Prince Rama Band Interview : Utopia Of The Now Age (w/ Manifesto) “Tapping back into symbolic power and the mystical meaning of these things is, I think, a really important practice… on a personal level, it’s just looking at the inner meaning of things more.” – Taraka Larson
Nurses Band Interview : A Pop-Infused Spectrum From Light To Dark “Sometimes when you’re feeling actually darked out you, maybe want to do the opposite; you don’t want to indulge too much in the darkness… it’s just the ebb and flow.” – Aaron Chapman
Com Truise Band Interview : Unabashedly ’80s “Synthesizers were finally fully integrated into ['80s] pop culture, music and movies. It was a unique period of musical experimentation in a very broad context.” – Sean Haley of Com Truise
Title Fight Band Interview : Space For Memories “A lot of the inspiration for the record came from us being on tour and us growing up the last couple of years on the road – [which is] pretty much in the most unconventional way possible.” – Ned Russin
2011 Year-End Respect For Album Cover Art This in-depth feature highlights how well-executed album artwork can go beyond genre lines to expand into territories of philosophical, thematic, and conceptual significance. Perhaps now more than ever, album cover artwork plays a vital role in music.
Top Songs From 2011 : Part One A staff-compiled list of some of our favorite songs from the year 2011, in no particular order or with allegiance to any particular style.
Albums Of The Year 2011 : REDEFINE Staff Picks A spectrum of musical madness that represents our tastes from large to small, mainstream to obscure, spaced out to reasonable. There’s no way in bloody hell you’ll love every release on this list unless you have a million personalities living in your puny body, but chances are great that you’ll discover some excellence you never knew you loved.
Junior Boys Band Interview : Conflict & Confluence “Selling art doesn’t bother me. Making insipid, vacuous art bothers me. The cult of personality bothers me especially because I feel as though I have very little to offer. I’m a bad self-promoter, and I’m constantly reminded of how bad a trait that is for an artist to have.” – Jeremy Greenspan
Translinguistic Other Interview : Forever Sounds (w/ Midday Veil’s Emily Pothast) “Charting the development of themes in linear time… is, in fact, a very idiosyncratic and Western way of looking at music. But if you take a longer, wider look at the history of humans making music, you find strong traditions all over the world of music that unfolds around a central point and illuminates the contours of a single eternal moment.” – Emily Pothast
La Dispute Band Interview : It’s Like Medicine. It’s Self-Discovery. (w/ Full Album Stream & Lyrical Analysis) “Creating anything is cathartic, regardless of tone — but for me, it has always been easier to discuss the heavy subjects in song… part of that is it gives me an opportunity to immerse myself in it when I don’t otherwise normally do that.” – Jordan Dreyer