The Underscore Orkestra: New Gypsy-Jazz Kings
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Fans of the likes of Gogol Bordello and Balkan Beatbox will find much to enjoy in the music of Portland’s Underscore Orkestra. Blending klezmer, gypsy jazz and swing into a lively amalgamation, Underscore Orkestra deliver drop-down, drag-out bouts of Balkan exultation. With members hailing from as far-flung locales as Russia, Mexico and Eastern Europe, the Underscore Orkestra has a global worldview that lends its stirring pan-cultural rave-ups a credibility and vitality.
Modest Mouse Single Giveaway acomplia | rimonabant | accutane | baclofen | retin-a |
•The fine folks at the Onion AV Club are giving away the first in a series of limited-edition Modest Mouse singles. The first 7″ is for the recently-leaked Satellite Skin, which is a bizarre lark reminiscent of the band’s earlier, more scattered and rough-hewn days.
The video for the song, directed by the fella who did all those horrifying Tool videos back in the day, is an appropriate mindfuck involving monster birdhouses:
Circling the Mystery w/ Scout Niblett
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When it comes to willfully obtuse stage names, it’d be tough to beat Scout Niblett, the pseudonym of British singer-songwriter Emma Louise Niblett. Inspired by the character of Jean Louise “Scout” Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird, the title makes a certain kind of sense: there’s a spare sense of melancholy to Niblett’s music that echoes the regrets of Harper Lee’s protagonist.
Niblett’s minimalist compositions often feature her unadorned vocals, accompanied by only guitar or drums (which she also plays.) It has a haunting, uncompromising effect that has earned Niblett fans and collaborators in the likes of Steve Albini and Bonnie “Prince” Billie, a pair of other artists whose work is similarly enthralling yet unforgiving.
Iron & Wine Take It Back to the Old School, ‘Cos Sam Beam is an Old Fool
•There is something awesome, yet painfully trying-too-hard, about Iron and Wine covering New Order’s “Love Vigilantes” on the Jimmy Fallon Show.
Jay-Z’s a Man With Needs
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Jay-Z’s a man with needs, you see. Among those needs: a late-model black Maybach (either the 57 or 62 model) with tinted windows, a 72 degree dressing room, and “good quality” peanut and jelly. As far as riders go, this one’s pretty harmless; it’s not the legendary Van Halen rider , but, y’know, amusing nonetheless.