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

The Low Anthem - Charlie Darwin - Official Video from End of the Road Films on Vimeo . RIYL: Bon Iver, Fleet Foxes, Springsteen (circa Nebraska ) Rhode Island trio The Low Anthem have released a brand new stop-motion video for the lead song, "Charlie Darwin" on their Nonesuch debut, Oh My God, Charlie Darwin . The band has been touring the US with Blind Pilot, and after a brief stopover in Europe, will finish out the year with Josh Ritter in December.

Darken My Door from Lucero on Vimeo . It's good to see that a serious band doesn't have to take itself seriously. Even better when a band's fans don't take them too seriously. "Darken My Door" off of Lucero's latest album, 1372 Overton Park , is a song about losing stuff--girlfriend, money, dignity. In fact, a lot of Lucero's songs are like that, but I'm not getting into that now. I'm talking about the video, which has so much to love. Obviously, I love the fact director Alex Mecum has used a puppet as the protagonist. But it's what the puppet does that makes this video so much fun. Puppet eating chili dogs, puppet drinking whiskey, puppet giving blow jobs . . . Hell, there's even puppet vomit! It's ridiculous, yes, but also tragic. By the end of the video, if you don't feel a little sorry for the scruffy faced whore puppet, then you have no soul. Here's a little more about the videos for Lucero's new album: To promot...

Ólafur Arnalds - Ljósið (Official Music Video) from Erased Tapes on Vimeo . Sometimes it serves us well to do no more than be still and listen.

Of course it's not typical. For one thing, it's Ash. For another, it's 1980--a time when the world was bathed in faded orange and all our t-shirts were either monochrome or E.T. iron-ons. We forgot about this ambient cusp of existence between disco and Don Johnson as soon as we hit 1985 and discovered the magic of neon and asymmetry. But don't let the contemporary hipster culture fool you--nobody wore porkpie hats on the backs of their heads. Well, nobody outside of Tears for Fears.

How about a little rockabilly for Friday? Or "insurgent country"? Or "alt country"? Whatever the hell the kids are calling it these days, Miss Derringer isn't paying attention because they're busy promoting their second album of vintage sounds, Winter Hill , which, set in 1960s New England, tells the tale of a mob war between the Irish and (who else?) the Irish. With influences ranging from Merle Haggard to The Misfits, Miss Derringer add more layers to the already-multifaceted genre. Garageabilly anyone? Download "Click Click, Bang Bang" off Miss Derringer's new album, Winter Hill

Check out the stunning, animated sci-fi music video for "Flashing Red Light Means Go" from the UK indie-rock squad The Boxer Rebellion. Directed by Grant Berry & Nick Tarte, the video was created digitally, frame-by-frame, over an incredibly intense period of four weeks and is a fantastical moving image of futuristic travel we can only conceive in our most dizzying of dreams.

Often music videos are overly complicated. Either the director is trying cram too many metaphors into a three-minute box, or the cut-scenes and special effects detract from the song itself. Thankfully, directors Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard employed simplicity alongside Fanfarlo in the video for "The Walls Are Coming Down." Featuring Roslyn Walker, one of the few living professional escape artists, the video's only other props are a couple of well-placed spotlights. Enjoy, and check out Fanfarlo if you're in the area: Sep 14*Chop Suey*Seattle Sep 15*Troubadour*West Hollywood Sep 16*The Echo*Los Angeles Sep 17*Popscene*San Francisco Sep 20*Kungfu Necktie*Philadelphia Sep 21*Bowery Ballroom*New York Sep 22*The Bell House*New York

I didn't know what to make of this when I first received it. Yet whether it's an honest, low-budget sci-fi or a spoof now seems irrelevant because Stingray Sam is going to be my new hero. He's genuine, dynamic, and best of all his outfit will be easy to put together for Halloween. In Stingray Sam, Cory McAbee's second sci-fi musical featuring music by McAbee's band The Billy Nayer Show, David Hyde Pierce narrates the story that begins with a dangerous mission that reunites Stingray Sam with his long lost accomplice, The Quasar Kid. The story follows these two space convicts as they earn their freedom in exchange for the rescue of a young girl who is being held captive by the genetically designed figurehead of a very wealthy planet. Now go grab a bowl of olives and enjoy the clip!

Formerly the world's number one DJ, Clive Rudloe's career nosedived following an incident at Ministry of Sound in 2008 . The Above & Beyond film crew joins him shortly after his decision to ditch his assistant in favor of a new heavyweight manager.

Division Day is set to strike with their sophomore release, Visitation released Tuesday, August 18th via Dangerbird Records. To prepare you for this innovative new record we wanted to share with you the video for "Surrender." Inspired by this song, a fan was flushed with creativity and images from the 1977 Japanese cult film, Hausu . The result is gore-encrusted-mythological-journey that matches the experimentally bold "Surrender." Don't forget to watch out for the cats with glowing eyes.

Americana songs tend to root their lyrical metaphors in one of two themes: road trips or redemption (one often leading to the other). Cory Chisel and the Wandering Sons head straight for the latter in "Born Again," the single released from their upcoming album Death Won't Send a Letter , due out on 29 September. The video is a beautiful montage of bathtub baptisms and revivals in the heat of summer's lingering sunsets. On a more personal note (and filed neatly in the "just saying" department), if my church had played more music like this (especially with a sultry blond organist), I may have given religion a chance. But they didn't. And I wouldn't. Probably more to do with the fact Catholics don't like to appear to be enjoying themselves--should have hung out with more Baptists, I guess.

Listen to The Octopus Project's Golden Beds EP here . Austin four-piece The Octopus Project are excited to reveal their brand new video for "Wet Gold," one of the featured videos on their brand new Golden Beds Enhanced EP (Peek-A-Boo Records), which includes five different tunes and seven brand new videos! Josh Lambert in the band talks about the making of the video: ...it was wet and cold! We filmed it in Galveston a couple of months after the hurricane hit, so it was pretty devastated. The whole city (specifically the beach) was filled with debris and completely ripped up buildings -- totally creepy. There was a pretty gnarly fog that day as well, so it only added to the eeriness. Making the video was a blast! Yvonne spent a couple of days learning semaphore and was spelling out "Wet Gold" when we filmed it. I've never been colder in my life. Standing in the ocean all day long in the middle of January wouldn't be first on my list of things to do in the...

Music producers and musicians, ranging from Frank Z to Chuck D, discuss (well, rant about) the demise of the music industry. As most of us know, the music industry as we knew it in the 80s and 90s is already dead, but the remaining litigious execs in the RIAA are holding the last note of their swan songs as long as possible. Will the digital music "revolution" replace the old model with something better? I think the jury's still out on that one, but judging from the fact that both Bacardi and Starbucks have a music division, the horizon is not entirely sunny. The original post and commentary can be found on CrunchGear .

Stumbling through some old cds long in storage, I stumbled across a Sigur Ros 2 disc set that, according to my itunes is ( ) Untitled #1 . One of these two discs was a dvd of video work -- two taken from the band's dreamy first release Aegetis Byrjun , and the third from the just then released ( ) . The first two songs, "Svefn-G-Englar" and "Vidrar Vel Til Loftarasa" are stunning and heartbreaking, and the videos capture the spirit of the music (and Sigur Ros) very well. The third, a video by Floria Sigismondi (whom you may recall from the Marilyn Manson video for "Beautiful People") for the song "Untitled #1 (Vaka)" is very pretty as well, but a bit more bleak and conceptual. I mean, it's nice, but it won't break your heart, and it's not nearly as visually arresting, so what's the point, y'know? (Which makes me feel like a horrible person and a bad critic, because I really do like this video, just not nearly as much as...

Somehow winter still has her claws in the Pacific Northwest. It's almost May, and we're forecast snow this coming weekend. Snow! (I'll spare you my usual tirade about what physically impossible acts may be performed on this particular part of the country, my own little corner of hell.) In any event, we were teased by 80 degrees over the past weekend, only to be thrust back into the 50s and below (with rain!) immediately after. Needless to say, it has not been happy times. I am on day three of a nonstop Neko Case marathon, and, while it is indeed comforting, Neko tends to be a little, dare we say, dark ? Sometimes you just need to take pause and make your own sunshine, or perhaps be steered to some on YouTube , as is certainly the case here. (Even though I firmly believe that YouTube is leading to the complete downfall of Western Civilization, and exposing the ugly underbelly of the American experience, I can sometimes forgive it. Times like this.) Back story? Dunno. Two fre...