NYC Taper writes:

Backwords, of Brooklyn, are one of those bands that manages to sound classic and completely new at the same time.   Some of their tunes fall solidly in the gentler folk camp; at other times they can get psychedelic and jammy.  This opening set at Glasslands showed off both sides, with their approachable, melodic material, mostly from their current record By the Neck, predominating.  The band maintained an upbeat, easygoing vibe for the crowd of friends and fans that showed up early to catch their set.

Pitchfork writes:

The Calgary Herald reports that Christopher Reimer, guitarist for Calgary band Women, died in his sleep on Tuesday. His cause of death remains unknown. He was 26.

IMPOSE Magazine writes:

Woollen Kits played Death By Audio on Thursday, February 16 with Home Blitz, Parquet Courts, and Harpoon Forever.

NYC Taper writes:

Warming us up for Howlin’ Rain’s set of modern classic rock two Wednesdays ago at Brooklyn Bowl was another band led by a musician of varied talents that draws its inspiration from an earlier time.  D. Charles Speer & the Helix frontman Dave Shuford is also a player in No Neck Blues Band, the avant-garde New York-based improvisational collective that traffics in free jazz, experimental folk and noise rock, but the Speer clan travels the seemingly more familiar territory of country and Americana, albeit with their own dynamic style.

Vulture writes:

She's only been releasing music for two years as Grimes, but Canadian singer-songwriter-producer Claire Boucher has already gone through a career's worth of change, moving from the creepy, lo-fi R&B of her early releases to the futuristic dance-pop of her new album, Visions. We spoke with Boucher ahead of today's release about her sources of inspiration (including New Edition and anime), getting sick of her own voice, and wanting to produce.

Stereogum writes:

Ahh, "Brains." The song where Lower Dens took their dreamy twin-guitared smoulder for a trip up the Autobahn and made Nootropics one of my most anticipated LPs of 2012. For the "Brains" video, out today, Jana Hunter commissioned director Tristan Patterson (he of the hailed Dragonslayer doc).

Sound of the City writes:

The recently relocated Roulette (it's now on Atlantic Avenue, a few blocks from BAM) provides one of the city's perpetual needs: a small, accessible concert hall for avant-garde jazz, experimental music, and other not-particularly-poppy stuff that's sometimes nice to hear without the din of a drinking crowd. There's a small bar, but the focus is on the monastically plain auditorium, the former Y.W.C.A. Memorial Hall. (There's even a proper stage!) Tickets are cheap and seating is general admission.

Pitchfork writes:

Here's the first taste from Odd Future's group album OF Tape Vol. 2 (out March 20 through Odd Future Records), a video for a new song called "Rella" by Tyler, the Creator, Domo Genesis, and Hodgy Beats, with production by Left Brain.

Stereogum writes:

A Zooey-free M. Ward returns in April with the new album A Wasteland Companion, and we've already posted his "The First Time I Ran Away" video. And below, we've got a stream of another track from the album: "Primitive Girl," a shiny piece of lightly bedraggled power-pop chug.

Stereogum writes:

The D.C.-area early-’90s twee-pop originators Black Tambourine are back together and ready to release their first new record since breaking up in 1991. In May, they’ll release OneTwoThreeFour, an EP of Ramones covers.

NYC Taper writes:

Shellshag was the second band to play at the Don Giovanni showcase at Music Hall last week, but based upon the crowd response and participation, the band could have played much higher in the bill. Shellshag is not a new band — Shell and Shag have played together for over a decade. A guitar/drums duo that sounds like a full band playing legit garage rock, these veterans of the San Francisco DIY scene since the 1990s are a blueprint of how two people with talent and passion can make compelling underground music and make it last.

L Magazine writes:

Flock of Dimes (Jenn Wasner of Wye Oak's solo project) has just three recorded songs available to the public on a Soundcloud. When she first started performing here-and-there shows under the new moniker last year, there was only one. But the people who came to see Wasner’s self-described “grab bag of pop songs and weird ideas,” Saturday night at Union Pool weren’t there to sing along to songs they knew well. This was a rare opportunity to catch a body of work in the works, an artist in the act of creating. At one point during her set, Wasner gave the magic a name: It was as if the dimly-lit Union Pool were her bedroom recording studio, she said, and we, the audience were in it with her.

Stereogum writes:

School Of Seven Bells returned to Late Night With Jimmy Fallon Friday night to play the leadoff track from their new album, "The Night."

WNYC Music writes:

For a band with no lyrics, Melbourne's Dirty Three evokes a broad and complex array of human emotions. Violinist Warren Ellis, guitarist Mick Turner and drummer Jim White each carry equal weight in the group's music, and each lends a distinct personality: As Dirty Three's most gregarious figure, Ellis plays the instrument most conducive to showy flourishes and displays of heartsick emotion, but Turner and White provide the bones and sinew that keep him standing. White's drum patterns skitter around the edges of rhythms, lending the band's music a portentous air of uncertainty, while Turner's guitar flows around him like blood. All are crucial: Each is capable of functioning as an instantly identifiable lead voice (even when performing outside the band), but when the three play together, the emotions they conjure can be overwhelming.

WNYC Music writes:

Is "charming" a genre? Because pinpointing Fanfarlo's precise spot on the rock-pop-folk spectrum has only gotten trickier since the U.K. band released its debut album, Reservoir, in 2009. Mostly, the group splits the difference between two very different styles — sweetly shambling, occasionally orchestral pop and the wirier, less emotive rock sounds of bands like Talking Heads — with the common thread being its fundamentally approachable nature. This is hug-and-a-handshake music, as ingratiating as it is inspired.

Pitchfork writes:

The Associated Press reports (via Newser) that Michael Davis, bassist of pioneering Detroit proto-punk act the MC5, died of liver failure in a California hospital on Friday at the age of 68.

New York Times writes:

Sleigh Bells brought their customary attack of loud guitars and pounding electronic rhythms to Terminal 5 Friday, but reflection and melody crept into the mix.

Feast of Music writes:

A very sweet show last night by North Carolina's Lost in the Trees, a benefit for the Housing Works Bookstore. Ari Picker, whose voice has the same high lilt as Ben Gibbard, revealed that this was the band's first public show in six months as they've been holed up in the recording studio working on their second LP, A Church That Fits Our Needs, set to come out next month.

Stereogum writes:

Portland-born synthpop duo YACHT have already released a couple of videos from their recent Shangri-La EP, and now there’s a new clip for the title track. In the video, the group’s two members engage in all sorts of quintessentially Los Angeles activities: Surfing, tai chi, getting tattooed, drinking veggie smoothies, hanging out with white-clad cults.

L Magazine writes:

“If this was the 90s, there’d be half as many people here,” said Blair Shehan to a thoroughly packed Knitting Factory. He was referencing the music that was being spun between bands, but there was a clear fondness in the room for the punk and post-punk made during the decade in question. The audience—mostly of an age to have seen The Jealous Sound on one of their early-00s tours, or even to have fond memories of Shehan’s previous band Knapsack—fit at times uncomfortably in the space, with some ticketholders opting to sit in the bar and listen to the set being piped through the speakers there. Whether standing in the crowded venue or watching from the other side of a glass wall, however, the audience was treated to a tight, cathartic set, performed by a band for which the “anthemic” tag seems quite appropriate.