Andy Beta

At 22, Benjamin Booker has experienced an auspicious rise. Tampa-born but based in New Orleans, the young singer-guitarist has already found a label deal, played Letterman and Lollapalooza, and had his debut album recorded by the in-demand producer Andrija Tokic (Alabama Shakes, Hurray for the Riff Raff). ...

When Texas singer-songwriter Sarah Jaffe released The Body Wins in 2012, it functioned as both a high-profile introduction and a radical left turn. Jaffe had spent a few years as an under-the-radar up-and-comer, but her best-known songs ("Clementine," "Even Born Again") tended toward brooding folk-pop balladry. It's ...

For those trying to keep track of the Swedish duo JJ — previously known by the lowercase iteration jj — V is not its fifth album. (It's the third.) Then again, 2009's break-out jj n° 2 wasn't the group's second album, but rather its debut; N°3 followed. There's always been ...

In a career spanning three decades, Harvey Bassett has done a bit of everything. He bashed drums in a John Peel-approved U.K. punk band in the late '70s, then found himself taken with hip-hop and turntables while visiting New York City in the early '80s. Technics in hand, he returned ...

Philadelphia's Timothy Showalter has never been one to shy from a complicated metaphor in conveying his pathos. Take "Daniel's Blues" off his 2010 album made as Strand of Oaks, Pope Killdragon, where he voices actor Dan Ackroyd after the death of John Belushi, exacting revenge on the drug dealer responsible ...

In interviews conducted with Brittany-based multi-instrumentalist and composer Yann Tiersen since the release of Jean-Pierre Jeunet's 2001 film Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain — or, as American audiences know it, Amélie — you can almost hear him bristle at the thought of being labeled a "soundtrack composer." Coming from ...

Ever since his days as a feather-boa-wrapped synth strangler in Roxy Music in the early 1970s, Brian Eno has — beyond his own solo career — been a sonic abettor and collaborator. After leaving Roxy, Eno conspired with Talking Heads to infuse the band's wiry punk with

As of last September — some 36 years after their launch on Sept. 5, 1977 — NASA's Voyager 1 & 2 space probes were some 12 billion miles from home, easily the farthest man-made objects from Earth. Voyager's primary mission ended back in 1980, when both satellites provided the closest, ...

Over the past week, dance music lovers around the world published several "beginner's guides" to Frankie Knuckes' catalog of house hits. Slate's Nicholas Fonseca tackled the godfather's top singles with an illuminating essay, and The Guardian's music blog ran down five of his essential songs. The ...

The majestic instrumental rock band Explosions in the Sky broke into the mainstream thanks to its contributions to the soundtrack for Friday Night Lights — both the film and the TV series of the same name. With three-quarters of the band originally from Midland, Texas, Explosions in the Sky possesses ...

For a band originally slotted under the postpunk "angular guitar" descriptor, Liars threw plenty of curveballs in their 2001 debut, 2001's They Threw Us All In A Trench And Stuck A Monument On Top. There was the ESG sample midway through, then came closer "This Dust Makes That Mud," which ...

Actress' declarative 2008 debut Hazyville announced a new voice in underground British dubstep, at which point the electronic music producer (a.k.a. Darren Cunningham) began to push beyond the confines of that bass-heavy genre. By the time of 2010's Splazh, Actress was all but ignoring the tropes of dubstep, instead mincing ...

Between the City of Brotherly Love and the Steel Belt of Pittsburgh, there's plenty of rural countryside in the state of Pennsylvania. So when Pearls & Brass drummer Daughn Gibson wasn't touring the U.S. playing that band's strain of heavy '70s-style rock, he took blue-collar gigs as a long-haul trucker ...

Electronic music producer Derwin Panda developed his sound in his hometown of Chelmsford, Essex, as he worked day jobs in record shops and adult bookstores while making music in his studio at night. The resulting tracks that comprised his breakout 2010 debut, Lucky Shiner, rejiggered hip-hop's boom-tick with exotic timbres, ...

A tween homeschooled by her veterinarian parents who wants to be a singer. A husband-wife duo taken with psychedelia, swinging, no-budget horror movies and the teachings of guru Sai Baba. A New Jersey truck driver who hoped Waylon Jennings would sing his songs. A Dallas musician who looks like a ...

"To be a punk means freedom." So said singer-guitarist Mark Perro of Brooklyn rock band The Men. His band came up in the local hardcore punk scene, but had recently started adding pedal steel and harmonica to their songs when he gave me that definition. For him, punk ...

On the first floor of the building that houses the Mexican Summer / Kemado record label in Brooklyn's Greenpoint neighborhood lives Gary's Electric Studio. Studio A is an expansive space that can house a small orchestra (which it recently did for a film score recording), while Studio B — in ...

New York, NY —

Consider CMJ to be a ramping up of a normal week of music in NYC. Rather than have to decide between two intriguing shows on any given night, now you'll have to consider five shows or more, some stuffed with four or more bands worth ...