“I enjoy a good space jam while sorting through the Disney VHS collection,” reads the myspace bio. Levek—also known as David Levesque—enjoys a strange existence indeed. But the key word there is ”enjoy.” By day, David drives a bus of elementary schoolers. By night,...

It’s a real shortcoming of Hallmark as a company, that they don’t offer a “Post-Rock brings families together” greeting card. New York’s Phone Home is the second duo of brothers (the awesome Lymbyc Systym is the other) to channel  potential angsty rivalry into...

Reports of summer’s death have been greatly exaggerated, as it’s still too hot to comfortably wear your favorite sweater, but these cool morning breezes cannot be ignored forever. As a goodbye kiss to August, we have a new album, Born In A Night, by the Scottish group Hassle Hound,...

Pop Winds is a group with a distinct, unmistakable flavor. Not surprisingly, distinct unmistakable flavors have a tendency to appeal to a narrow range of people. Thankfully, this Montreal-based trio has done us all the favor of breaking from the norm—at least in this respect. Pop Winds has a...

I’ve always been attracted to soundscapes: worlds built out of voices, keyboards, and feedback that balance between detached and alien, as well as emotional and personal. Candy Claws, from Fort Collins, CO, delivers a distinctive brand of organic and atmospheric soundscapes. Warm Forest...

New offering from Ghostly recording artist Christopher Willits just found it’s way into my inbox. Perfect summertime electro-acoustic jams from the very talented experimental guitarist/producer/software developer/mippie (that’s musical hippie, meant as a good thing) who we’ve...

When you run a blog as long as I have, you end up stuck in database hell. Interns adding contact emails from the Hype Machine top 100 eventually land on scissorkick, and after nearly 10 years my inbox is cluttered by PR from labels and bands that have probably never downloaded or read about a...

When I think of the Detroit music scene, I think of a huge amount of musical diversity: the soulful sounds of Motown, Mick Collins’ gritty garage rock with The Gories and The Dirtbombs , the brash hip hop of MCs like Eminem and Guilty Simpson, and the analog synths of the early Detroit...

Jeff sent this EP over and said he was “90% sure” I’d be into it. Fuck, I must be hard to please or something because this is so squarely in my wheel house I can’t imagine why he thought 10% of me wouldn’t be feeling this. American Men are a group of Scotsmen...

It’s been over 2 years since I posted something about Tunng, increasingly becoming one of my favorite bands on the planet. The combination of earnest, speculative front-porch folk and organic, digestible electronics has unfortunately led to the “folktronica” tag, but really,...

I’ve been a procrastinator most of my life. My mom knows it. I know it. You know it. But I truly have been working on the Best of 2009 podcast, hopefully recording it tonight or definitely over the weekend. In the meantime, check out my SK Best of records over to the right in the...

Had the amazing opportunity last night to attend the very brief reunion of one of my favorite all-time bands, Jawbox.

Been so slacker it’s not even funny. I can’t apologize enough, and strangely, the Google analytics haven’t shown much drop off. You all rule. So because you have been patient, and because November has produced a cornucopia of instrumental magic, I will be bombing SK with a...

The world’s greatest (and only) Norwegian 9-piece electro-afro-prog-whatever rockestra* has re-emerged from their lair with a new batch of indescribably brilliant songs for confused music fans worldwide.  By “confused” I mean “awesome + eclectic.” I’d...

To be truthful, I rely on the RIYL picks to do a lot of the work for me. I could go on and on about a band, but if you know your shit like most of you do — and know the bands I use as similar recommendations — than really there’s no reason to read this. And today’s post...

I can’t say that I’ve been a huge fan of the “acoustic pop/folk” thing as it always seems to remind me of the James Blunt/John Meyer frenzy over the last decade or so. Of course, we can go way before that for generations of solid folk music, but often, when that lone...

"Dwrcan" opens with a modest, sad-elephant shuffle bass & break then takes a turn toward a nice half-time glitch groove.

Sometimes you just have to believe the hype. It feels like it's been ages since a truly fresh perspective has come out of the underground hip-hop scene.

It’s not often that bands break up and reunite over a decade later without some kind of clear financial motivation. Sure Polvo have had their share of shows over the last year in some of the biggest festivals around (they killed it at ATP), but after listening to their newest track...

A.M. Architect is another project from Diego Chavez (Aether), together with Daniel Stanush, building on a foundation of guitar and keys over smartly produced beats.