. "We are a MULTI-COLOURED PUDDING! And a dance-sinawi-pop-trio from London." That's their elevator pitch, and they're not about to offer up anything more illuminating. Nor could they. Halo Halo's ultra-cosmopolitan nature conforms to the anti-auspices of leader and multi-band minstrel Rachel Horwood. Her parents having emigrated from the Philippines, "halo-halo"…
. "Every day's a blessing, every day's a hangover," coos Smith Westerns frontman Cullen Omori in the song "Idol." The line is less poetic device and more literal commentary for a bunch of midwest prep-schoolers turned Indie-dears raised on beers, blunts, and video games. But the Smith Westerns' languid lifestyle is…
. Nearly six years ago we were hunching over laptops in his poorly lit dorm. Sam Golden and I consummated our new friendship with the ethically dubious act typical of college Freshmen: swapping iTunes libraries. Later, we made a more legitimate musical exchange when I found him at the back of…
. Judging by the album title, cover art, and track list, The North Borders looks like some sort of pagan celebration of nature's power. As the album unfolds, it reveals a certain truth in that promise, by virtue of thumping polyrhythms and stormy effects. But from the outset, there lurks something…
. Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date: Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimmed, And every…
. The illustrious Sascha Ring—AKA Apparat—has just quietly released his ninth album into the wild. The unusual compositional process behind Krieg und Frieden, the soundtrack to Sebastian Hartmann's theater production of Leo Tolstoy's eponymous novel, was detailed by Mute: During the first meetings with Hartmann it became clear that…