[Wed, 10.Feb.10]

Fear Factory: Mechanize

Having returned after a five year absence, Fear Factory sounds rejuvenated on their seventh album.

The Brunettes: Paper Dolls

In the sure hands of Kiwi indie-poppers the Brunettes, Paper Dolls turn out to be quite sturdy.

AM: Future Sons and Daughters

The album has all the lauded effortlessness and sincerity of AM’s best pop compositions.

Locksley: Be in Love

Locksley make a joyful noise, but it's one we've heard before.

Little Girls: Concepts

Lo-fi has never sounded this ambitious.

Reigning Sound: Love and Curses

The antithesis of fabricated pop music. Greg Cartwright channels pain, love, angst, and soul through his passionate, dynamic songs.

MORE MUSIC

[Tue, 9.Feb.10]
Anti-Flag: 27 January 2010 - Austin, TX
After the show, the band shakes hands, bumps fists and exchanges high-fives with numerous fans, demonstrating once again that Anti-Flag is most definitely a band for and of the people.

MOST RECENT

:. Brother Ali: 27 October 2009 - Dallas, TX

:. Jann Klose: 16 November 2009 - Chicago

:. Cracker + Camper Van Beethoven: 17 January 2010 - Cambridge, MA

:. Perpetual Groove: 22 January 2010 - Austin, TX

:. Haiti Relief Benefit: 23 January 2010 - New York

MORE EVENTS

[9.Feb.10]

[8.Feb.10]

[Tue, 9.Feb.10]
:. The once and future Sims
:. ‘The Phantom,’ ‘A Serious Man’ top list of latest Blu-ray releases
:. Leno’s prime-time send-off to be departure from tradition
:. Saints’ Super Bowl win nips ‘MASH’ finale for most-watched show ever
:. INTERVIEW:Larry Holmes and Joe Frazier recall when they were ‘Facing Ali’
:. Sony’s two-volume ‘Bad Girls of Film Noir’ sets bring them out of the shadows

[Mon, 8.Feb.10]
:. The ultimate ‘Survivor’ test: obscurity
:. 20 years of worst best-picture nominees
:. Werewolves are a hair different in ‘The Wolfman’
:. Blue whales singing in a lower key
:. ‘Heart-stopping’: Nik Wallenda walks the high wire
:. ‘The View’ gets political , and viewers love it (so does D.C.)
:. Over 50 years, Walk of Fame turned Hollywood into destination
:. Franken criticizes planned Comcast-NBC Universal merger

20 Questions: Hurricane Bells
By Evan Sawdey
[10.Feb.10] :. Longwave frontman Steve Schiltz took some time off from his main band to form a solo project called Hurricane Bells, and next thing you know, he wound up on the New Moon soundtrack.

CULTURE AT LARGE: The once and future Sims ‘The Phantom,’ ‘A Serious Man’ top list of latest Blu-ray releases

MIXED MEDIA: Owen Pallett - “Lewis Takes Off His Shirt” (live) (video) Basement Jaxx - “Look of Love (Felix Jaxx Booty Remix)” (MP3) Jamie Lidell - Compass (new album / stream)

— recent features —

The Difference Engine: Electronic Music: The Invader and Infiltrator
By Timothy Gabriele
[9.Feb.10] :. Deemed music that is “not real”, electronic sounds have come to occupy and permeate spaces focused on alterity, from the fringes of academia to the disposal heap of exotica.

IN THE BLOGS:
Notes from the Road: Yeasayer + Javelin + Class Actress: 9.Feb.2010 - Brooklyn
Short Ends and Leader: The Beast Within: Ten Timeless Werewolf Films
Notes from the Road: Robert Frank’s The Americans
Sound Affects: What’s the Best Album of the Decade? Try Calling Back in Five Years
Graphic Novelties: This Was Then: Earth X - Part 2

Must See TV No More?
By Ian Chant
[9.Feb.10] :. “You’ve created a fetish around watching the commercials, and not going to the kitchen or the bathroom during the commercials. That’s a pretty amazing thing to have done,” says Turow. But is the phenomenon sustainable?

It’s Me, I’m Alive: A Conversation with Yoko Ono
By Thomas Britt
[8.Feb.10] :. PopMatters sits down with Yoko Ono to discuss her most recent artistic output along with the big ideas of life, death, and the Beatles.

Incentives Matter: An Interview with Stephen J. Dubner
By Ian Chant
[8.Feb.10] :. PopMatters talks with Superfreakonomics coauthor Stephen J. Dubner about collaboration, geoengineering and why some economists don't like his books.

J.D. Salinger’s Seymour, a Eulogy
By Chadwick Jenkins
[5.Feb.10] :. Seymour is the presence you are sure you encountered before the door shut and he was gone; in this way, Seymour (not Holden) becomes the emblem for Salinger himself.

Risk and Equilibrium: The Impact of Greil Marcus
By Robert Loss
[5.Feb.10] :. The entirety of Marcus' famous 1970 "What is this shit?" review prefigures the sense of profound, disturbed wonder in the best of Marcus’ criticism.

Treading New Ground: An Interview with OK Go
By Adam Conner-Simons
[5.Feb.10] :. OK Go talks about breaking instruments in the studio, rocking out with musical idols, and the surreal sensation of playing glow-in-the-dark guitars rigged with lasers.

“Blissfully Nerdy”: An Interview with Owen Pallett
By C.L. Chafin
[4.Feb.10] :. As Owen Pallett releases his first new full-length in years, Heartland, the maestro himself sits down with PopMatters to talk about his lush new album, what it's like to be a one-man symphony, and how he finally set out to make a record that he can play for anyone, anywhere.

The Iconographies: Life During Wartime: The Cultural Catharsis of Brian Wood’s DMZ
By shathley Q
[4.Feb.10] :. DMZ creator Brian Wood offers a cultural catharsis for our times, one that is enduringly artistic, despite being overtly political.

Imperial Movements, Round-by-Round
By Matthew M. Briones
[3.Feb.10] :. It was not long ago that Filipinos and Puerto Ricans were the gloveless, unprotected, and militarily inferior populations fighting for their lives.

20 Questions: The 88
By Evan Sawdey
[3.Feb.10] :. After years of being pop music's "best kept secret", the 88 are now breaking out with their theme song to the NBC show Community.

Kickin' Up Dust: Willie Nelson in the Twilight Glow
By Steve Leftridge
[8.Feb.10] :. At 77, Willie's hair is now down to his tailbone, and you can see his trademark red locks fade to gray about midway up his back -- it's like examining the rings of a tree.

Deconstruction Zone: Orson Welles: A Man of a Certain Ego
By Rodger Jacobs
[5.Feb.10] :. “The chief proof of a man’s real greatness lies in his perception of his own smallness. It argues... a power of comparison and of appreciation which is in itself proof of nobility.”

The Rockist: Hollywood’s New Dimension: ‘Avatar’ in 3D
By Michael Brett
[5.Feb.10] :. The Rockist visits James Cameron's Pandora in search of stone obelisks but finds only Ewoks.

Retro Remote: The Simpsons, ‘Radio Bart’ Part 1: Floyd Collins and Kathy Fiscus
By Kit MacFarlane
[4.Feb.10] :. 'Radio Bart' draws on 70 years of media history to position itself in that uneasy mix of altruism, morbid curiosity and callous self-interest.

Soundscape: Mix #1: Vancouver
By Alan Ranta
[4.Feb.10] :. Welcome to the new Soundscape Mixtape Series where we step beyond criticism. In the great tradition of the mixtape, we are going to present these explorations with their actual sound.

Mixtape Confessions: Plenty of Bang for the Buck
By Ben Rubenstein
[3.Feb.10] :. An economic survey of a decade of concert-going yields an average of positive returns for my dollar. Yeah, Bob Dylan was worth every penny and more.

Worlds in Panels: A Case for Comics in College
By Shaun Huston
[3.Feb.10] :. My name is (insert name here) and I am a visual learner -- and other reasons why comics is a relevant subject for the college curriculum.

Moving Pixels: The Art of Place in Hitman: Blood Money
By L.B. Jeffries
[2.Feb.10] :. A game isn’t just its content or game design alone, but rather, the space created when all these pieces come together.

Read Only Memory: The Lives of Others
By Michael Antman
[1.Feb.10] :. There's a higher ratio of disposable schlock in the memoir than in other literary genres, but the best memoirs permit access to lives strange, twisted, wasted, brave, and glorious -- lives, in short, other than our own.

Subversive Rock Humor: Chameleon Comedian: David Bowie 1967-1970
By Iain Ellis
[29.Jan.10] :. As innovative and eclectic as his music has been, Bowie’s means and methods of articulation also reveal an artist finely attuned to the subversive potential of humor.