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MICHAEL BRODEUR

Latest Articles

1001_ashberry_list

Makes sense to him

John Ashbery's Planisphere
So understood is John Ashbery's post at the top of the contemporary American poetry heap (a distinction these days with the cultural heft of a Scrabble championship) that the question of just how to read him seems doomed to languish beside the point. Detractors need only a pillow and a trusty alarm clock to approach Ashbery.
By MICHAEL BRODEUR  |  January 12, 2010
1001_vw_list

Vampire Weekend | Contra

XL (2010)
There are a few words I did not expect to use in describing Vampire Weekend's second album. Paul-Simony-er is one of them.
By MICHAEL BRODEUR  |  January 11, 2010
1001_pr1mate_list

Bleep the faith

The Boston8Bit collective put their chips on the table
If you were young and had brain space to spare in 1985, those vacant folds were likely soon flooded with the vast audial ephemera of the Nintendo era.
By MICHAEL BRODEUR  |  January 06, 2010
1001_omara_list

Spring fever

Ten shows you didn't know you'd be going to
As action-packed as the holidays are, they can be a real dead zone when it comes to decent shows.
By MICHAEL BRODEUR  |  December 30, 2009
1001_bhouse-list

The future is now

No teleportation, but lots of rad new albums
Even with all the promise of the new year ahead, it's hard not to feel a little stiffed in the Future of Mankind department. Here it is, 2010, and there's nary a flying car to be seen.
By MICHAEL BRODEUR  |  January 04, 2010
0912_cryptacize-List

Best unsung albums of 2009

The cocky and the cock-blocked
These days, it's not so easy to feel useful as a music critic.
By MICHAEL BRODEUR  |  December 22, 2009
0912_fanfarlo_list

Bring the trauma

Fanfarlo adjust to the road
Even with the new order completely renovating the rock biz, some things have to be done the old-fashioned way. And after having their asses duly kicked by the old-fashioned way this past month, the five-piece London orchestral-pop combo known as Fanfarlo are eager to be done with this, their first US tour (which comes to T.T. the Bear's this Thursday). It's been a doozy.
By MICHAEL BRODEUR  |  December 15, 2009
0912_lissy_listt

Graduate studies

The learning curve of Lissy Trullie
I'm not a big fan of the "you are what you eat" theory of musical influence. I've experienced enough defective Radiohead knockoffs in my day to know that a group's favorite bands often have nil to do with how their music will sound. I also think that our systems of influence are a bit more porous and a bit less under our control than any eating metaphor might suggest.
By MICHAEL BRODEUR  |  December 16, 2009
Phoenix-miracle-09-wfnx-thumb

Review: WFNX's Miracle on Tremont Street 2009

Passion Pit, Phoenix, and Spoon, live at the Orpheum Theatre, December 4, 2009
A quick, mildly sycophantic shout-out to the "powers that be" here in Phoenix -Land: This year's Miracle on Tremont Street was nothing short of a wicked pissah powerhouse bill. The grand old Orpheum creaked under the weight of a sold-out audience, and a pronounced feistiness prevailed .
By MICHAEL BRODEUR  |  December 08, 2009
0911_phoenix_listt

Treat of Versailles

Phoenix please themselves — and you
It's been a good year: their relentlessly catchy Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix (V2) — whisked into the public ear this year atop Cadillacs via ad-ready singles like "1901" and "Lisztomania" — is about to cause some year-end listomania of its own. Since its release, they've been circling the globe playing to a steadily swelling audience.
By MICHAEL BRODEUR  |  December 02, 2009
0912_barwick_list

Julianna Barwick | Florine

Emusic (2009)
When someone describes an album as “hmmm, I dunno, sort of like Enya if she were from Brooklyn” — that person is not setting you up for success with said album.
By MICHAEL BRODEUR  |  December 02, 2009
0911_happiness_list

Sing your life

The Happiness Project speaks volumes
Charles Spearin's Happiness Project — to be performed this Friday at the Middle East Downstairs as part of a trio of Torontonian acts — was originally just that: a project.
By MICHAEL BRODEUR  |  November 24, 2009
0911_devendra_listt

A band, a part

Devendra Banhart and the Grogs live at Berklee Performance Center, November 14, 2009
My lingering qualms with Devendra Banhart's new album have very little to do with its substance and more to do with its consistency, a quality that throughout What Will We Be? seems present only in its glaring absence.
By MICHAEL BRODEUR  |  November 24, 2009
09111_hwB-list4

Heather Woods Broderick | From the Ground

Preservation (2009)
Let not the minimalist packaging of Heather Woods Broderick’s From the Ground mislead you into assuming it’s some sort of heady ambient work that you’ll get around to next time you’re cleaning — as happened to me.
By MICHAEL BRODEUR  |  November 17, 2009
0911_feelies_list4

Do over

The Feelies pick up their legacy
I tried hard to be born earlier, but it didn't work. As a result, I've had to contend with an irritatingly positioned cultural blind spot (roughly 1976–1986) that currently occupies all that open space once filled with childhood memories.
By MICHAEL BRODEUR  |  November 18, 2009
0911_tuneyard_list23

Faux fi

Tune-Yards don't need to make a big production out of it
A few years ago, before Merrill Garbus was touring the world as Tune-Yards (she spells it tUnE-yArDs — but we're going to pretend we didn't know that), she was deep into puppets. Following her studies at Smith, the Connecticut native relocated to Putney, Vermont, to join the Sandglass Theater company.
By MICHAEL BRODEUR  |  November 16, 2009
0911_dev_list

Devendra Banhart | What Will We Be

Warner/Reprise (2009)
With the title of his latest album, this lovably polyglot erstwhile (and unwitting) “freak” folkie turned gallery darling and global lounge lizard asks a valid question. Indeed, what will we be this time?
By MICHAEL BRODEUR  |  November 10, 2009
MUSIC_DEASTRO7_list

Supersonic youth

Nothing’s gonna stop Deastro now
It’s been a rough couple of months for Randolph Chabot, a/k/a Deastro.
By MICHAEL BRODEUR  |  November 10, 2009
0911_matias_list

Matias Aguayo | Ay Ay Ay

Kompakt (2009)
You know the old saying: you can lead a horse to dance music, but you can’t make it sign up for a Beatport account.
By MICHAEL BRODEUR  |  November 03, 2009
0810_hiddencameras_lsit

Risqué management

The Hidden Cameras didn’t mean to turn you on
One of the worst things you can do as a person-who-writes-about-music is to ask an artist which of his songs is his favorite. For one thing, it makes you sound kind of dull. For another, you’re just gonna put the dude in a bad mood.
By MICHAEL BRODEUR  |  October 28, 2009
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