We asked some of our favorite musicians to tell us about some of their favorite artists, songs and moments from 2008. Here's what the Austin metal band the Sword had to say about the year in music. Favorite album I'm gonna have to go with Torche - Meanderthal on that one.  Torc...

My tastes and Pitchfork's generally tend to reside on opposite polar extremes (never did forgive that stupid 0.8 those humorless twits gave Northern State's debut six years ago, or the equally dumb 4.0 they gave Electric Six's first album, but the bigger pro...

Before it was announced that metal it-band Torche's guitarist Juan Montoya would be playing his final show with the band at All Tomorrow's Parties' Nightmare Before Christmas Festival in England, Rhapsody spoke with an unaware Montoya about some of his best and worst moments and memories...

FREE DOWNLOAD: School of Seven Bells, "Connjur" Rhythm and harmony! They’re the first things you hear on “Iamundernodisguise,� the opening track on School of Seven Bells’ debut, Alpinisms: a rolling drumbeat marshals a hint of rhumba in the bassline, while sisters Alejandra and Cla...

      The new January 2009 issue of Blender includes, among many other things, a list of "the top 144 songs of 2008," as presumably selected by the editors. (Though I write for the magazine some, my own input was not requested.) Unfortunately, I can't seem to find ...

F*ck*d Up w/ Ezra Koenig, "Someone's Gonna Die Tonight" and "Parents" We've got more video from the 12-hour F*ck*d Up show from this past October. In the above video, Vampire Weekend's Ezra Koenig performs "Someone's Gonna Die Tonight" by the legendary O...

In the latest installment of John Norris Interviews... our intrepid reporter ventures to the far off lands of Brooklyn to talk to the reverb-punk gals in Vivian Girls. John talks to the trio about the scarce availability of their early recordings, the facts and fictions of being in an all-gal band a...

FREE MP3 DOWNLOAD: Curumin, "Compacto" Curumin is the Quannum artist who shouldn't be. On a Bay Area label of underground rappers, the young man born Luciano Nakata Albuquerque is a Brazilian multi-instrumentalist who doesn't rap and is, in many ways, an old-fashioned songwriter. But when Quannum co...

More 2008 singles that other people of wealth and taste think are great, and maybe I'll agree or maybe or I won't  (see also these two previous posts). This time, from the running best-of-the-year list on New Yorker critic Sasha Frere-Jones' blog. Here goes: Lykke Li, "Little ...

I’m a pretty open-minded guy when it comes to music – sometimes probably too open-minded. But there’s a certain alt-rock sensibility that I feel like I’m largely immune to. I’m not sure what you’d call it; “middle alternative� (as in “middle of the road�) might work. Basically, I...