Watch: Daft Punk - “Instant Crush” (feat. Julian Casablancas) Video

Dec 06, 2013 Mike Hilleary

As previewed yesterday, Daft Punk have premiered a new music video for their latest Random Access Memories single "Instant Crush," featuring vocals by The Strokes' Julian Casablancas.

Laura Colella

Dec 06, 2013

Writer/director Laura Colella felt like she was hitting her head against the wall after her planned third feature film, Liquor Land, failed to get made. Just as it was nearing the production stage, Liquor Land's producers dissolved their company. Frustrated with the stagnation, Colella tried to think of a no-budget project that was hands-on and made the most of the resources that she had. She proposed an idea to her Rhode Island housemates and neighbors, they jumped on board, and her award-winning film, Breakfast With Curtis, was born.

Rick and Morty’s Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland

Dec 06, 2013 Issue #48 - November/December 2013 - HAIM

We fade in on Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland—longtime friends and collaborators—to find the pair in a typical garrulous mood.

East India Youth

Dec 04, 2013 Web Exclusive

Few artists can have made left turns quite so dramatically as William Doyle. Two years ago I saw him live as the frontman of Doyle & The Fourfathers, a kind of '90s revivalist pop outfit; earlier this year, though, under the moniker of East India Youth, he released the Hostel EP, a record of dizzyingly vast electronic soundscapes that owed more to Krautrock than Britpop.

Ranked: The Flaming Lips

Nov 08, 2013

Welcome to Ranked, our recurring series in which one of our writers takes an artist's catalogue and ranks all of their official studio albums from most essential to least essential. The order is decided by the individual writer, rather than our editors. If you disagree with our ranking then please let us know in the comments section. This time Cody Ray Shafer ranks The Flaming Lips.

From their inception in the mid '80s, The Flaming Lips have touted themselves as a band you have to see live to really understand. Frontman Wayne Coyne's talent isn't so much his musicianship as his role as a master of weird ceremonies. After all, it was one of the band's crazy concerts—this one featuring a flaming cymbal fueled by lighter fluid that led to at least one incident of a band member's hair catching fire—that landed their record deal with Warner Bros. It is safe to say The Lips rely on gimmicks, lights, balloons, confetti, giant hands, and lasers to win over crowds, something they have managed successfully for nearly three decades.

In the studio, however, The Flaming Lips created a whole new niche in pop music teetering on the edge of avant-garde brilliance. Maybe it's a testament to their old-fashioned Midwestern work ethic, sheer luck, or the raw talent of multi-instrumentalist Steven Drozd, but Flaming Lips albums are known for explorations into vast caverns of human emotion, psychedelia, and sonic experiments.

These are the best full-length albums from The Flaming Lips, including their often-overlooked pre-Warner Bros. releases.

Omitted are 2012's Heady Fwends duets album, their full-length cover of Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon with Stardeath and White Dwarfs, the soundtrack for Wayne Coyne's film Christmas on Mars, and any EP releases or compilations.

Le Guess Who? Day Four: Destroyer, Lonnie Holley, Damien Jurado, and Yo La Tengo

Dec 05, 2013 By Laura Studarus

You know how sometimes at a festival there’s an “off” day, where there just doesn’t seem to be any strong acts that you’re dying to see? Le Guess Who? doesn’t believe in lulls. The final day brought strong sets from Destroyer, Lonnie Holley, Damien Jurado, and Yo La Tengo.

Under-heard: Karen Dalton’s “Green Rocky Road”

Nov 26, 2013 By Colby West

Like Socrates’ swans singing for the joy of cutting their corporeal ties, Karen Dalton too sang herself smiling softly into some kind of easeful, transitive state. While performing, the singer often retreated inwardly behind closed eyelids, leaving her audience spellbound by the quiet, sustained rapture that was her voice.