Ian Svenonius is forever devoted to the idea of teen-rock rebellion, which might seem odd for a well-read man in his 40s. And since he’s been mining aesthetics pulled from t...

I’ve created my own dream house. No, I haven’t built a mansion, or even kept tidy a 1948 brick Cape Cod. But I usually manage to keep music playing in our home almost cont...

When is the best time to teach your 5-year-old to play chess? When the deluxe CD reissue of the GZA’s 1995 hip-hop classic “Liquid Swords” arrives in the mail. This box ...

When a group of punks in their late teens call their 2011 debut album “New Brigade,” you might be suspicious. After all, there’s not a lot that’s new about Danish quar...

Most indie musicians would be embarrassed to be caught DJing at a wedding reception, spinning Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” for dressed-up crowds dancing...

Nicki Minaj is now more closely associated with pink than Pink is. The rapper-singer has name-checked the color in two album titles and sports the color from her hair to her c...

Opera just doesn’t cut it as gardening music. That’s why I switch off WETA 90.9-FM on Saturday afternoons and ride out the heat with Da Gator and the Zydeco Cowboy on WPFW...

A meme making the rounds called “The True Size of Africa” shows a map of the continent with the U.S., China, India, Europe and more overlaid to show just how gigantic of a...

What’s a band to do after it records an album but doesn’t have a label to release it? Head out and tour Japan. That’s what Sterling, Va.’s Tideland did in late May and...

It might not be an acoustically perfect way to enjoy music, but it’s hard to top the aesthetics of “Jazz in the Garden.” Now in its 12th season, this Friday-evening seri...

My psychic center exists somewhere between Black Flag’s 1981 hardcore anthem “Rise Above” and the second movement of Beethoven’s “Piano Sonata No. 23” from 1807. T...

Summers in Nordic countries feature an explosion of music festivals. After winter’s darkness, the longer days mixed with an institutional devotion to supporting creativity -...

Who hasn’t cried, “I am!” when no one’s around? No, not while in the throes of an existential crisis, but during an epic bedroom karaoke rendition of the Neil Diamond ...

As a member of hip-hop trio Diamond District, rapper-producer Oddisee shares the mic and the music. But as the man born Amir Mohammed el Khalifa shows on his latest solo relea...

Protect-U is a modern-day duo from D.C., though a blindfolded listening test might indicate otherwise: Mike Petillo and Aaron Leitko’s synthesized funk sounds like it’s fr...