The Mixtape

Chopping and channeling norteño music and dance beats, the Nortec Collective blows up like a cheap piñata. Have some candy.

Is it noise, or is it Memorex? The Boredomes don’t seem to care much, as long as they get to make their fine, fine racket.

It’s simple mathematics. Given an “N-th Anniversary of Spinal Tap”, there is no known value for N that will not make you state “crap, Spinal tap was N years ago?”

The Bronco Busters were an all-girl outfit whose brief career had me wishing I was a bronco. One listen to their track and you’ll be feeling your oats as well.

It’s worth repeating: This is a music hour that is complicated. Any other interpretations based on how you chose to associate the words are strictly your problem.

Despite coming from the hollers of Portland, Oregon, Hillstomp still manage to churn out the kind of thrumming crackle only a guitar-and-washboard duo can provide.

It must be heartbreaking to be a slapdash concoction of musical genius… in Alabama. The Sex Clark Five were done and gone by the time the world really took notice, but we can still enjoy the limited artifacts they left behind.

It’s a hard turn to the left from Mexican funk pop to electronic soundscapes, but Sara Valenzuela has made the transition well.

There’s something simply ADORABLE about a rapper with a British accent. Mike Skinner is no longer fronting the project, but expect more great things from him.

Acoustic punk rock is always a dicey proposition, but The Future Kings of Nowhere and Shayne O’Neill rip through the genre like a blowtorch on toilet paper. Slick!