Set near Kona, Hawaii, Kaloko-Honokohau National Historical Park is a lush beach and fishing area that has been used by the Hawaiian people for hundreds if not thousands of years. Thanks to our friends at Kona Brewing Company, we were fortunate enough to film Zipper Club playing a few songs there. In the video above,…

Singer-songwriter Aaron Lee Tasjan stopped by the A.V. Club offices in the midst of his world tour to treat us to a live performance. In the clip above, he performs “Ready To Die,” a track from his 2016 album, Silver Tears.

Singer-songwriter Aaron Lee Tasjan stopped by the A.V. Club offices in the midst of his world tour to treat us to a live performance. In the clip above, he performs “Little Movies,” a track from his 2016 album, Silver Tears.

Singer-songwriter Aaron Lee Tasjan stopped by the A.V. Club offices in the midst of his world tour to treat us to a live performance. In the clip above, he performs “Dime,” a track from his 2016 album Silver Tears.

For years now, Fluxblog—which was arguably the internet’s first MP3 blog, for the record—has been occasionally putting out what it calls “survey mixes.” These seven- to 10-disc sets of MP3s each attempt to capture a year in music, from 1980 to 2016. The mixes are eclectic and expansive, with 1992’s mix, for instance,…

The correct place to start with a reunion record is nostalgia, so I’ll be brief: I got At The Drive-In’s Relationship Of Command the summer I inexplicably started running cross-country, and it seemed, at the time, like a godsend, a manifestation of all the things I yearned for from hardcore and punk but couldn’t find…

This Old Dog, the third album by the likable indie songsmith Mac DeMarco, seems personal, bookended as it is by two very different songs about an emotionally distant dad. But it’s also proof that a musician can mellow out too much. Stripped of the jangling, psychedelic influences, and off-beat glister of DeMarco’s…

[Matador]

This week’s question comes from The A.V. Club film critic Ignatiy Vishnevetsky:

One of my many regrets of late is totally sleeping on the 2015 self-titled debut by Algiers, an Atlanta band whose fusions of post-punk atmosphere, industrial churn, noise-rock scuzz, and gritty Motown soul is one of the most arresting sounds I’ve heard from a new group in years—like a more aggressive version of TV On…

Nearly 20 years ago, a quick perusal of Toronto’s live music listings would have shown the name Feist popping up repeatedly. If the budding solo performer’s work ethic had been matched by audience size, she’d have been a household name long before landing a song in an iPod commercial. But had you stumbled into any of…

Many original stories were first delivered in song format, as medieval minstrels with lutes wandered about various countrysides, composing odes and sagas about lost loves and fallen comrades. Several centuries later, the story song has pretty much subsided, although the 20th century saw a few fits and starts. One was t…

Every Friday, dozens of new records are released into the wild. Some make big splashes, and others sink almost immediately. For most music consumers, it’s almost too much information, and save for those precious few who spend their hours glued to review sites and release calendars, it’s hard to know what’s coming out…

“We’re here for the long run,” Thurston Moore said in a recent interview, insisting that his new band (composed of guitarist James Sedwards​, My Bloody Valentine bassist Deb Googe​, and Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley) is “a serious endeavor and not a transitional endeavor.” If it sounds a bit defensive, it’s for…

The key anecdote to know about the Gorillaz’s fifth record is this: Way back in 2015, when Damon Albarn was attempting to get his huge slate of collaborators on board with his vision of a hellish American dystopia, he asked them to imagine the country after something catastrophic had occurred, with the hypothetical…

Leslie Feist’s fifth solo album is coming out almost exactly a decade after her breakout release, 2007’s The Reminder. It’s serendipitous timing, but the 10-year-long shadow can’t be ignored: There’s no discussing Feist’s output without a brief detour to the twilight years of the George W. Bush presidency, to a time…

Sylvan Esso’s self-titled debut—one of 2014’s best records—felt like a gorgeous click, the sound of two musicians previously focused on vastly different types of music who somehow fit together like sonic puzzle pieces. Nick Sanborn had been making beat-heavy soundscapes as Made Of Oak when he met Amelia Randall Meath,…

For the latest installment in our Pickathon video series, we’ve got a clip of Thao & The Get Down Stay Down performing “Slash/Burn.” In the triptych video, the group lays down some angular jams on the fest’s Mt. Hood stage with singer Thao Nguyen bouncing and creeping along with the cut.

With Chicago experiencing its first burst of glorious warm weather, I’ve been doing what I’ve done the past three springs I’ve lived here: playing music from the local scene in Milwaukee. Maybe it’s because I spent my formative college years packed into Milwaukee dive bars, or maybe I just naturally gravitate to bands…