marisa Anderson, Mikal Cronin, Bare Wires, Future Islands, Braids, etc.) in a single year. The internet has created so many minute niches catered by small communities, micro DIY labels, [...]

#10.Crystal Stilts - Radiant Door ( Buy ) #9. Kingsley Flood - Colder Still ( Buy ) [...]

Words by Brendan This show made me wax contemplative in the post-event evening, Tweeting this gem of an observation: "Don't you love/hate it when a band is so good at playing music that it makes you want to better at writing about music?" Nice grammar there, BS, but you get the idea. I was so much in awe / spaced out / cosmically tickled pink by this show that I felt like I just had to say something cosmic back about it. I don't know if I'll succeed, but here [...]

This Music Wins Albums Of 2011 #1 // 50 - 41 // Part Two - Coming Soon! #50 Walls - Coracle (Kompakt Records) Banjo Or Freakout 's Alessio Natalizia partners with one half of Allez-Allez to create Walls , who released their enchanting debut album 'Coracle' on Kompakt records towards the end of 2011, with accompanying tour. Its heated and swirling electronica which retains the gentle organic feel of his BOF solo project, but with an overbearing [...]

Douglas Martin listened to 1,498 records this year. By a rough estimate. A bunch of great indie labels released music this year. If I paid tribute to them all, it would feature over 100 albums with a word count that rivals The Iliad . Sub Pop, Matador, Merge, Domino, 4AD, Slumberland, Captured Tracks, Woodsist, In the Red, Underwater Peoples, Goner, Mexican Summer, Hozac, Not Not Fun, Carpark, Hardly Art, and Drag City all released a bunch of new music worthy of your time and money, but one label rose above the fray. [...]