This was part of Paper Magazine’s 25 Under 25 issue.

A feature piece on Beck around the release of The Information.

I’ve gotten really bad (for whom, for what?) at posting recent work and clips and stuff, so I’m going to try to do this on a weekly basis. So, this week.

I subbed for ABC’s Dan Harris over at his weekly online indie rock interview show, Amplified. I got to watch a great, rooftop performance by the Noisettes, and talked to them a little bit about how their lives have changed since “Don’t Upset The Rhythm” went to #2 in the UK:

I wrote a new Progress Report on the Go! Team for Stereogum. My favorite quote was right at the end:

Even though it’s album three and the tradition is to mature and all that bullshit I have no desire to clean up the sound.

Spin just ran my review of Sian Alice Group’s Troubled, Shaken, Etc. Such a good record. I called Sian Ahern “a singer with Nico’s presence and complexion.” Just look at her (photo from Ahmed Klink):

And this was last week, but I’m still very proud and thankful to have a chance to talk to These Are Powers about touring China. Before they left they had to record a “performance” for the cultural officials in Shanghai:

We actually had to record it in our practice space, and we pretended like it was a show, so we all clapped and said, “Thank you!” at the end of it. It was really silly. It was by far the most awkward I’ve ever felt playing a set of any music that I’ve been a part of. We’re like, “Hey, Chinese government! Here we are performing for you on video!” I guess it worked.

ABC World News Webcast:
Loney Dears’s Dear John
Pains Of Being Pure At Heart S/T

Progress Reports on Stereogum:
Nick Thorburn (Islands, Human Highway)
The Wrens (in Q & A form, because they’re hilarious)
Grizzly Bear

Spin Magazine reviews (I think this is the same print issue as the last batch, but I think Spin staggers print reviews when they put them online):
Beirut / Realpeople March of the Zapotec / Holland
Black Gold Rush
Asobi Seksu Hush
Vetiver Tight Knit

Pitchfork reviews:
Deerhoof Live EP
Benjy Ferree Come Back To The Five And Dime, Bobby Dee Bobby Dee

Sound Of The City:
Listening to Sufjan’s “The Lonely Man of Winter” in Crown Heights

Two more Progress Reports this week. On Monday I talked to Hutch Harris from The Thermals. We talked about how people in Portland smoke a lot of pot; that’s not in the update. Then I talked to Spencer Krug, who is working on a ton of different albums. I really liked interviewing him, and talked to him for over an hour, but I couldn’t fit nearly enough quotes into the update. I might post some of the other quotes/questions here, just because I think his process is so interesting. I read “Flow,” by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, a few weeks back, and I don’t think I’ve interviewed someone who fits the concept of “Flow” so well.

Paper Magazine review of the Little Joy album too.

I interviewed Okkervil River for Pitchfork.tv: Part 1 and Part 2.

I reviewed Beyonce’s I Am Sasha Fierce for Paste.

New Project Reports are up on Stereogum for Röyksopp and Phoenix.

I also reviewed Matt and Kim’s Grand, A.C. Newman’s Get Guilty and Andrew Bird’s Noble Beast for Spin.

I wrote about a “conversation” between LCD Soundsytem’s James Murphy and novelist Sam Lipsyte for Sound Of The City.