When Ripley Johnson and Sanae Yamada first began making music together as Moon Duo, they didn’t set too many parameters for themselves or what the group could be. “I think initially, we didn’t want to define it so much,” Yamada says. “It was more asking the question, where can we take music with…
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Derrick “Dstrukt” de Mayo has a thing for pineapples, grapes, and V8 Juice. Believe it or not, these are the very things he needs in the studio to get the inspiration going—which was what inspired his newest EP, Pineapples and Grapes. When he isn’t busy in the studio, you can find Dstrukt…
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It can be hard to believe now, but two decades ago ska had a pretty big moment. It was a time before Gwen Stefani’s solo debut and Bradley Nowell’s overdose, when alternative radio stations were spinning bands like the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Reel Big Fish, Goldfinger and Less Than Jake with regularity. And…
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by
Gary Singh on October 1, 2014
Leave it to Kronos Quartet to deliver a program exploring ethnic wars, genocide, bombings, Afro-Cuban percussion, liturgical Jewish prayers, Tibetan mysticism and the Brooklyn Bridge. As they’ve done for 40 years now, Kronos continues to interpret the future of the string quartet, and the program they have planned for this Sunday, at…
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There are two important facts to understand about Blue Dream, the latest solo album from Orenda Fink, half of Alabama dream-pop duo Azure Ray. First, the songs were inspired by the devastating experience of her dog passing away. Secondly, although it might seem contradictory, it’s probably the most joyful, hopeful album she’s ever…
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These days, terrestrial radio isn’t the first place most would turn in search of new or obscure music. But this weekend—all day Friday and Saturday—fans of the spacey sounds of modern psychedelic music, will be tuning into KFJC, Foothill College’s radio station, as it will be broadcasting live from the Liverpool International Festival of…
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It’s that time of year again. As summer slips into autumn, the farmers prepare for the harvest, and the people prepare for the long hard winter ahead… It’s also time for Beyond Wonderland. A traveling electronic music circus—a playground for late teens and early 20-somethings to figure out just how little they can…
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For his 10th studio album, Wu-Tang Clan affiliate Killah Priest went big. Really big. The Psychic World of Walter Reed, is a sprawling two-disc conceptual record that covers everything from rugged street-hardened tales of dope dealing and gun running, as well as cosmic journeys to the ends of the universe. The album…
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DJ Snake, who along with Lil John, created one of the most unabashedly, antagonistic party anthems in recent memory, will be headlining the Beyond Wonderland electronic music festival this Saturday. That song, “Turn Down for What,” exhorts listeners to keep the volume pumped, both literally and figuratively—as “turned up,” or “turnt,” in…
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If you’re the kind of person that scoffs at the notion of devoting an entire night of your life to celebrating something as arbitrary and contrived as beginning of a new year, then you might consider catching the Sacramento-based sultans of sarcasm, CAKE, as they ring in NYE 2015 at the City National Civic…
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