As the music director of WVMM my sophomore year at Messiah, I was encouraged to read Paste as a way of determining what music we should be putting on the playlist and purchasing for the library. I was hooked. A magazine covering pop culture in all its aspects, focusing on independent manifestations thereof rather than the ordinary industrialized bits. Unfortunately, I caught the tail end of this wonderful trove of culture, as Paste ceased its print publication in September 2010. While I have still followed their blog(s) and e-mail blasts, I've missed the long-form pieces (like this) especially.
It turns out I'm in luck, as Paste is returning as a weekly multimedia subscription service called the mPlayer. It will be in beta for free all summer and start up in earnest in the fall. (via Paste)
photo courtesy of Frederick Foxtrott"Apocalyptic folk metal" act O'Death comes straight outta Brooklyn with gothic lyrics embedded in jammed-out headbanging music played on traditional folk instruments. The apocalyptic themes were more difficult to detect at b-sides this past week, however, as they came even more deeply hidden in a muddy bass- and violin- heavy mix than their indie aesthetic requires. The mix, while poor, was admittedly propulsive, emphasizing the driving bass and spasmodic fiddle more than enough to get me moving several times during the show. If Mumford & Sons did a record consisting entirely of their occasionally spastic breakdowns produced by Trent Reznor circa "Head Like A Hole", that would sound approximately like O'Death. To give them a better listen than I got to, stream their new album Outside at Paste [here].
Jack White is awesome. His record label, Third Man Records, built him a record store/DJ booth/recording studio on a bus to travel around and bring the joys of records to kids everywhere. Big up the indie rock soundman! (via Paste)
P.S. Somebody get me one of these!
