“Safe and perfect bores me to death,” Aby Wolf bemoans on the opening track of Wolf Lords, and it’s the closest thing to a mission statement the prolific singer and songwriter has offered us to date. Now on her third album, Aby has established herself as a chameleonic, restless artist who is constantly looking for…

Local Radar highlights bands that the local team at The Current is spinning heavily at their desks. You’ll be able to preview a track from each as well as hear them on The Local Show and Local Current. 2013 has already proven to be a year of great debuts. Artists are really taking their time to make something…

  Now the longest-running independent folk and roots label in the country, St. Paul’s Red House Records is celebrating 30 years in the industry. In that time they’ve established themselves as a steadfast supporter of Americana acts here in the Midwest and a champion of what they refer to as “authentic, honest” music nationally. For Red House…

  The 7th annual TC Hip Hop Awards, which were scheduled to take place at Myth Nightclub in Maplewood this Friday, February 22, has been canceled just days prior to taking place. Though the annual awards show has certainly had its share of difficulties—the last two years have been plagued by fights, and last year’s…

Have you marked this date on your calendar yet? Record Store Day is coming up on April 20, 2013, and one Minnesota-based company is already getting in on the vinyl-loving actin. Noiseland Industries has just unveiled the track list for its second volume of American Buffalo, a collection of songs from Twin Cities artists that…

Carroll has been leaking demos across the web over much of the last year. They were the winners of the 1st songwriting contest from Humans Win! recording studio in NE Minneapolis, and the prize was a professional space to record their debut EP Needs (which is now available on Bandcamp). The quartet was birthed in the…

  It’s been a slow couple of weeks in terms of local shows and local music news here in the Cities, but that lull isn’t going to last long. We have a couple high-profile album releases coming up this week—Aby Wolf and Grant Cutler’s Wolflords collaboration and STNNNG’s Steve Albini-produced Empire Inward—and it’s a mere…

It’s been a crazy-busy week for video releases here in the Twin Cities, so much so that I just caught myself complaining about having too many awesome videos for the Friday Five. Like that’s a problem. You’re getting a little extra this go-round, and there’s nothing any of us can do about it. P.O.S. It’s…

  Valentine’s Day just got a whole lot sweeter. Tomorrow, February 14, 2013, has been declared Bob “Slim” Dunlap Day by Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak. For those who have been following this story from the beginning, this heartfelt gesture from the mayor comes at the end of a long year in Dunlap’s life. It was…

2013 is already shaping up to be a big year for José James. The distinctive, silky-voiced singer has just released his Blue Note debut, No Beginning No End, to glowing reviews, with Ben Ratliff of The New York Times noting that the record “sounds like the result of the black-pop continuum, jazz and soul and…