Along with the utterly jaw-rippin' insta-riffic Simple Songs currently bolting out of stores and onto turntables the globe over, we're also reflecting on the Jim O'Rourke of yore, reexaming former chapters from What Would J.O. Do? (The big book of Jim!) - and what's this? Selling a few choice pages as digital files! Wow. Not only can you finally "pick up" Eureka, et al, for your dadburned computer deevice, you can also indulge catalog and mouse games of two other mighty O'Outfits: Gastr... (read more)

THE VAULT IN OUR STARS

Woohoopdidoo, and welcome back to the rolly-polly-coaster that is Drag City Records (and once again, Tapes!). We don’t necessarily take it as it comes, but we’re not NOT subject to vicissitudes of fate and shit, either. If you stick around long enough, you’re likely to see stuff n' thangs you never believed you'd see, much less see again! This is what makes our death wish so danged silly – it’s clear just from past experience that... (read more)

Tim Presley's White Fence is a sonic non-enclosure; visualize its endless, picketed rows posting the entirety of this green Earth. That's how For The Recently Found Innocent keeps rolling! It's a methodic ritual, perpetually planting one post at a time, just walking, running, and hopping the rails thru different countries and different continents, as the 'Fence flies. Spreading tour dates around the calendar like strategically laid fertilizer in the back pages of our collective plot, we hear the grass grow in a lush, green... (read more)

Experiencing historical Death in the form of reborn albums such as ...For The Whole World To See and III has been an ear-popping and truly revelatory event for all of us who have! And just as we were certain it would, their first album of new material since back in duh day totally slays with the freshness of a ripe rock n' roll groupie who's put in a solid night back stage (bleargh!). That is to say, N.E.W., just released in April, delivers the... (read more)

Genesis! Succession! Secession! Re-evolution! Generations! Boom and Bust! The Day After! Next Time! But Royal Trux weren't thinking about one single place in time - no, they saw ALL of them instead - all the kids from all the times, all the phases, all the eras, waves and other plays of rock and roll in a non-chronological, non-denominational mass. Because Royal Trux was the way IN for all of us. Now we were ALL a part of history. (Yes, even the dumbshit haters. They only... (read more)

Elisa Ambrogio's solo debut, The Immoralist is an imposing album, dealing with the explorations of the esoteric--- that of Faustian spirits, sloppy black magik, superstitions, and obsessions with water! Equipped with numerous tricks up her sleeve, Elisa tagged director Amy Scott to make a brilliant new video for one of The Immoralist's highlights, "Arkansas"! Enigmatic things always seem to happen down by the river (at least Elisa didn't shoot anyone dead...that we know of) and the video for  "Arkansas" is no different!

Do you dislike instant gratification? Well DON'T READ THIS! This item is for you digital media-loving types in the crowd - don't all raise your hands at once. Instead, just let the good news soak in for the next few seconds - not only have we just released Jim O'Rourke's entire back catalog of pop songs in digital format (exclusively via FLAC downloads; high-five, nerds! And no we don't have the ratio details - sorry, nerds), but now Jim's new album of great... (read more)

Just like the era that it recalls, the White Glove Test: Louisville Punk Flyers 1978-1994 exhibit at Louisville's Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft is coming to an inevitable end! Extended through this weekend due to (obvs) popular demand, it's a testament to the deeply influential, musical richness that has coursed through the town's veins since the onset of the 70s punk movement. Gallery exhibits are like scenes; they have to end sometime - but the images which make this exhibit so exciting live on... (read more)

Pop music in the new century - what's it all about? Sliding up from out from under, from the old heart of the Bay Area...from out of nowhere even - it's a special new band. Hands up for the sweet and sour popsicles of PEACERS, whose self-titled debut melts stickily on July 17th!

In the hands of PEACERS, it is BAKED - a vanillan cake with sweet sooty icing. Shades of the Bratish invision: compressions and crushes, bone-shakes and glutinous thinks,... (read more)

There's so much that comes to mind when we think of Jim O'Rourke's music! It brings to mind such heroic images as deep and wide analog soundstages, the durability of physical formats like LP and CD, and the all-round weakness and fallibility of the digital music-sphere! For decades, as digital has empirically ascended the gastro-body of our international music gen-pop and burrowed itself, hearing aid-style, adjacent to the ear-bud canal, O'Rourke fans everywhere have held their breath in anticipation of a file with the... (read more)