Duck & Cover :: Indie rock music writing from Arcade Fire to the Zygotic Minci

All right then. First of all, apologies to all of our readers (yes, we do still enjoy the conceit that we have an "audience") for the lack of posts. Though, rather, what I really mean to say is "apologies for the lack of posts from myself, Dakin, as Jamie has been toiling away bringing you the news that counts -- such as Posh and Becks; as well as reviews of must-have records and whimsical insight into, while not necessarily the mind of the real Craig Finn, certainly the mind of someone who has known some pretty desperate characters ." Or something to that affect. In any event, Dakin and Jamie are Up To Something, and we hope to be telling you all about it soon. Very soon. We also promise that we, in fact, won't shut up about this Something, and we'll natter on at you until your eyes bleed and you delete us from your favorites. So anyway, big news soon. Very soon. Today's post is, admittedly, dialing it in a bit. So much so that I didn't even come ac...

Recently, the Beckhams, Victoria (aka Posh) and David, descended upon Los Angeles like--they must have thought--winged angels from on high, here to enlighten the American masses in the ways of soccer and pop music. "How grateful they'll be," Posh no doubt whispered to her reflection, "when I show them my spectacular pout." And it is true, she can pout. In fact, I don't think I've seen a lip droop like that since the day my father heard Knight Rider was cancelled. But it takes more than a pretty pout to win American audiences, as Calista Flockhart could tell you. In a country where the media ogles over the likes of Paris and Britney (I would mention the president, but that dead horse has been beaten to glue), it is difficult being the new celeb on the block. But there is, in my opinion, just one reason Posh and Becks will fail to woo the American media: they are just not dumb enough. The Victoria Beckham Marketing Machine counted on turning their first ye...

The lonesome plight of inventors: weeks spent turning dials, tweaking switchboards; adjusting the signal so that the constant buzzing stream hits a pocket, and, as if for the first time, you hear a voice. It is faint and speaking another language, but it is a voice, and for now that is enough. Amateur Radio Operator's album Sirens of Titan exemplifies the soft moments inside a mind otherwise troubled with creations. Part folk, part indie, the songs in this album could be described as the quiet wave of thoughts slipping away from a genius at work. For as anyone who's written or painted or created anything knows, the thinking mind is a pressure cooker, and the steam can be just as wonderful as what's boiling beneath the lid. But isn't that just the sort of talent we expect out of a Seattle band these days? Yes, actually, it is. And ARO does not disappoint. Mark Johnson's vocals seem to exist inside their own echo. They're at once brazen and furtive: flirting with...

It is July. Winter embraces New Zealand and keeps squeezing. Like a child who loves, but is too strong for, his new puppy, the cold is crushing us. Outside there is rain just as there is rain in any part of the world, but the fact that it is dark and the icy air pushes underneath the doors makes one believe one is somehow more alone. Something about the strength it would take to get off the couch were the house to suddenly go up in flame--this whole place could burn to the ground, and I think I would do no more than quietly finish my wine and go to sleep. The scene is even set up for it: the flames devour one after the other log in the fireplace, and mulled wine warms my lips and my head. It is winter, and the cold ache of nostalgia embraces my heart. So it is anyone's guess why I decide to put on Phosphorescent's 2005 opus of musical yearning, Aw Come Aw Wry . Dakin once described Phosphorescent as Will Oldham fronting the Neutral Milk Hotel. They are "as comfortable in w...