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Calling to interview a musician and being told that they’re currently looking at your site is a bit like calling a potential date and being told that they’re currently checking out your sex tape… Okay, so that may be a little melodramatic, but it certainly adds pressure. However, Kendall...
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Marriages began about a year and a half ago, with Emma Ruth Rundle, Greg Burns, and Dave Clifford of post-rock outfit Red Sparowes. Their debut EP, Kitsune, produced by Toshi Kasai, was released last May on Sargent House. While the band has seemed to most regularly find themselves sharing...
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My Gold Mask are many of my favorite things: cold, dark, quite sexy, but, conventionally speaking, also quite scary. My Gold Mask is vocalist Gretta Rochelle and guitarist Jack Armondo. Their Leave Me Midnight comes out next Tuesday, February 19th. The album is hauntingly dripping with eroticism. It bolsters...
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“I love Heart. Heart is like the ultimate sister babes… This new band, Bleach. I’m a huge fan of theirs… The Staves. They’re awesome… The Jackson 5. Oh my god, the Jackson 5 are the shit,” proclaims Alana Haim. I have just asked her to reflect on her own,...
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I first came into contact with Lucius about four years ago, when they could’ve been described as a minimalist folk duo. However, in the past year they’ve reinvented themselves as what could be described as a five-piece space age gospel outfit, whose influences would seem to be equal parts...
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Anna Nelson has recently left behind her singer/songwriter roots for a musical world of fantastical whimsy. In 2012 Nelson teamed up with writer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Andy Toy for Moxi, a band that makes songs that often resemble postmodern, electronic fairy tales. With the help of producer Bobby Hartry,...
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“Philly… I like Philly a lot. I don’t know Philadelphia that well… I know Philly cheesesteaks… They are quite good,” James Iha tells me. I’m more than a little jaded when it comes to being a music critic and getting to regularly talk with musicians I find to be...
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What do I like best about this album? It’s the voice, the retro sounding hooks and the overall delivery of this album. The voice ranges from a Bowie-like croon to a Stephin Merritt ( The Magnetic Fields) to Ed Macfarlane of Friendly Fires with a beat which is...
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I recently heard someone say, “I’m so fucking sick of all this goddamn Civil War parade music.” I knew what they meant… but I didn’t necessarily agree. With this wave of folk and country Americana being championed by 15-25-years olds across the nation (Cheers to them, for having such...
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Country darlin’ Lindi Ortega has spent a notable portion of the last year on the road with the boys of Social D, proving her badassness in front of large, sweaty, punk crowds, wooing them with lovely and morbid numbers about existential trainwrecks, substance “enjoyment,” and death. And, as far...
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Once again it’s time for PHILTHY MAG’s monthly sponsored event. DJSC – DepecheMode/JoyDivision-NewOrder/Smiths/Cure with this month’s special artist to the mix: THE HUMAN LEAGUE! DJSC has upgraded it’s venue from Fluid to SILK CITY! We are so excited to have our event at such a famous location. The sound...
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The story of Lady Lamb the Beekeeper began about five years ago at a DVD rental shop in Brunswick, Maine (That does sound a bit like the opening line of a postmodern fairy tale, doesn’t it?) Lady Lamb the Beekeeper is Aly Spaltro, who recently re-located to Brooklyn to...
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“It is awesome!” proclaims MorganEve Swain when I ask her how to characterize Brown Bird’s upcoming album. The album is called Fits of Reason and it’s set to be released April 2nd on Supply & Demand Music. Brown Bird is a duo comprised of Swain and her partner, David...
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I think Madison may be my biggest musical crush of 2013. Madison is a NYC, platinum blonde, electro pop princess, who I’m kind of surprised doesn’t have the entire music world wrapped around her pinky finger. However, she has received praise from the likes of NME, Interview Magazine, and...
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The sound of Twosomeness, the sophomore effort from Pascal Pinon (comprised of Icelandic twin sisters Jófrídur and Ásthildur) could best be described as, “woodsy and wise.” The album is out this Tuesday, February 5th, on Morr Music. The indie “folk” duo are quite whimsical and organic, but there is...
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A new night in Philadelphia is emerging at The Raven Lounge (1718 Sansom St) from the minds of Nasty Sinatra and DeShawn Timothy called ANGST! A night that we here at Philthy can only call “something dark. something dirty.” This night hasnt even happened yet and it’s garnering attention from...
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Ducktails is a solo project of Matthew Mondanile, also guitarist for the dream pop band from New Jersey called Real Estate. The album also features Oneohtrix Point Never’s Daniel Loptain and Joel Ford of Ford & Lopatin, Madeline Follin of Cults, Sam Mehran of Outer Limitz and Jessa Farkas of Future Shuttle and others *(excerpt from Pitchfork.com). The Flower...
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The great artists perfect their craft by transcending the genre they emulate. This is true for this post-dream pop band from Brooklyn, NY – Ex Cops which boasts the combination of Brian Harding and Amalie Bruun on True Hallucinations, their creative new LP released on January 22, 2013. The...
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NYC’s Walking Shapes are still a bit of an enigma. Founded by Nathaniel Hoho and Jesse Kotansky, formerly of riotously rocking indie poppers The Click Clack Boom, along with Dan Krysa and Christopher Heinz, Walking Shapes released the song “Pusher” last month, via YouTube. The song doesn’t clarify much...
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My favorite new musical friends made in 2012 have to be Lily and the Parlour Tricks… The Brooklyn six-piece that have the heart of a tortured poet, the soul of a 1960s R&B diva, and the style and swagger of a postmodern Cleopatra… They’re just fucking fantastic. They take...
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I always look forward to a new Toro Y Moi record, and this time I got more Toro Y Moi music in one package than any other record previously released as “Anything in Return” is 52 minutes long, but the album does not disappoint for a few reasons. It...
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This is a collection of retro sounds from the 60’s and 70’s but with an overall modern feel. The influences are obvious from the outset of the first song “No Destruction” pleasantly leading us on a journey through artists such as Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, and The Kinks....
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I confess that I have not followed Yo La Tengo as much as I should have through their much storied career, but I saw their performance on the Jimmy Fallon show this past week, and I was blown away. The new album “Fade” impresses me just the same. It...
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If you’re looking for a good excuse to return to (or finally check out) Eraserhood’s quirkiest hotspot, Underground Arts , this Wednesday, January 23rd,...
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The sound of Ex Cops is hard to pin down. It’s something in-between what could be described as delicately playful post-punk and postmodern, electro-twee. They like sunny harmonies… but they also like the fuzzy stuff. At the heart of Ex Cops is Brian Harding (formerly of Hymns) and Amalie...
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A year ago I had a discussion with Los Angeles’ He’s My Brother She’s My Sister about glam rock, Fellini, and Beckett… amidst other things… it was pretty cool. HMBSMS are usually characterized as some combination of traditional folk, 60s psychadelica, and spectacles of glamour… They’re quirky, to put...
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Chain Letters is certainly made to soundtrack black and white saloons as sleazily noirish events begin to unfold in every corner. Chain Letters is the sophomore effort from husband/wife duo Chris Senseney and Stefanie Drootin-Senseney, better known as Big Harp, and it is out January 22nd on Saddle Creek. ...
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“I’ve never been as moved by a work of art as a really fine film,” Carlos Hernandez tells me. Carlos is the frontman (vocals, guitar, synthesizer) for Brooklyn’s Ava Luna. Last month Noisey premiered the longtime-in-the-works music video for the title track of their debut album, Ice Level (released...
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Here it is in all it’s glory. Philthy’s Top 5 of 2012 by our featured writers: ( Please note Firefox may not display Soundcloud HTML5 players, try using Google Chrome or an alternate browser ) Izzy is the Music Department & Features Editor of Philthy Mag.He probably has listened...
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Hello Philthadelphians. I had a moment to pull Gair Marking away from his duties to set aside afew minutes to talk with me about a really amazing party that he has been throwing for over the past year or so. If you havent heard of Gair, he goes by...
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Triple Hex are one of those bands who just seem to have listened to all of the right music throughout their lives. They have the funky primal swagger of The Stooges (and frontman, Dave Hex, doesn’t exactly sound a million miles from Mr. Osterberg), coupled with the soul of...
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I’ve been a “music journalist” for about half a decade now and I’ve gone to around 100-concerts-per-year for well over a decade. I’m a bit jaded, to put it mildly. I still spend several nights a week at the likes of Kung Fu Necktie and Johnny Brenda’s, taking in...
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As the cold season begins to make its way into Philth and the supposed Mayan End-of-Times is on its eve of possible destruction, my only major concern is: what will distant-future anthropologists have to say about the final youth generation’s style? For tentatively planned Apocalypse within the next few hours, ...
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… I’m not generally one for holiday festivities, but if I had some means by which to briefly escape Center City, I would likely be spending this Saturday evening, December 22nd, at Steel City Coffeehouse in Phoenixville for a holiday show courtesy of Winterbloom. Winterbloom is a folk pop...
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As the draw down to the end of the world approaches, we will once again gather together to celebrate some of the best bands that have ever layed down audio tracks to vinyl. Please join the Philthy Mag sponsored event: DJSC @ Fluid Nightclub. Click on the image to...
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2012 has seen a plethora of country, folk, “Americana,” artists flourish among the masses… and while The Last Bison appreciate that their genre seems to be conveniently “in vogue,” they very much hope that you will see them as a band more than able to stand on their own...
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Misfit Mod may sound like a cute nickname for Polly Maggoo, however, it’s actually the musical moniker of Sarah Kelleher, a London-based electronic musician. Her debut album, Islands & Islands, is set to be released in 2013, but has been in the works since 2007. However, her debut single,...
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“Anyone that tells you you have to work at a relationship is dead wrong… It’s all about marrying someone who is just like you,” says Sean Beavan, one half of 8mm. The other half is his lovely wife, Juliette (Beavan). “When I heard she could sing it was like,...
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In our postmodern society of the spectacle, when one-on-one, face-to-face, interviews seem to be a luxury only available to overpaid douches who write for glossies, it can be quite nice, and quite charming, to catch a musician in a moment of practicality or leisure. I recently got a chance...
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This past Saturday Icelandic six-piece indie pop outfit Of Monsters and Men graced Philthy with an epically-received, sold out, post-Thanksgiving show at the Tower Theater. I’ll admit, I was hesitant to get on board with their supposed “brilliance”… and the fact that their audience resembled the next-generation of Rusted...
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In 28 years and more than a thousand concerts, I’m not sure that I’ve ever been as excited for a venue-change as I am for …And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead’s local appearance this Sunday, November 18th, getting moved from the First Unitarian Church to...
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You may be familiar with Asy and Chloe Saavedra from Smoosh. The two Seattle-born-and-raised sisters (still short of drinking age) have spent much of their youth and childhood producing painfully infectious indie pop. The band began in 2000 and, throughout the course of the last 12 years, they’ve released...
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Q: What is better than Depeche Mode, Joy Division/New Order, The Smiths and The Cure? A: A club night totally devoted to Depeche Mode, Joy Division/New Order, The Smiths and The Cure! Philthy Blog is proud to sponsor and host it’s favorite DJ night in the city: DJSC @...
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Ineffably haunting multi-instrumentalist Sondra Sun-Odeon recently took a step away from her duties of being one-half of NYC psych-rockers Silver Summit and into a spotlight of her own. She released her solo debut, Aetherea, last week. The album has the singer/songwriter displaying a far more intimate side of her...
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San Francisco trio Grass Widow are often described as a “post-punk” band, but the sounds of their third LP, Internal Logic (released on May 29th), ring far more of the hippest, most avant-garde bands to grace the stages of the first five Lollapalooza’s, and also the first wave of...
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If you ever find yourself thinking, “Whatever happened to Ken Stringfellow?” it’s likely because you’re looking in the wrong places… places from which Ken has currently moved on from, or yet to return to. He’s been on the music scene for more than two decades now, most famously fronting...
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Young Prisms’ latest musical output is said to have been inspired by time they spent stoned in Heathrow Airport. The outcome can be found on In Between, the sophomore LP from the San Francisco five- piece (although not the same five who found themselves on their debut, Friends for Now),...
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Not to worry, we have a few suggestions--and Jesus Christ, they're NOT sluttified!...
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Our favorite Philthy girl is at it again with her new video, Negotiating With Terrorists, and her never dull, always razor sharp edge. Is this video semiosis? Bemusement? We really don’t know. What we do know is the aesthetics are an explosion of shock-and-awe cultural reference. “It’s inspired by...
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So I rarely get excited to do interviews, and have gained a reputation for being jaded to the concept of being a “music journalist.” However, I was quite excited to get a call last week from Chris Vrenna, drummer/keyboardist from the golden years of Nine Inch Nails. However, he...
Calling to interview a musician and being told that they’re currently looking at your site is a bit like calling a potential date and being told that they’re currently checking out your sex tape… Okay, so that may be a little melodramatic, but it certainly adds pressure. However, Kendall...
Marriages began about a year and a half ago, with Emma Ruth Rundle, Greg Burns, and Dave Clifford of post-rock outfit Red Sparowes. Their debut EP, Kitsune, produced by Toshi Kasai, was released last May on Sargent House. While the band has seemed to most regularly find themselves sharing...
