For the last two nights, the composer Jherek Bischoff has played shows at New York’s St. Ann’s Warehouse, playing with a group of musicians that included the Contemporaneous Ensemble and Deerhoof’s Greg Saunier. The shows have also included guests like Zola Jesus, Sondre Lerche, Mirah, and David Byrne. Byrne closed ...

Welcome to Backtrack, Sam Hockley-Smith’s new Stereogum column dedicated to a remembrance of great things past, of important records situated in the middle ground between Legendary Reissue Status and yesterday’s news. Backtrack will unfold as a crate-digger’s journey [or: in relation to itself], drawing connections to previous stops, celeb...

At a recent San Francisco stop on the Portlandia tour, Thao & Mirah joined the show’s two stars, Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen, to cover Salt-N-Pepa’s “Push It,” basically one of the most perfect songs in the history of the English language. It’s impossible to tell whether they&...

Thao & Mirah just released their excellent self-titled debut as a team. The album was co-produced by tUnE-yArDs’ Merrill Garbus and features several Bay Area musicians assisting multi-instrumentalists Thao Nguyen and Mirah Yom Tov Zeitlyn at John Vanderslice’s Tiny Telephone studios. The pair also visited New, Improv...

(a)spera, Mirah's forth solo album, is her first since 2004's excellent C'mon Miracle. It's solo, yes, but she's not alone: Longtime collaborator Phil Elverum contributed to three tracks and she collaborated with fellow Portlanders Tucker Martine and Adam Selzer along with Chris Funk, Tara Jane O'Neil and Lori Goldston. The collection's out 3/10...