APRAXIA
The track listing for TheFutureOfMusic: Electronic is remarkably similar to that of the Twin Cities Electropunk comps, but when it comes to such an underappreciated scene, who minds a little overlap? Saturday's release show at Station 4 features TFOM contributors Wordclock, Thosquanta, Little Tin Box, and Heliosphere. Continue Reading...

MP3 Track: Stranger
Album: Weapons of Mass Deception
Label: Self-released

ASKELETON
Knol Tate: musical chameleon or mental case? Over the years he's messed around in some of the local scene's favorite genres, moving from Kill Sadie's hardcore to the Hidden Chord's anxious pre-punk to Askeleton's lo-fi pop. The last is ready to release (Happy) Album (Goodnight Records), the third in a trilogy that includes Sad Album and Angry Album--or--Psychic Songs. Continue Reading...

MP3 Track: People Not the Cities They Live In
Album: (Happy) Album
Label: Goodnight Records

AVENPITCH
Compiled by Todd Millenacker of the band Avenpitch (which might explain his choice of lead-off track), the selection is varied and adventurous, ranging from the distorted-voice goth industrial of Neo Void to the retro-Euro-wave slickness of Uber Cool Kung Fu. Continue Reading...

MP3 Track: Jack the Idiot Dance
Album: Twin Cities Electropunk Vol. 2
Label: Twin Cities Electropunk

BIG QUARTERS
After the last C chord has sounded and the vocalist has dropped his mic to the floor, kicked over the piano bench, smashed a guitar, ignited a tuba, and reneged on an earlier vow to "play all night"--after all that, there are a number of ways a musician can spend the rest of his evening. Continue Reading...

MP3 Track: Lou Diamond

THE BLIND SHAKE
Yet another sibling act, the Blind Shake have been compared to the deranged '90s Midwestern post-punk of the Cows and the Jesus Lizard. Continue Reading...

MP3 Track: Honeytown
Album: Rizzograph
Label: Learning Curve Records

BROTHER ALI
Brother Ali needs a ride. A year from now, he might have a limo, or a cab stipend charged to Warner Music Group. For now, he takes the bus—he even has a song, "Five Line King," about humping home from a show on that route. The man who might one day be Minneapolis's biggest rap star is legally blind. Continue Reading...

MP3 Tracks: Truth Is
Uncle Sam Goddamn
Album: The Undisputed Truth
Label: Rhymesayers

BROTHER AND SISTER
If Michael and Katie Gaughan ruled the world, we'd spend our lunch hours climbing trees and building forts out of cardboard boxes and sleeping bags. We'd chase ice-cream trucks and dribble electric-blue Popsicle juice all over our grown-up clothes. And then we'd go back to work and spend the rest of the afternoon dreaming about lining the office hallways with Slip 'n' Slides. Continue Reading...

MP3 Track: Give It Away To The Dogs
Album: Brother And Sister
Label: Self-released

CARDINAL SIN
Recording rock music is a funny business. Though lots of classics have been made in a hurry and on the cheap, getting that sex-and-booze feel on tape most often requires certain qualities of a musician that seem, at first glance, pretty unrockerly: patience, a meticulous attention to detail, sympathy. Unbending support for your bandmates. Willingness to make mid-session Gatorade runs. And the generosity that allows you, on the 15th take, to look a guitarist in the eyes and say, honestly, "That was it. You nailed it..." Continue Reading...

MP3 Track: Quarter-Life Crisis
Album: Oil and Water
Label: Grey Flight Records

CLOUD CULT
It's easy to make an epic album--just record a lot of songs, tell everybody there's some sort of concept behind it, and boom, instant Work of Art. But creating a self-sustaining sonic universe that people actually enjoy lolling around in for an extended period of time? Not so easy. Continue Reading...

MP3 Track: Living on the Outside of Your Skin
Album: Advice from the Happy Hippopotamus
Label: Earthology

DANNY Y ELLIOT
Reggaetón might be the first new musical phenomenon of the century, but the dance is as old as mammals. Fans call it el perreo, and Minneapolis newspaper Vida y Sabor has reported that it "simulates the copulatory movement of two dogs." But on a cool Saturday night at the Loring Pasta Bar, men and women rotate their lower torsos in the way only humans can. Continue Reading...

MP3 Track: Eas Mirada

DIGITATA
Digitata is a local trio specializing in half-live, half-electronic music, and as such, their music reminds me of cyborgs. Specifically, cyborgs having sex. I'll explain. There's always a weird dichotomy that arises when an artist chooses overtly nonhuman elements to flesh out their baby-makin' music. Continue Reading...

MP3 Track: Death and the Beach
Album: Sexually Transmitted Emotions
Label: Totally Gross National Product

THE DIVEBOMB HONEY
After the September 2004 breakup [of Sweet J.A.P., left], singer Sho Nikaido joined the ever-climbing number of local two-pieces when he formed Mute Era with Jessica Driscoll. Likewise, guitarist Hideo Takahashi and drummer Yuichiro Matthew Kazama became the Birthday Suits. Bassist Ben Crew mixed music and marriage in the Divebomb Honey. And guitarist Takashi Obu took advantage of the split to expand his sideline gig with the Fuck Yeahs. Continue Reading...

MP3 Track: Get Up
Album: Sex Effects
Label: Jilted

DUPLOMACY
If Yo La Tengo has it, as their name implies, Duplomacy wants it. The dream-pop quintet, helmed by singer/songwriter Andy Flynn (formerly of Valender), specializes in the same brand of nodding guitar lullabies that turned Hoboken, New Jersey's favorite band into mix-tape mainstays and college radio legends. Continue Reading...

MP3 Track: Copper Tone
Album: 2006 release
Label: 2024 Records

ENDLESS BLUE
The track listing for TheFutureOfMusic: Electronic is remarkably similar to that of the Twin Cities Electropunk comps, but when it comes to such an underappreciated scene, who minds a little overlap? Saturday's release show at Station 4 features TFOM contributors Wordclock, Thosquanta, Little Tin Box, and Heliosphere. Continue Reading...

MP3 Track: Down
MP3 Track: Ninety-Nine
Album: Endless Blue
Label: Self-released

FADHIL featuring Hardstone
Hip hop is as American as apple pie, as African as fufu. Never mind whether the verb "hip" comes from the Wolof xippi ("to open one's eyes"), as John Leland suggests in his 2004 book Hip: The History (HarperCollins). Descendants of West African slaves in America were hipping themselves to their own Africanness all through the years that hip-hop culture was taking shape. Continue Reading...

MP3 Track: Wanigusa

FAGGOT
"I can't decide if I'm the Rolling Stones and 'it's only rock and roll, but I like it,' or if I'm David Bowie, and 'I only do rock and roll so that I can do other things.'" Tim Carroll is wearing a faux snakeskin codpiece as he says this, and nothing else above the knees. He looks into the mirror, pivoting on white vinyl, high-heeled nurse's boots, and squints, as if what he sees will help him choose between the famous Stones lyric and the Bowie quote. Continue Reading...

MP3 Track: You're Gay, You're Dead
Album: demo
Label: Self-released

FITZGERALD
Only two weeks after the release of Raised by Wolves (2024 Records), Fitzgerald already have their pick of shows. Continue Reading...

MP3 Track: The Alligator Wrestler
Album: Raised by Wolves
Label: 2024 Records

FLOCK OF DOUG
The loan Doug Utter received from the good folks at Capitol One was causing him to bolt upright in bed with a bad case of sweaty self-hatred. "I'd wake up in the middle of the night," remembers the singer-songwriter, "thinking, 'I am such a loser. What have I done?'" Continue Reading...

MP3 Track: Boyfriend, You're My American Flag Underwear
Album: Wish I Were Here
Label: Self-released

FORT WILSON RIOT
Onto this fertile-but-dour landscape stomps Fort Wilson Riot, a motley troupe of troubadours with such random and unexpected tastes--rock, waltz, hip hop, polka, bolero, Broadway--that the only discernable unifying theme in their sound is the Pooh-in-the-honeypot giddiness they emanate. Continue Reading...

MP3 Track: Heir to A Throne
Album: EP
Label: Self-released

FUTURE WIVES
Is this Mark Mallman's and Ryan Olcott's homosexual love album? I realize it kicks off with the evocative sound of a whip cracking and a cat screeching--suggesting the reverse of being pussy-whipped, or the use of a cat-o'-nine tails. There are admittedly two female voices credited by first names, Alberta and Missy, and one raps the phrase "split the kitty" at some point. Continue Reading...

MP3 Track: Real Ex-Wives
MP3 Track: Half-Electric Car
Album: Dark Side of the Man EP
Label: Self-released

GAY BEAST
Stereotypes be damned, it's hard to overlook the gayness of Gay Beast. The harder you try, the more you realize you're not supposed to. There's the chatter in lead singer Dan Luedtke's apartment about extravagant stage costumes involving burlap, neon, and "long, tonguelike appendages"; the way the band tackles gender politics with songs such as "Cock"; and the fact that two-thirds of the members are queer. Continue Reading...

MP3 Track: Multipurpose Antiform
Album: Gay Beast
Label: Self-released

THE GET UP JOHNS
Zimmerman's Dry Goods, in the Mac-Groveland neighborhood of St. Paul, is a rather eclectic shop. Their merchandise includes rucksacks, flags, winter hats, Che Guevara T-shirts, and other items primarily aimed at Macalester College students. On most Friday afternoons it's also the makeshift practice space for the Get Up Johns. Continue Reading...

MP3 Track: Guns to Carry
Album: Twin Town High Music Yearbook Volume 7
Label: Twin Town High Music

HANDSOME FAMILY
In the first line of "After We Shot the Grizzly," the fourth song on the Handsome Family's new Last Days of Wonder, a hunting party from long ago, pioneer days, goes badly awry. In the second line, a plane crashes. Continue Reading...

MP3 Track: These Golden Jewels
Album: Last Days of Wonder
MP3 Track: The Bottomless Hole
Album: Singing Bones
MP3 Track: The Sad Milkman
Album: In The Air
Label: Carrot Top Records

HOCKEY NIGHT
Hockey Night began in 1998 when New York University student Paul Sprangers, who grew up in Red Wing and played in the Renegades, began experimenting with broken pop, hip-hop beats, and slow jams in his dorm room. Continue Reading...

MP3 Track: For Guys' Eyes Only
Album: Keep Guessin'
Label: Lookout!

THE HOLD STEADY
Being a teenager means being restless, since that's usually when you realize that your borders have expanded, past your street and your block and your neighborhood, to a nearly unlimited number of possibilities. Also, for suburban kids especially, it can mean a lot of driving. Craig Finn, the leader of ascending Brooklyn band the Hold Steady, is giving me an auto tour of the Twin Cities. Continue Reading...

MP3 Track: Your Little Hoodrat Friend
Album: Separation Sunday
Label: French Kiss

THE HOPEFULS
The Olympic Hopefuls have, at most, three moods. It's fitting, that number three, because the trinity is holy in rock music--bass-guitar-drums, verse-chorus-bridge, one-four-five--and the Hopefuls, as their fans know, are positively puritan when it comes to their fidelity to the scriptures of pop song construction. Continue Reading...

MP3 Track: Shy
Album: The Fuses Refuse to Burn
Label: 2024 Records

CHRIS KOZA
Escaping this home away from home, Chris Koza finds a table downstairs, next to a wall strewn with caricatures of the restaurant's celebrity regulars, including a mysterious bearded man nicknamed "Bimbo." Koza isn't a natural-born Midwesterner but retains honorary status, having pinballed between the Twin Cities, New York, and Portland since graduating from St. Olaf in 2001. Continue Reading...

MP3 Track: Winning the Lottery
Album: Exit Pesce
Label: Self-released

LITTLE MAN
Instead of pounding needles into his arms or banging groupies, would-be rock star Chris Perricelli takes walks—pleasant strolls around the block. "I'll do a walking meditation from this street to the next street sign," he says, making his way up Wheeler toward Summit Avenue one recent afternoon during a break in the cold snap. "Basically, you want to try to control your mind." Continue Reading...

MP3 Track: Undertow
Album: Soulful Automatic
Label: Eclectone Records

LITTLE TIN BOX
The track listing for TheFutureOfMusic: Electronic is remarkably similar to that of the Twin Cities Electropunk comps, but when it comes to such an underappreciated scene, who minds a little overlap? Saturday's release show at Station 4 features TFOM contributors Wordclock, Thosquanta, Little Tin Box, and Heliosphere. Continue Reading...

MP3 Track: Contact
MP3 Track: A Couple of Changes
Album: TheFutureOfMusic: Electronic
Label: 301 Studios

MACH FOX
The track listing for TheFutureOfMusic: Electronic is remarkably similar to that of the Twin Cities Electropunk comps, but when it comes to such an underappreciated scene, who minds a little overlap? Saturday's release show at Station 4 features TFOM contributors Wordclock, Thosquanta, Little Tin Box, and Heliosphere. Continue Reading...

MP3 Track: Reward Le Fin
Album: Twin Cities Electropunk Vol. 2
Label: Twin Cities Electropunk

MALACHI CONSTANT
Last year Malachi Constant found themselves teetering on the edge of extinction. With drummer Alex McCown accepted to grad school in New York, word spread all the way from the Turf Club to the 7th St. Entry that the band might break up. In that respect, Pride is a comeback album for a bunch of guys who never really went away. Well, except for McCown. He's in New York. Continue Reading...

MP3 Track: Princess Billionaire
Album: Pride
Label: Modern Radio/Guilt Ridden Pop

M.ANIFEST
Hip hop is as American as apple pie, as African as fufu. Never mind whether the verb "hip" comes from the Wolof xippi ("to open one's eyes"), as John Leland suggests in his 2004 book Hip: The History (HarperCollins). Descendants of West African slaves in America were hipping themselves to their own Africanness all through the years that hip-hop culture was taking shape. Continue Reading...

MP3 Track: Walk The Talk
Label: Soul-Sic inc.

OBCT
The track listing for TheFutureOfMusic: Electronic is remarkably similar to that of the Twin Cities Electropunk comps, but when it comes to such an underappreciated scene, who minds a little overlap? Saturday's release show at Station 4 features TFOM contributors Wordclock, Thosquanta, Little Tin Box, and Heliosphere. Continue Reading...

MP3 Track: Consume Until Rupture
Album: Twin Cities Electropunk Vol. 2
Label: Twin Cities Electropunk

THE ORIGINAL MARK EDWARDS
Measured against most of the world's basements and sound studios, Mark Edwards's underground recording space is spectacularly tidy. Dozens of white cardboard boxes, each painstakingly labeled, line the shelves. Microphones are organized by make, quality, and duty. Drum shells are stacked like Russian dolls and tucked away. Continue Reading...

MP3 Track: The Doom Loop
Album: The Doom Loop
Label: Princess Records

THE PLASTIC CONSTELLATIONS
When Robert Putnam wrote about the rise of American isolation in Bowling Alone, he probably didn't do his research at Park Tavern on dollar night. The crowd seems blissfully unaware that it's 11:00 p.m. on a Sunday. Continue Reading...

MP3 Track: Davico
Album: Mazatlan
Label: 2024 Records

ROMANTICA
Love letters often read better after they've been torn to pieces. Truman Capote once wrote about the paper strips one can find in a spurned lover's garbage--words like remember and miss you and goddamn and lonesome languishing at the bottom of the bin. Sometimes it sounds like Ben Kyle has salvaged those amorous snippets and pasted them together into lyrics, selecting only the phrases that seem too epic to rot among the fish bones, coffee grounds, and cigarette butts. Continue Reading...

MP3 Track: On My Mind
Album: It's Your Weakness That I Want
Label: 2024 Records

SALAMANDER
Salamander can't really explain why their latest disc, Bent Hemlock, hangs together so well musically and thematically, though they have their theories. Bassist Dave Onnen credits recording in his apartment and thus being limited to acoustic bass. Guitarist Erik Wivinus blames too much H.P. Lovecraft. Continue Reading...

MP3 Track: Galleon
Album: Bent Hemlock
Label: Mutant Music

THE SLATS
After finally realizing that the band dressed up like accountants for their big set at O'Donovan's last Friday night were, in fact, accountants, I relocated to the Entry to see local punkers the Slats. The Iowa transplants took the stage in a big, sweaty clamor, looking (this is strictly guesswork) like they might be wearing the same socks they wore daily in college--still unwashed, of course, for luck. Continue Reading...

MP3 Track: TEENA
MP3 Track: Another Physical Reaction
Album: Pick It Up
Label: Self-released

STNNNG
What was the first concert you went to and what do you remember about it? Oh man. Guns N' Roses with Soundgarden opening when I was in the ninth grade. I think it was at the Target Center. To share how awesome it was, here is a rough timeline of events... Continue Reading...

MP3 Track: Ready the Replicas
Album: Dignified Sissy
Label: Modern Radio

TELEPHONE! FEATURING LOLLY POP
TC Electropunk stalwarts Telephone! are in a nominal dispute with Dandy Warhol drummer Eric Hedford. Seems Hedford wants to call his new side project Telephone, even though the exclamatory locals have been operating under that name for three years. Continue Reading...

MP3 Track: Elevator Operator
Album: Twin Cities Electropunk Vol. 2
Label: Twin Cities Electropunk

TIM RALLY GOLD
Fortunately, Tim Rally Gold (not a guy but a college duo) don't try to pass their chintzy drum loops and soulless bass lines off as the real thing. Their basement pop tunes revel in the charm of 8-bit Nintendo beats without detracting from the live guitar and hipster-taunting lyrics. The album's best tracks bring to mind a few indie rock heroes' lo-fi beginnings. Continue Reading...

MP3 Track: Planting Flowers
Album: With Us, Not At Us
Label: Self-released

VALET
Surely we've all given our noggins a vigorous scratching over life's most perplexing auditory questions: If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? What if it's a tree the size of Texas and it's hooked up to a PA system? Continue Reading...

MP3 Track: Tony Harnes and Johnny Ave Vs. Elvis Presley
Album: Life on the Installment Plan
Label: 2024 Records

BEN WEAVER
"What you see in the mirror is not what everyone else sees," sings the husky, cigarettes-and-whiskey voice of Ben Weaver on Paper Sky, the 27-year-old St. Paul songwriter's fifth album. It's a voice that rarely aims for notes higher than those made by freight elevators, so when Weaver strains his vocal chords for a particular word—"mirror," in this case—you know he means it. Continue Reading...

MP3 Track: Wings as Knives
MP3 Track: Whatever You Want to Haunt You
Album: Paper Sky
Label: self-released