“I want to try, I want to risk,” Dessa raps on her blistering takedown of Midwestern modesty, “Fighting Fish.” That line could have just as easily been the tagline for her gargantuan collaboration with the Minnesota Orchestra, which debuted Friday night and will be reprised on Saturday. Dessa herself described the production as her most ambitious gig yet, and that word,…

The music festival will be live-streamed across three channels, with sets from Kendrick Lamar, Radiohead, Lady Gaga, Banks, Lorde, The xx, D.R.A.M., Future, Bon Iver and more.

The Last Revel are out with their third full-length album, but that's not the only milestone for the Minnesota-based string trio; they've also transitioned to being full-time musicians. 'It's definitely an exciting place to be,' says the band's Ryan Acker. In the run-up to the release of their new album 'Hazard & Fate,' the Last Revel visited Radio Heartland for a session hosted by Mike Pengra.

To help us gear up for tonight's #MicroShow with Craig Finn, let's listen to some sprechgesang - a style of dramatic vocalization between speech and song. So for today's Coffee Break, what songs do you want to hear that have talk-singing?

It was a night I’ll never forget. It was a random weeknight in September 2012, and I was making my way over to the corner of Lake and Lyndale to visit the offices of Secret Stash Records, then an up-and-coming new reissue label in town. I’d gotten to know some of the staff of the…

Today, Netflix released the much-anticipated Mystery Science Theater 3000 reboot season, with Jonah Ray stepping in as the unsuspecting Gizmonics Insitute employee who’s captured and forced to watch cheesy movies against his will. Original host and creator Joel Hodgson is executive-producing the crowdfunded revival of the cult-classic show, which premiered on the station then known as KTMA in…

Fats Domino released 'Ain't That a Shame'; The Beatles made a good title choice; David Bowie broke through in the States; Motown renewed Stevie Wonder's contract; George Harrison got a star in Hollywood; and Public Enemy released one of the greatest hip-hop albums of all time, Today in Music History.

When Cost of Living, the debut album by Big Quarters, was released in 2007, Brandon Allday and Medium Zach created a Twin Cities hip-hop classic. To commemorate the anniversary, Big Quarters will reissue Cost of Living on 180-gram vinyl — complete with newly remastered audio — on Record Store Day, April 22. Brandon Bagaason and…

“Digitally, we’ve tried to mimic the album for years,” Drew Christopherson told me in an interview leading up to Poliça’s fifth anniversary. We’d been discussing music discovery, saying that we rarely dove into full LPs anymore because it was so easy to stream the next single. “I think people have now [decided], ‘Why? What’s the…

Molly Kate Kestner, “Prom Queen” Since she moved to L.A. from Minnesota, 21-year-old Molly Kate Kestner has been writing music with the likes of Kelly Clarkson. It shows in “Prom Queen,” a mighty, brooding pop song. For a triple dose of teen girl glamour politics, watch “Prom Queen” next to HALEY’s “Kismet Kill” and Marina and the Diamonds’ “Teen Idle.” Christopher…