Portland musicians Laura Gibson and Ethan Rose have combined forces for 2010. This collaboration honors their roots and creates a beautiful new level of ethereal folk music, following in the footsteps of Gibson’s breathtaking Beasts of Seasons in 2009.
Bridge Carols comes out on February 9th, but you can stream the album in its entirety on the website [...]

San Francisco label Tricycle Records (pioneer of all bands local) adds another release to its roster today, January 5th, to kick off 2010: Silver Swans‘ Realize the Ghost.
The album is available now as a digital download (via iTunes and Amazon), and the band/label are offering up the first single as a free download (below). “Bi Polar [...]

Thanks, Pitchfork. You win this round. The initial lineup for the 2010 Noise Pop Festival is now out in the open: the Magnetic Fields, Atlas Sound, Rogue Wave, Four Tet, the Soundtrack of Our Lives, Mark Kozelek, John Vanderslice (who helped out last year as a bartender at Noise Pop 2009’s Mountain Goats show), Foreign [...]

Video games can do more than monopolize many (very entertaining) hours of any given day. In the case of Child’s Play Charity, video gamers on an international level do much more than swing controllers. The Penny Arcade-founded charity strives to improve the lives of sick children by donating toys, games, books, and cash to over [...]

Stranger Dance is proud to present a badass lineup at the Rickshaw Stop. This Sunday, November 29th, Vancouver’s JAPANDROIDS will rock the stage along with Florida’s Surfer Blood and San Francisco’s own The Downer Party.
The show starts at 7:00, costs $10 in advance and $12 at the door, and all ages are welcome. Buy your [...]

Wonderfully classic and rootsy, sprawling to every corner and with a touch a synth to round everything out – this MP3 from Citay makes everything about their new album seem promising. Dream Get Together comes out via Dead Oceans on January 26th, a melodic and well-rounded piece of new music to keep you warm in [...]

This past Sunday, I sat in a booth at St. Francis Fountain and ate delicious brunch. Too bad I didn’t do this on the same day that B and Not B hit up several Mission hotspots to play Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song” from the back of a rented U-Haul van.
Scenes from St. Francis Fountain, Bi-Rite [...]

This Monday, November 8th will see a wonderful trio of out-of-town bands at the Rickshaw Stop: Brooklyn’s Bishop Allen, Seattle’s Throw Me the Statue, and New York City’s Darwin Deez.
Bishop Allen’s headlining spot is in support of Grr…, out now on Dead Oceans. Both the latest album and 2007’s The Broken String are excellent lessons [...]

The Dodos’ homecoming show at Bimbo’s proved to be an excellent celebration of the band’s success circa Time to Die. Controlled chaos and pronounced energy filled Bimbo’s elegant walls, through the Dodos’ experimental folk and the Ruby Suns’ infectious, tribal-infused indie pop. Photos for both bands after the jump.

. . . Port O’Brien, Geographer, Grand Lake . . .
All this makes for a ridiculous amount of local talent within just one day’s time. Let us count the ways:
1) TONIGHT, Thursday, November 5th: Tempo No Tempo, Man/Miracle, Maus Haus at the Rickshaw Stop. 8:00 p.m., $10.
2) TONIGHT, Thursday, November 5th: Grand Lake, the Happy [...]