Welcome back to Video Round-Up, where the SD crew picks through the flurry of videos circulating this particular week and posts the highlights.
We took a little break after the insanity of Outside Lands, but now we’re back for another Friday Video Round-Up. This week, we’ve got video stimulation from Brendan Benson, Edward Sharpe & the [...]

Annie Clark (aka St. Vincent) is set to release the follow-up to her critically acclaimed debut, Marry Me on May 5 (pre-order available now).
A former Sufjan Stevens Illinoisemaker and Polyphonic Spree member, Clark put her own stamp on the polyphonic folk of her former ensembles with Marry Me.
The officially released teaser single, “The Strangers,” [...]

Bay Area musician Michael Zapruder does things a little differently than most artists. Best known (so far) for his 52 Songs project — for which he recorded and released one track online every week for a year — Zapruder also formed an orchestra dubbed the Rain of Frogs, which features a rotating cast including members [...]

As 2008 comes to a close, we at Stranger Dance are starting to look forward to what 2009 holds. A number of our favorite artists (Andrew Bird, Bon Iver, Jason Isbell, M. Ward, Wilco, etc.) have confirmed upcoming albums and even more are flirting with the idea.
A few things stuck out to us while compiling [...]

I have a love/hate relationship with Christmas music. I genuinely love it, but there are rules. First, I’m a big Grinch about playing Christmas music early. I’m stricter than most people on this issue, but can’t we all agree that Thanksgiving is the absolute earliest date to break out the sleigh bells?
There is also too [...]

One of the things that I love most about music (and art in general, I guess) is that everyone appreciates it in their own way. Ten people can have the same favorite song, album or band and love them for completely different reasons. Be it lyrics, rhythm, melody, harmony, style or something else, people are [...]

Here’s an old mix that I made for a friend. It started out as an introduction to Alt Country, but turned into more of a mood mix than anything. It’s still one of my favorite mixes that I’ve made.
It’s got some pretty sad bastard material on it, but I don’t think of it as depressing [...]

For a while there it seemed like Sufjan Stevens was everywhere – on top of his proper releases, he dropped a bonus disc and a four-part Christmas album – but we haven’t really heard much from his camp in the past two years.
Stevens broke his silence recently with a conflict-of-interest review of label-mates Cryptacize on [...]

So, apparently you can’t start a music blog without having a top ten list of the past year’s best albums. Even if it’s about a month too late. That’s what Editor-in-Chief The Stranger claims… but relax, the Vague Panther’s list is clearly the best.