“If there’s any takeaway from the slow, brutal decline of big business record labels and the rise of contemporary music’s internet-centric hype machine, it’s the fact that the lines between the underground and the mainstream are now extremely blurred. “Mainstream.” “Sell-out.” “The Man.” These once demonizing labels are becoming increasingly irrelevant. As a result, many popular “indie” artists are now regularly courted for licensing  opportunities and sponsorship deals by some of the world’s most recognized brands. Other big name companies, like Scion and Mountain Dew, are taking this a step further, establishing record labels that boast healthy rosters of hungry, up and coming artists while providing them with more financial support and infrastructure than a standard boutique indie label in addition to complete creative control over their work.” Hive Five: Great Songs Sponsored by Huge Corporations

“As a musician, Luke Wyland wears his classically trained chops on his sleeve. Listen to any track from the catalog of his Portland-based, experimental folk-pop project AU and it’s fairly obvious the guy is an immensely talented vocalist, multi-instrumentalist and composer. Marked with equal parts jazz-influenced and indie rock bombast, each of AU’s first three releases (2007’s self-titled debut, 2008’sVerbs, and 2009’s Visions) featured a talented, small village of collaborators that admirably buoyed Wyland’s seismic musical vision. He knows how to mess with a time signature, his arrangements are almost always impressively grand, and the AU modus operandi revolves around crafting sprawling albums that are both borderline virtuosic and unapologetically dense. ” AU Both Lights album review – Prefix.

“Rapper Action Bronson and producer Party Supplies’ latest joint mixtape Blue Chips dropped this past week and was accompanied by a piece of cover art that pays homage to the 1994 Nick Nolte-Shaquille O’Neil-Penny Hardaway film of the same name. The cover features an animated image of producer Party Supplies, decked out in a basketball uniform and resembling a young John Stockton, dunking an MPC machine on a non-existent hoop, while an animated, shirtless, and bearded Action Bronson is captured mid-scream in the background.

The mixtape track list features songs that are, for all intents and purposes, unrelated to Blue Chips the film, and according to almost any rubric of design, the concept behind this cover is patently ridiculous. In fact, even the people who watched and actually liked a film where Nick Nolte chews on scenery doing a mediocre Bob Knight impression for 108 minutes can probably admit this is a insane image to slap on the face rap project in 2012. But, in the pantheon of hip-hop mixtape cover art; Blue Chips could be considered a model of subtlety.” Hive Five: Reviewing Ridiculous Mixtape Covers – MTV Hive.

“I’m almost positive “Kickball Katy” Goodman is an innocent. For all the posing, quasi-ironic naivete that gets batted around amongst the female indie rock set today (Bethany Constantino of Best Coast is probably the brightest example), Goodman’s endearingly precious persona never seems feigned or detached. As a result, she’s always been a terrific foil for her Vivian Girls band mate Cassie Ramone, who’s unpolished singing voice, guitar work, and aggressively apathetic stage presence are perfectly complimented by Goodman’s cooing, fragile back up harmonies, nimble bass lines, and blissful dreamer aura.

Subtract Ramone from the equation and you get Goodman’s solo project La Sera which, as expected, resembles a gauzy Polaroid of a Vivian Girls’ record on the self-titled 2011 debut, sanding down any punkish, riotgrrl inflections and replacing them with waves of sparse, C86-inspired noise pop. The album was undeniably pretty (and Goodman was up to the task of being a lead vocalist) but still felt slight and ephemeral, clocking in at only 26 minutes. In the end, little room was left for Goodman to slide out of her comfort zone.” La Sera Sees the Light album review at Prefix.

“It’s been extremely intriguing to watch the evolution of Eric Emm and Jesse Cohen’s Brooklyn based, indie dance project Tanlines since their first single “New Flowers” appeared from the music blogosphere ether in 2008. And while, almost immediately, there was discussion regarding the supposed dissonance in sound between Tanlines and Emm and Cohen’s former projects (math rock legends Don Caballero and jittery dance punk outfit Professor Murder, respectively) “New Flowers,” a swift, bongo and synth laden dance tune accented by wordless harmonies, was actually an example of how the duo combined the intricate, jazzy flourishes of Don Cab with the pulsing sheen of contemporary dance music to forge a more cerebral, less ephemeral version of the Tough Alliance.” Tanlines Mixed Emotions album review at Prefix.

“Of all the vague genre monikers that get batted around independent music’s current vocabulary (“chillwave” being the most infamous, and “witch house” the most blatantly stupid), “post-Internet” is probably the most bewildering. It’s a simple but deceptively nuanced buzzword that works only because it wasn’t born from the haughty pens of beard-stroking music critics. Montreal native Claire Boucher, who churns out 21^st-century electronic pop as the artsy synth-fueled fem-bot Grimes, conjured the label in an interview with The New York Times Magazine in late 2011, elaborating a thesis that perfectly captures Generation Y’s approach to making music.” Grimes brings post-Internet jams to Brillobox – PGH City Paper

“If you’re not being led by a knowledgeable guide, wading into the deep woods of the Internet inhabited by left-field bedroom pop composers, experimental hip-hop producers, avant garde electronic artists, and the many boutique labels that sustain them (vinyl, cassette, and digital alike) can be a daunting task for the uninitiated. It makes perfect sense, then, that we stumbled across Power Animal’s lush sophomore release Exorcism via the Oakland, CA cassette label Crash Symbols, who’s staff was once responsible for the music blog Get Off the Coast, which use to be an integral member of the recently killed Altered Zones network.” Read the rest at Prefix here.

“Over the past decade, Andrew Bird has remained one of music’s most unique voices; combining densely composed baroque pop with the soaring melodies of indie rock grandeur. Bird’s best work is marked by hyper-literate lyricism and beautifully intricate, rubbery compositions that showcase his classically trained background as well as his prolific talents in both the violin and guitar. For his twelfth album Break It Yourself (out March 6th on Mom + Pop), Bird decided to loosen the reins and record the album with his backing band almost entirely live to tape at his personal studio (located in an old barn on the banks of the Mississippi River in Western Illinois).” - Andrew Bird on His Barn-Recorded New Album, Break it Yourself – Paper Magazine

“If there’s one MC to pluck from the phalanx of talent present in hip-hop’s current D.I.Y. renaissance (sustained by the likes  of Kendrick Lamar, Schoolboy Q, Tyler the Creator and Danny  Brown, among many others) and anoint crown prince of rap’s new  world order, it’s that self-proclaimed “pretty motherfucker” named  A$AP Rocky. Since last July, the 23-year-old Harlem native’s meteoric  rise from Internet obscurity to hip-hop royalty has been well documented, and frankly, Rocky doesn’t plan to shirk the spotlight.” – Rocky Rising – Paper Magazine.