The Wolf Parade member talks about his new solo album, parenting during COVID, and adjusting to livestreams.

National economies collapse; species go extinct; political movements rise and fizzle. But — somehow, for some reason — Weird Al keeps rocking. --- Onstage, Weird Al sat on a wooden stool and started to snap like a lounge singer. With an orchestra swelling behind him— the tour was called “Strings attached”— he kicked into a soulful medley of 1980s parodies. If that does not sound great to you, if it in fact sounds like a very particular flavor of sonic hell, I’m here to tell you something, Weird Al was absolutely belting. He was singing the bejesus out of this ridiculous music. I leaned back in my chair, reassessing core assumptions I’d made about life. Was this somehow part of the joke? That Weird Al was an amazing singer? His voice was athletic and precise. It was rippling through intricate trills and runs. By the time he reached the medley’s climax, “Like a Surgeon,” his 1985 parody of Madonna’s “Like a Virgin,” Yankovic was stretching for high notes and holding them over his head for the crowd to admire, like an Olympic weightlifter, who had just snatched 500 pounds. […] But it turns out that Weird Al approaches the composition of his music with something like the holy passion of Michelangelo painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Looking through the “White & Nerdy” file felt like watching a supercomputer crunch through possible chess moves. Every single variable had to be considered, in every single line. The song begins with a simple sentence — “They see me mowing my front lawn” — and even here Yankovic agonized over “lawn” versus “yard” and “my” versus “the.” He sifted through phrases in gradations so small, they were almost invisible. […] Weird Al likes to say that every one of his albums is a comeback album. That’s because a parody career is not like a normal career. It has no internal momentum. Everyone always expects you to go away. […] Weird Al’s bond with his fans is atomic. He will stop and speak with them anywhere — at airports, outside the tour bus — for so long that it becomes a logistical problem. The fans approach him like a guru, and Weird Al responds with sweet, open, validating energy. […] The connection is so deep that it is more like a merging, and after a while it struck me that Weird Al has spent basically his whole life making his music for exactly these people, which is to say for his childhood self. For many decades, he has been trying to delight Alfred Yankovic, the bright, painfully shy kid who grew up alone in his tiny bedroom. For the benefit of that lonely boy, he reshaped the whole world of pop culture. His ridiculous music sent out a pulse, a signal, and these were the people it drew: the odd, the left out. A crowd of friends for that lonely kid.

Read an exclusive interview with Andreas Tilliander and Axel Willner, discussing Stockholm's underground music scene and such projects as TM404, The Field, Mokira and Lars Blek.

Kieran Hebden of Four Tet is a producer who puts the intelligence into Intelligent Dance Music. Two years ago, Keiran Hebden released his second album as Four Tet. Pause went on to feature in numerous critics' Top Tens of 2001, and Hebden was even credited with inventing a new musical genre, 'folktronica'. Topping that achievement was always going to be a challenge, but it's one he seems to have met with his new album. Its implausible but beautiful blend of fragile acoustic fragments, brutal beats and glitchy electronica has already garnered a rich crop of five-star reviews, and Rounds looks set to be every bit as influential as its predecessor.

The secret Nu Shooz cool test is, if they come up and sing the bassline, they're cool. If they sing the barking seal, they're less cool.

Callahan’s power as a songwriter comes from observation. He finds things that don’t initially seem notable and then puts them under a microscope until we see something new. By imbuing simple objects with symbolic power and laying them out clearly, he can create an image or a feeling that seems closer to the person hearing it.

Just do it! Go and do it! There are no valid excuses [not to]. We see our excuses as real things, but they’re just a barrier you built between you and what you want to do because you are afraid to try it and fail. No one wants to fail, but you will never know if you don’t try it. Maybe the first few times, you’ll have a bad time…but then you won’t.

Short/sweet/interesting.

I have wanted to write about the dream pop trio Clones of the Queen for a while now, but have purposefully held off until their next album release. With their new EP, “Braided,” out now, it is by far high time.

I interviewed Jonathan Sterne for Pitchfork about his new book. While conducting the interview, I thought Pitchfork readers would like to know about how AT&T’s capitalistic policies in the 1910s and 1920s laid the groundwork for those compressed bits of data currently clogging their hard drives, and other gentle, science-laden facts about the mp3’s history. I was wrong. But not to worry! Here are the cut bits.

Interview I did with my friend's skateboarding magazine.

In general I’m excited for music to open up spatially, and for younger writers to resist the urge to fill every second with a million sounds. I’m looking for longer, more open lines now, with clear and confident production.

Good questions.

Nick Zammuto lives on a mountain, in Vermont, with his adorable young family, in a house he built with his own two hands. Rock 'n' roll.

Profile of the rising rapper.

‘An oral history of the British experimental rock act's remarkable Five EPs.’

A first-hand account of hanging around Young Jeezy for a few days.

“In other words, I'm not inspired by the Serengeti, I'm inspired by world music depictions of African expanses, and the sort of false authenticity of those depictions. As if Peter Gabriel has a handle on what the fuck is going on with FGM in Sudan. It's ludicrous. On a track like 'Preyouandi', I'm attempting at least to make sense of my relationship to those sorts of musical practices, while retaining some of their melodic and aesthetic ideas that I'm so clearly drawn to.”

“So I’m painting these pictures, not of the actual world, but of us watching that world.”

The outspoken Deerhunter frontman and reluctant indie idol talks to Larry Fitzmaurice about radical honesty, his thorny relationship with chillwave, self-loathing, and his excellent new Atlas Sound album, Parallax.

The elusive singer/songwriter attempts to talk about his own mysteriousness without giving any of it up and offers insights on death, comedy, and his pair of 2011 albums, WIT'S END and Humor Risk.

Good interview.

‘He gives us a window into his creative process and talks about several projects (old and new).’

My friend Niko Rivas interviewed me and wrote up this great column on my Lapwing EP.

“And playing live is a different process to DJing, which is more about getting on a train, arriving, meeting some guy you don't really know and going to a place you don't really know. Actually playing is the best bit because you get to connect with people for the first time in 24 hours. Parts of it are really good, but it's just a lot of time on your own. You can reflect. I write lyrics in those moments when I haven't got anything else to do. Those are probably just the moments when I start being a bit, you know, sad [he smiles].”

My new friend-through-friends and fellow musician Sabrina interviewed me for her blog on Honolulu Pulse, the Star Advertiser's online nightlife section.

"'I stuck her with my wang. She hit me in the balls. I grabbed her by her neck. And I bounced her off the walls. She said it was an accident and then apologised. But I still took my elbow and blackened both her eyes.' That's clearly a song about domestic violence. So your Christian message is... don't be like that man?" "Huh?" Violent J repeats, mystified.

Humanizing and well-written. Spoiler: she doesn't have a penis.