Photo by Ryan MuirOn our last day in the office before the holiday break, we received an early Christmas/Hanukkah present: A chat with Win Butler of the Arcade Fire. Butler and his band laid low for most of 2008 (give or take a few Obama rallies), taking a well-deserved break after years of nearly nonstop recording and touring. But expect to hea...

Grizzly Bear photo by Ahmed Klink"Brothersport" was the first earful the downloading public got of Merriweather Post Pavilion, Animal Collective's forthcoming follow-up to 2007's most excellent Strawberry Jam. But we weren't supposed to hear it quite yet. Merriweather Post Pavilion comes out January 12 in the UK and January 20 Stateside."Brother...

At the end of the summer we premiered "The Butcher," from Spectrum, 14th Century, the first of Final Fantasy's two new EPs. (Later, it earned itself a joyfully bloody Jesi The Elder-directed video.) To recap: The five-track EP is a collaboration between Owen Pallett and Beirut. During the Flying Club Cup sessions, they recorded parts outdoors in...

A sense of carefully crafted naturalism fills "Blue Imelda", from Final Fantasy's Beirut-assisted Spectrum, 14th Century EP. Final Fantasy's Owen Pallett has described the EP's tracks as "fake field recordings," so it stands to reason that this one would convey a sort of ordered casualness through its intricately arranged steel pans, bird noises...

The singer-songwriter, and arranger returns with two short EPs. Spectrum, 14th Century, billed as a record of "fake field recordings," finds collaborators Beirut outfitting Pallett's strings with horns, piano, and percussion; the more lushly orchestrated Plays to Please finds Pallett performing and arranging songs by fellow Torontonian Alex Luka...