Gonna be a big one. Two of town’s most inspired guitarists bring their leftie POVs to a room that breeds experimentation. Seabrook can be high-flying, with a fearless blitzkrieg approach. Halvorson is as sneaky as they come, twirling her lines in a way that lassos you before even realize... More >>

Brooklyn’s Shapeshifter has already established itself as a haven for jazz-metal, but now NYC forward-thinkers Zevious enter into the fray: The trio’s deconstruction of the Minutemen's jazz-damaged punk, Nels Cline avant-guitar godliness, and Behold The Arctopus-like tech-metal... More >>

After spending a good amount of time as a creative director at the skateboarding/clothing company HUF, Hanni El Khatib decided to pursue music as a career instead of a hobby. Taking his expertise in the fields of marketing and design to the helm of a new label, Innovative Leisure, he helps... More >>

The novelist, former Felice Brother, and Duke and the King co-founder is working on (and crowd-funding) his second solo album and latest rhapsodically chilling dispatch from the Catskills. The angelic-voiced Felice's intimate emotional geography defies you to distrust its blatant attachments to... More >>

Brooklyn's Afrobeat ambassadors turn on the juice at Surround Sounds Brooklyn, a benefit for MIMA Music, an urban outreach non-profit dedicated to providing arts and music education to NYC schools. The 11-piece orchestra has been enlisted to help raise $10,000 to expand the program to ten... More >>

Freak-folk assumes a new form in the sister trio CocoRosie, founded by Biana and Sierra Casady around 2003. Mixing hip-hop, opera, and electronic pop with found sounds and the French influences of Paris, where the two initially recorded their music in a bathroom. The product of these sessions... More >>

The Meat Puppets are one of those bands whose omnipresence and influence within alternative music can't be missed: From Nirvana to Pavement, this cowpunk band and early SST Records signee, fronted by Phoenix’s Kirkwood brothers, have been unapologetically themselves since the early '80s.... More >>

This DC-based rapper has maintained a cult following longer than some hip-hop characters can keep a major label interested, yet he's never made a full foray into the mainstream. Melding conscious, thought-provoking raps with string-heavy instrumental backing and traditional melodic structures,... More >>

This aptly monikered young California trio—consisting of Roland Cosio (bass), Charlie Moothart (guitar), and prolific garage-psych overachiever Ty Segall (drums, vocals)—revives the meth-fueled blast furnace of early Blue Cheer. Moothart has Leigh Stephens's overdriven,... More >>

Feminist rockabilly sounds like an oxymoron, but these darlins pull it off with a brash combination of sass, sex appeal, and the unvarnished truth of their experience. On Blur the Line, their self-consciously titled third studio album, they ironically ask whether the subaltern can truly speak,... More >>

Back in gear after a several year absence, the visceral nature of early Nine Inch Nails has given way to something more rewardingly cerebral. Reunion album Hesitation Marks plays like the sonic equivalent of a long, winding tour through fossilized wormwood. Life may not have frontman Trent... More >>

It's hard to believe that it's been 11 years since the release of Carlton's riveting debut, Be Not Nobody, a record that set the bar high for singer-songwriters in the new millennium. Since then, she's continued to float around pop music both as an artist herself and as an influence on the... More >>

Savages are an all-female English foursome who approach post-punk with a ferocious feminism that rivals the wildness of the riot grrrl movement. Fairly new on the scene, they only formed at the end of 2011 but have already won plenty of accolades from both fans and press. Expect ceaseless... More >>

Charli XCX is on her way to synthpop stardom, and she has only recently turned 21. With a guest spot on one of this year's biggest and most infectious singles, Icona Pops "I Love It," and her own well-received major label debut album True Romance, Charli has found the right time and place to... More >>

This unusual collaboration with the award-winning documentary filmmaker has the trip-hop icons performing while the audience is enveloped in videos which turn a suspicious eye toward modern technology. That perspective has always been a central part of their appeal, but this may be the most... More >>

You can usually find these poster boys of jazz-rock right around the intersection of yacht-rock and prog, with grooves worthy of the Doobie Brothers played over far more complex chord sequences. They've released only three new albums in the past 25 years, so their week-long run at the Beacon... More >>

The reigning queen of jazz violin has carved a niche for herself by blending the traditionalist style of Stephane Grappelli with the avant-garde bravado of Billy Bang and the dazzling technique of Itzhak Perlman. She studied with the latter at one point as a young classical violin student at... More >>

Among the best of this fine all-over-the-map guitarist's albums is his 2003 tribute to Zhou Xuan and Bai Guang, two of China's so-called Seven Great Singing Stars during the 1930s and '40s. Lucas, who discovered the shidaiqu sound while living in Taiwan, updates their sultry, sentimental, and... More >>

The “dream” reference in the trumpeter’s new Colors Of A Dream harks to his take on Dali’s esthetic, and at its most vivid Harrell’s spin on the hard bop lingo can claim several surreal moments. His working quintet brings a feisty punch to every stage it commands,... More >>

"Beware of Mr. Baker" or not, this should be a lively percussion-focused run, at least if the former Cream drummer holds up. Baker, who still exudes rock-star attitude as well as considerable Afrobeat mojo, leads a quartet consisting of the powerful saxophonist Pee Wee Ellis, bassist Alec... More >>

Of course, the world will never have enough alt-rock groups eager to assume their own take on sex, drugs, rock and roll and the glory of youth. It's been a minute since pop-punk had these topics on lock, and indie rock seems to have rescinded a bit, so in steps UK-based group the 1975. Applying... More >>

With the New York City Opera shuttered (see you later, David H. Koch Theater), there's no better time to explore New York City opera's small, independent, and intelligent alternatives. Comedy and tragedy share a promising bill in the Pocket Opera Players' world premieres of two one-act operas:... More >>

16 years after the release of the self-titled album that rescued son cubano from a harsh oblivion as salsa’s underappreciated progenitor, the Buena Vista Social Club has re-emerged to continue spreading the sound of son. Now known as the Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club (in order to... More >>

Sisters Joan Fontaine and Olivia de Havilland may not speak, but sisters Lorna Luft and Liza Minnelli do. Tonight, they’re speaking and singing together on behalf of the Phyllis Newman Women’s Health Initiative and the Dr. Philomena McAndrew For Tower Cancer Research Foundation.... More >>

In 1997, feminist punk icon Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill retreated to her bedroom to create an excellent home-recorded solo album titled Julie Ruin. Six years later, this past June, Hanna's vision for the project expanded into a full-band affair with a fast and fierce punk song "Oh Come On."... More >>