Some people's favorite day of the year is their birthday…

Lives are centered on continually getting what we need to survive…

I'm watching a pale, androgynous figure gyrate on an oversized, grainy tube TV in 1998…

Some folks like to mockingly say "those who can't do, teach."…

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Josh Garrels set to play UK

Released earlier this year in Europe, Alegranza is the debut from El Guincho (Spaniard Pablo Diaz-Reixa). The nine song, forty-minute release mixes afro-beat, calypso, world music, tropicalia, and freak folk into a delirious blast of music that sounds something like Manu Chao crossed up with Animal Collective. It's very loop-based, with repetitive song-structures that rely on clever transitions and some great vocals.

Over the course of the past couple years, I've found myself oscillating wildly when it comes to how I feel about dubstep music. I'll fall in love with an artist only to hear a slew of different releases that sound like they're grinding through the same sound sources en route to more brain-rattling blandness. Like any genre, it's hit-or-miss, and as a somewhat casual observer I find it hard to know where to turn (even having felt let-down by several high profile releases).

Susanna Wallumrød is a hell of a singer. Over the course of several albums with Morten Qvenild (as Susanna and the Magic Orchestra) and the previous solo release Sonata Mix Dwarf Cosmos, she's done up both original songs and covers with sparse accompaniment, letting her strong vocals lead the way. Flower Of Evil is the second "solo" release from Wallumrød and it again features the usual batch of Rune Grammofon players, including Helge Sten (Deathprod, Supersilent) and Pal Hausken (In The Country). Bonnie "Prince" Billy also appears on a couple songs as well.

Released during an incredibly busy fall slate of offerings from the Kranky label, this self-titled album from Jonas Reinhardt is one that hopefully won't fall through the cracks. Working with a home studio of analogue synthesizers and vintage drum machines, he creates swooping instrumental music that calls to mind the glory days of the 70s kraut output, with enough motorik rhythmic pulsations to keep it moving forward.

Matthew Herbert albums have become increasingly more massive and detailed over the course of the past decade. His most recent work has not only involved huge orchestral arrangements, but incredibly detailed sound sampling as well. There's Me And There's You is no different, with epic listings of different source samples that help reinforce the political and social issues that Herbert has been tackling for some time now. This newest effort also finds him collaborating for the first time with London-based singer Eska Mtungwazi, who seems to have a bit more jazz chops than his long-time partner Dani Siciliano, but is also a bit more over-the-top.

Despite Car Alarm being the eighth album from Sea And Cake, and despite my love of many bands who share members and locale, I have never reviewed an album of theirs on this site. I guess this is as good of any place to start, as it's one of their most solid releases in some time (although, to be fair the group has never really stumbled in a major way). Although the group has been together for fifteen years now, albums have usually arrived at a more drawn-out pace, but for this twelve-song, forty-minute release they went straight into the studio right on the heels of a long tour in order to try to capture the energy and spontaneity properly.

Over the course of his past couple releases, Fernando Corona has morphed from a strings and beats style electronic musician (Remembranza) into a sound sculptor that has pushed inot a territory that toes the line between doom, drone, and ambient music (Cosmos). Of course, my explanations above are somewhat watered-down, and Corona has always shown himself to be a bit outside what other contemporary musicians are doing while at the same time showing a real willingness to redraw his own boundaries. That progression continues with The Versailles Sessions, and while it isn't being labeled as his true follow-up album to Cosmos, it nonetheless finds him creating something completely unique.

Based on the strength of my first listen to the album-titled opening track from Jóhann Jóhannsson's new Fordlandia, I was ready to launch it far up my often-morphing "best of 2008" list. When the woodwind curls of "Melodia (I)" followed, I was wooed even further. Following the more epic IBM 1401 - A User's Manual and Virðulegu Forsetar, Fordlandia is much more straightforward and concise, with what is essentially three separate suites of music that are largely broken down into more digestible pieces.

To say that a new album from Christian Fennesz is highly anticipated is probably a bit of an understatement. Since his first releases, his name has become almost synonymous with elegant microscopic sound, and his work has been referenced both as an influence for a huge number of artists and as a comparison as well. Of course, since he started releasing music, the market has flooded with musicians creating similar work, and the advances of certain software have made it easier to simulate (or copy, as it were) his once rather unique work.

Throwing Sparks is the debut release from Gainsville, Florida five-piece Averkiou, and the group certainly doesn't let moss gather. Clocking in at eight songs and just over twenty-two minutes, it's closer to the running length of an EP, but certainly tries to make up for lack of time in instrumental density. Recorded over two and a half years, the process of tracking the release apparently was the cause of many broken instruments and frayed nerves, but there's a raw promise here that's hard to deny.

If you're wondering why it's taken Max Tundra (aka Londoner Ben Jacobs) almost six years to release his third album (a full six years after his sophomore Mastered By Guy At The Exchange), a simply look at his hardware setup might explain things a bit. Instead of using a modern PC or sampler or any of that, he creates his work on a rather antiquated Commodore Amiga 500. Using tracking software that cost a dollar and cobbling everything together in painstaking ways (including, but not limited to, recording drum sounds onto mono cassette recorders twice, then using each of these for the two sides of a stereo mix), the physical act of recording music alone is a serious labor of love for Jacobs.

The first time I listened to this new album from Gang Gang Dance, I sort of wrote it off as the "transition" release, where the group tried a lot of new things and succeeded at a few of them while not quite landing their punches in other directions. Then, I noticed that I kept playing it over and over again, and those songs that I originally thought weren't as strong ended up as some of my favorites. Although it has some things in common with their last full-length God's Money, it's a much more ambitious and exciting batch of songs, melting together everything from grime to ragged experimental jams and shimmering electronic pop.

If you've ever read the blog of Deerhunter, you probably realize that wild mood swings and prolificness are just par for the course. Brandon Cox has written epic rants and then apologize (or not), laying out feelings and thoughts in words that sometimes just seem like a grab for attention. At the same time that he does this, he posts new original songs (often under his solo guise Atlas Sound, which also released an album on Kranky earlier this year), videos, and mixes. Band member Lockett Pundt also releases songs there under the name Lotus Plaza, and he'll also release an album on Kranky next year. Needless to say, the group stays busy.

As a solo artist, James Blackshaw is prolific enough, so imagine my surprise when I found out that he's also put out not one, but two collaborative albums with lutenist/ composer Jozef van Wissem under the name Brethren Of The Free Spirit. Earlier this year, the duo released All Things Are From Him, Through Him, and In Him in limited versions on the AudioMer label, and now they're already back with another selection of long tracks on The Wolf Shall Also Dwell with the Lamb on Important Records.

Although his early work was light and at times even playful, the first album from John Twells (aka Xela) on his own label Type was an incredibly bleak affair. The Dead Sea tried to capture the sounds of a doomed water voyage, and his latest full length certainly doesn't lighten things up. In Bocca Al Lupo is another concept album of sorts, this time guided by the dark corners of the Christian religion. There's a particular focus on religious bells and cavernous spaces, and another visceral illustration by the excellent Matthew Woodson graces the cover.

Co-released on Time Lag and Indian Queen Records, & Hope Still is the debut album from one Silent Land Time Machine, a one-man recording project of a fellow from Texas who has managed to teach himself how to play a lot of different instruments and build up a beguiling little album with some crafty layering and subtle shifts in sound that call to mind a ton of different artists but doesn't really sound like any one of them in particular.

Although Good Stuff House has actually been a loose collective/group for some time now, Endless Bummer is only their second release and first non-CDR output. Comprised of Mike Weis and Matt Christensen from Zelienople and Scott Tuma, the trio plays cloudy drone music that sounds like a psych/folk rock group playing in spaces that range from a basement to an airport hangar. In places, the reflections are close and the sound is somewhat sparse and breathy and in other places huge waves of sound roll off into the distance.

While on a flight a couple years back, electronic musician Jan Jelinek started talking to a fellow by the name of Sebastian Bogner. He worked for a pharmaceutical company, and after some discussion disclosed that his mother used to like to "play around with synthesizers." As it turned out, that was kind of an understatement, because his mother (Ursula Bogner) actually was so into electronic music that she had a room in their house when he was growing up that was dedicated to playing. Over time, his mother (who was also a scientist within a pharmaceutical company) recorded different tracks and they pretty much went unheard.

Although it's technically not the true follow-up to their debut full-length Yearbook 1, this collection of remixes and complete reworkings are drastically different enough from their originals that it's still probably fair to call it an album by Studio. Over the course of seven tracks they tackle everyone from the lesser-known proggy disco-pop types A Mountain Of One to mega-pop superstar Kylie, recasting everything in their mellow, expansive, and lush ways.

I'm sure there's a huge cultural essay just waiting to be written (or perhaps someone has already tackled it and I haven't read it) on how the indie rock kids absolutely go ape shit for the music of Girl Talk, but for the most part shy away from hip hop and rap music in general by itself. Perhaps it's because Greg Gillis simply recontextualizes the music itself by slamming it up alongside so many other styles that it simply becomes impossible to place into any sort of genre. One could call it a mash-up, but Gillis goes far beyond just about anyone else I've heard doing this sort of thing, to the point where a mind-boggling amount of song samples (averaging about 10 or more per minute of song) makes the head spin. For reference, a Wikipedia article thoroughly lists everything.

The former 'Games of Thrones' actress is adapting the popular 2019 children's book by Christian McKay Heidicker into an animated television mini-series.

Sharing details about the alleged incident, the reality TV star says, 'People were interested in putting me down, dragging me down and showing me who is the queen bee.'

In a surprising twist, the upcoming Netflix series is executive produced by Robert Downey, Jr., who is famously known as Iron Man in Marvel Cinematic Universe, and his wife Susan Downey.

In some pictures featuring the award-winning actress as the American civil servant, Sarah is wearing a white top that she pairs with brown fat pantsuit.