Robin Hilton

Last fall, Sylvan Esso's Nick Sanborn was commissioned by Duke University and Alverno Presents in Milwaukee to put together a special concert with some of his favorite artists and collaborators. The result was a two-night stand that featured Sanborn and Sylvan Esso singer Amelia Meath performing alongside members of Sanborn's ...

At first glance, there's not much to the new video for the song "No Werewolf," from the Los Angeles garage rock band Allah-Las. But the longer you watch, the more mesmerizing it becomes.

The video opens with a simple spinning wheel in stark black and white. A hand appears, and ...

This week's guest Quizmaster is Sam Fogarino, drummer for the band Interpol. The group is set to release its latest album, El Pintor, in September. It's Interpol's first new record since 2010's self-titled release. Can you identify the songs he selected from just a few seconds of drumming?

As always, ...

All Songs Considered features "The Voyager," the new album from Jenny Lewis, a singer known for complicated, emotional lyrics and vivid storytelling. It's part of NPR Music's "First Listen" series.

This week's puzzler for careful listeners has a little something for everyone, from jazz and classic rock, to punk and thrashing metal. It also features several fills listeners suggested from previous puzzlers. So, as always, if you know a fill (or intro) or drummer you'd love to see featured in ...

Not everyone can win the gold medal, and historian Sarah Lewis says that's a good thing. It's the near-wins and bare losses that truly motivate us to master our destinies.

There are worst fates than the one offered in The Polyphonic Spree's new video for the song "Hold Yourself Up." A man dies and wakes to find himself in another realm where beautiful women, beaming with joy, dance and sing, uninhibited, alongside their charismatic leader Tim DeLaughter. By the ...

In that cubicle by the water cooler you see him: your employee, on your dime, tilted back in that pricey Herman Miller chair, his personal smartphone in hand. Judging by the furrowed brow, you'd guess it's a hot game of Words With Friends.

Which do you do?

1. Chastise him.

This week's drum fill puzzler comes courtesy of guest Quizmaster Daniel Cundiff, percussionist for the Roanoke rock band Eternal Summers. The band's latest album is The Drop Beneath.

For Drum Fill Friday, Daniel picked cuts by some of the artists who've influenced his own work over the years, from smooth ...

You'll want to dim the lights for this video to accompany "VHS," from composer Christina Vantzou. The title implies a primitive digital universe. But in Vantzou's world, it's more of a void — a pitch-black emptiness where a lone figure chases her own barely perceptible reflection.

An avant-garde classical and ...

This week we celebrate our nation's independence with drum fills (and one intro) from songs that say "America, we love you!" Some may be more blatantly patriotic than others, but all capture, in some way, the spirit of freedom that unites and binds us.

As always, if you have a ...

The new video from composer Christina Vantzou, for the moody ambient piece "Strange Symptoms," will take you away. Vantzou's nirvana-inducing sounds emerge, bloom and fade away in less than a minute-and-a-half, as a figure stands motionless behind a curtain of slowly cascading water, her face distorted by the sun-dappled ripples.

...

It's hard to see the hope that glows dimly in the vaporous sounds of Broken Twin's music. But it's there, pulsing delicately in the beautifully spare arrangements and haunting voice of singer Majke Voss Romme.

In a stark new video for her song "No Darkness," Voss Romme draws a circle ...

This week's guest Quizmaster is Mike Kinsella, the drummer for the bands Owls, Joan Of Arc and Cap'n Jazz and a singer and guitarist in Owen and American Football. When I first took a stab at identifying the fills and intros he selected I was immediately reminded that sometimes ...

San Francisco's frenetic rock group Cold Beat pummels the senses in this strobe-lit new video for the song "UV." Directed by frontwoman Hannah Lew, the candles, chains and band members flicker behind a throbbing, multi-colored strobe light as drummer Bianca Sparta, deadpan behind a pair of sunglasses, slingshots the band ...

"It's the dreamiest of scenes," Sylvan Esso singer Amelia Meath sighed as she looked out over the sold-out crowd at Washington, D.C.'s 9:30 Club. Wearing six-inch platform tennis shoes and an all-black jumpsuit, Meath gyrated and pumped her fists, urging the crowd on. Meanwhile, the other half of Sylvan ...

This week we're back to a mix of classic rock and pop, with a few (relatively) recent loves of mine thrown in. As always, if you have a drum fill (or intro) you think should be included in this weekly puzzler, let us know in the comments section, or via ...

"In a lot of ways, I feel like this is the way our music is intended to be: inclusive, communal, and all together," Ages And Ages front man Tim Perry tells us in an email about his band's new video for the song "Divisionary (Do The Right Thing)."

The tear-inducing ...

Despite its name, "Madman" has more bounce to it than much of Rowe's earlier work. But it implies you'd have to be nuts to choose a life on the road.

"It's like I'm some kind of a bearded salesman," Rowe says. "But instead of vacuum cleaners I'm selling all these ...