Eclectic band Brazilian Girls avoids any specific genre, partaking in dance music, Latin limbo and even psychedelic pop. Ironically, none of the members are originally from Brazil; lead singer Sabina Sciubba was born in Rome to parents of German and Italian descent. Sciubba’s globe-trotted from Italy to Germany and…

You may know Harry Shearer as the voice of Ned Flanders, Reverend Lovejoy, Principal Skinner, both C. Montgomery Burns and Waylon Smithers, Dr. Hibbert, Kent Brockman, Lenny, Scratchy, Rainier Wolfcastle, Otto the bus driver, Eddie the cop, Kang the alien, Jasper Beardly, and many, many others on “The Simpsons.”…

The brainchild of multi-instrumentalist J.R. Robinson, Chicago music collective Wrekmeister Harmonies‘ sprawling brand of “pastoral doom” has gained fame for its impressive roster of session musicians—including Leviathan mastermind Jef Whitehead and Bruce Lamont of avant-metal jazzers Yakhuza. Driven to Oregon by a loved one’s death and a relative’s deteriorating…

More straightforward and contrarily melancholic than ever before, neo-psych outfit Unknown Mortal Orchestra is back to operating between two realms with its latest, Sex & Food: frenetic psychedelia and fanciful daydreaming. The LP increases the energy and noise at times while sweetening familiar territories elsewhere, but fails to expand UMO’s horizons. That results in…

Electronic duo Wye Oak has spent 12 years refining the its sweeping approach to indie folk. Its pleasant melodies, open chord progressions and dynamic shifts always kept one foot in staunch experimentalism. A willingness to incorporate electronics and ambiance into its style now gives the new album’s bold synthetic…

In the late ’90s, word about Dr. Octagon was passed from person to person, on burned CDs and dubbed tapes. He was a larger-than-life cult figure, with a following of hip-hoppers and punks alike. He was a new Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, a new Captain Beefheart; an avant-garde rapper whose…

As the Bay Area’s vanguard baroque rock outfit, San Francisco’s The Family Crest’s symphonic approach to indie rock has captured the hearts of a growing fanbase. At once loftily cinematic and intimately communal, the group lives up to its name both in music and audience relations. In fact, the…

It’s clear right off the bat that Texan Kacey Musgraves wanted to get past her country roots with her new record, Golden Hour. She embraces AutoTune and dominant dance beats on several tracks while maintaining her roots with steel guitar riffs and banjo accompaniments on others. On some songs she…

Greta Kline, more aptly known by her stage name Frankie Cosmos, has nestled herself in the indie rock singer-songwriter scene. The daughter of actors Kevin Kline and Phoebe Cates, her New York City attitude demands listeners’ attention, referencing the poetry she studied in college throughout her songs. Through witty…

Lindi Ortega comes from a stellar group of country singer-songwriters hailing from the Great White North. The Toronto-born Ortega’s Liberty, her seventh studio album, is her most ambitious to date. The 12-track concept album is constructed with the narrative arc of a motion picture, with each of the three…