latest music features
Random Truths About...Damien Jurado
Damien Jurado has been one of the most influential and interesting songwriters in the Pacific Northwest for a decade.
Random Truths About...John Vanderslice
John Vanderslice has been releasing solo albums for the past decade, as well as producing albums for such bands as Spoon and the Mountain Goats.
Random Truths About...Simontronic
Edgardo Flores is at work on a second album as Simontronic, a quirky and beautiful electronic project that he founded with Joe Fraley in Monrovia, CA. He is also the writer/director of a full length feature film, Ill Square.
Random Truths About...Matthew Gray
Interview with Denton, TX musician Matthew Gray of Matthew & the Arrogant Sea on the urge to live raw, dream silly, and decategorize everything.
Random Truths About...Miranda Lee Richards
Interview with vocalist behind Light of X about her fears, prejudices, and how she believes music can change lives.
Choir of Young Believers Interview
"I think total democracy in bands can sometimes be a bad thing musically."
Snowshoes and Hunters: An Interview with Midlake
"I guess we got into more of this British folk thing and a 'fair maiden' thing as I call it, but I don't think we really sound like these bands, though there is more than a hint of it on the new album."
Eau de Colonia: An Interview with Nina Persson of A Camp
"Melancholy is not really the right word to describe the mentality. Swedes are more... serene and mellow, and not afraid of the dark, and this is something that I still think is a big part of my personality."
A Sight for Sore Eyes: An Interview with Klum
"I assume people don’t really know who is singing what because sometimes we don’t even remember who sings certain parts that are on the record. The most important thing to us is just that it’s good." -Brock Flores
Someplace New: An Interview with Uncle Owen Aunt Beru
"My music really is like a journal, so as soon as I know my feeling or idea has been documented, the song is done. It's so fast and introspective that I forget about the rules."
Go to the Radio: An Interview with Psychic Ills
Largely improvised, but never sloppy or misguided, their long and sometimes disturbing pieces are hypnotic and transcendent, blending a driving rock aesthetic with unnameable textures.
Brave New Music: An Interview with Frida Hyvonen
After listening to her new album, Silence is Wild, it is impossible not to feel that Frida has genuinely revealed herself, leaving the listener feeling slightly awkward, and highly impressed.
Oz Captain! My Captain!: An “Ode” to Midnight Oil & An Interview with Midnight Oil’s Jim Moginie
From the first rumblings of the opening riff--the brassy stomp of “Beds Are Burning” (i.e., the now-famous duh, duh, du-u-uh!)--I became stupid with goosebumps. My heart pounded like some long-extinct herd. And for the first time in my rock-n-roll life, I felt my very aliveness...
Planting Seeds: 13 Questions with Mia Doi Todd
"I like to listen to the arc of a record, like reading a book from start to finish. I make records that way."
Only Love is All Maroon: An Interview with Bon Iver
With all your lies, you're still very lovable. - "For Emma"
Writers on Music: An Interview with Robin Benway
"For a band that's just starting out, it's still fun and exciting and very Kerouacian to be in a van and touring the country. That's the spirit I wanted for Audrey, and listening to that music definitely helped to infuse the book."
You Know This Gloom: An Interview with The Notwist
"In the end it was all about finding a way to express something that you cannot express otherwise."
Writers on Music: An Interview with Mysterious Skin Author Scott Heim
The author of Mysterious Skin and We Disappear talks about Cocteau Twins, Talk Talk, the importance of soundtracks, and why writing novels "appeals to the control freak inside [him]."
A Walking Bible: Interview with Rap Artist Tech N9ne
"When Reagonomics hit--if you recall--a lot of after-school activities were taken away...so that left a lot of young people on the street...[Then in] '85, crack hit...so if we were on the streets, instead of in school, that's what we were doing."
Prickling all Over: An Interview with My Brightest Diamond
"Even if there is tension in a collaboration, that frustration allows you to further define your own musical ideas, why you disagree or what it is that is important to you..."
"To Comprehend a Nectar": 14 Questions with Peter Moren
"The things I go through, most people go through, so I think it communicates."
"Our True Love Finds Us When it is Time": An Interview with Mark Kozelek
"Sometimes I write in the voice of someone who I believe is trying to get through to me, sometimes. But I never really understood that Nick Cave style of 'I am a murderer on this album' kind of thing. It's just not me. I'd rather just cover someone else's song."
Shared Islands: An Interview with High Places
"The whole idea of playing in a band as a way of paying the bills is a new concept to Rob and me. We come from a basement show pass-the-hat-to-pay-for-gas mentality."
What Kind of Animal Are We: An Interview with Sara Lov
"It's strange to me that so many hands can have a part in someone's self-expression. It puzzles me that what I think is so bad can be considered to be so good by so many, and something that is so good can go undiscovered."
Do Not Despair: 11 Questions with El Perro del Mar
"I have this physical need for being around and making music, and I think I’ve had that inside of me from the very start."
Homespun: An Interview with Gregory and the Hawk
"When you look back in history there are great musicians and great artists who've been screwed over, who stole others' material and passed it off as their own, who went unnoticed 'til they were dead..."
New Miserable Interview: Gin Blossoms Frontman Robin Wilson
"In the past, it always took so much effort and [money] to get a band into record stores across the country. That was one of the main things you needed a record company for—so that you could be in every Tower Records. But, obviously, Tower Records is gone."
Song Blueprint: Erik Sanko's "The Perfect Flaw"
Seven years after its release, musician Erik Sanko reflects on the process of creating his single "The Perfect Flaw."
Contours: An Interview with Sian Alice Group
"Sometimes it all stretches out in front of you in an instant, and other times you really have to put the hours in. Each song has its own rules."
Pop Noir: 13 Questions with Martina Topley-Bird
"I was exposed to lots of different kinds of music and culture living in London, and my parents traveled a lot and loved bringing stuff back from their travels. I suppose it's made me open to non-mainstream music."
What You're Talking About is Pure: An Interview with Idaho
"Many of my favorite trees in Los Angeles came from somewhere else. Also something about that city makes you feel like people aren't supposed to live there."
12 Questions with John Grant of The Czars
"I always thought once I had written something it had to stay that way. I don't know why."
Fictional Worlds: An Interview with Susanna
Perhaps the most lasting impression of Susanna's music is its unyielding tastefulness. Where one would expect a drum loop, a soaring harmony, or a bed of violins or keyboards, one is left most often with Susanna's bare voice, a few notes on a piano, and a lingering melody. The effect is pure, haunting, and entirely successful.
"The Desert is Full of Silence": An Interview with Rio en Medio
Danielle Stech-Homsy's primary instruments are a ukulele and a sweet, fairy-tale voice, though she balances these with spooky samples and arrhythmic loops. She speaks with Identity Theory about The Little Prince, three-dimensional music, and recording blind.
Don't Be a Slave to No Computer: 14 Questions with Minotaur Shock
Minotaur Shock is a one-man band made up of Dave Edwards, who has been prolifically composing and remixing in Britain for the last decade. His music is predominantly instrumental and could roughly be called electronic music, but it never lacks for warmth and never just settles into the pocket.
Scandinavia, Dreams, and Polar Bears: 12 Questions with Phon°noir
Matthias Grübel, a.k.a. Phon°noir, hails from Germany and crafts songs that sound at once intimate and cautious, whispered and clattering.
Random Truths About... Caribou
"It's hard to even say 'poverty' without coming off like Bono, but you'd have to have your head quite a long way up your ass not to acknowledge the majority of the world's population living in extreme poverty to be a serious issue."
Reviews: Barzin and Unwed Sailor
Even though Canadian songwriter Barzin Hosseini has been writing sleepy, introspective music for over a decade, making another record of slow-tempoed, country-tinged rock remains a risky proposition simply because so many artists—Low, Ida, and Mazzy Star to name a few—have trod this ground before.
Random Truths About... Karl Blau
"I don't have much of an opinion on the music I make. I am more of a catch-and-release type creator."
Random Truths About... Brother Reade
L.A. hip-hop duo Brother Reade (Rap Music), answers seventeen quick questions from Ross Simonini.
Random Truths About... Kirby Dominant
Kirby Dominant is one of the major voices in Bay Area independent hip-hop, collaborating with Anticon folks and Living Legend folks and creating a personal, creative sound completely alien to Oakland's hyphy trend.
Random Truths About... Rudresh Mahanthappa
Interview with alto saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa, a Guggenheim fellow who draws heavily from his Indian ancestry to compose highly acclaimed jazz compositions: "I'd like to learn more about hardcore economic theory, like the stuff people win Nobel Prizes for."
13 Questions: Steve Parry
Guitarist/multi-instrumentalist Steve Parry, who performs with Hwyl Nofio and parry/søegaard, doesn't draw a line between music and non-music: "The need to define music by putting sound into allegorical little boxes is purely to contain and restrain to provide analysis."
Random Truths About... Eric Whitacre
Interview with one of the most popular and performed classical composers of his generation: "I'm a professional artist, and more and more I feel like I should keep my causes to myself and just try to create beautiful things."
Random Truths About... SJ Esau
"Experimental Pop" musician SJ Esau talks about umbrellas, fake nipples, Vonnegut, and more. (He completely fails to mention his latest album, Wrong Faced Cat Feed Collapse.)
album reviews
David Karsten Daniels' Fear of Flying
Fear of Flying is an intense musical exploration of life's hardest questions. Daniels does not rely on catchy gimmicks to quickly gain our attention. The delicacy and emotional weight of these songs demand our time, our patience. They are more than worth it.
Bon Iver's For Emma, Forever Ago
Two years ago, Justin Vernon spent the winter alone in his father's Wisconsin cabin, wrestling with the ghosts of past relationships and his former self.
writers on music
Gayle Brandeis
"Music tends to trigger emotion on a very deep level for me, and that is what I want to access when I write... I want to give voice to the sorts of memories and sensations that music evokes."
More writers on music: Stephen Clarke
best of the rest
This is the Day
It's clear to me now that many of the pop songs of my youth will be turned into commercial jingles. Sometimes this is a shocking process, but oftentimes it's just disconcerting.
music blog
- Visit the Identity Theory Music Blog for reviews, videos, downloads, and more.
music interviews
- Akron/Family
- Alela Diane
- Alexis Gideon
- Animal Collective
- Apostle of Hustle
- Ariel Pink
- Bablicon
- Belong
- Black Dice
- Brightblack Morning Light
- Brother Reade
- Califone
- Caribou
- Caroliner
- Cloudland Canyon
Dan Deacon- Deep Dark United
- The Double
- El Perro del Mar
- Erase Errata
- Eric Whitacre
- Ethan Rose
- Excepter
- Fog
- Gang Gang Dance
- Gin Blossoms
- Gregory and the Hawk
- Grizzly Bear
- High Places
- Idaho
- Inara George
- Jackie-O Motherfucker
- Jana Hunter
- John Grant of The Czars
- Karl Blau
- Keith Fullerton Whitman
- Kirby Dominant
- Klum
- Liars
- Lucky Dragons
- Mark Kozelek
- Martina Topley-Bird
- Midlake
- Mike Doughty
- Minotaur Shock
- Notwist
- Oneida
- The Oranges Band
- Phon°noir
- Rio en Medio
- Rudresh Mahanthappa
- Rusty Santos
- Sara Lov
- Sian Alice Group
- SJ Esau
- Sleater-Kinney
- Spires That in the Sunset Rise
- Stephen Hartke
- Steve Parry
- Sunburned Hand of the Man
- Susanna
- Tara Jane O'Neil
- The Television Personalities
- Trespassers William
- Uncle Owen Aunt Beru
- Vibracathedral Orchestra
- Volcano the Bear
- Warsaw Village Band
- Wolf Eyes
- Wooden Wand
- Xiu Xiu
what we're listening to
- Song of the Month: "Skyscraper" by Julian Plenti
- Album We're Liking: Tribute To by Yim Yames
contact
- The music section of Identity Theory is now edited by Anna-Lynne Williams. Email her if you are interested in contributing.
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Identity Theory is an online magazine that publishes author interviews, music interviews, original fiction, nonfiction, poetry, book reviews, film reviews, a social justice blog, and whatever else seems like a good idea at the time. Learn more, contact us, get our 
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