SCORE! 20 Years Of Merge Records: THE REMIXES! features Caribou, Four Tet, Xiu Xiu, Mark Robinson, the Blow, and others tackling classic and current Mergers. It's out 11/17 as a CD/download and is currently streaming for a limited time at Merge.

Philadelphia BTW Cold Cave is an interesting entity, straddling noise, synth-pop, darkwave, power electronics, and art/transgressive literature via their Heartworm Press. (You might recognize their current cover star Marti Domination from Cremaster 1.) Wesley Eisold remains the central creator, it seems, but he's joined by a revolving cast that ...

Time for another tobacco ad-related indie rock controversy! Remember when Rolling Stone and Camel featured a whole gang of bands in their "Indie Rock Universe" fold-out advertisement, pissing some bands off to the point where Fucked Up and Xiu Xiu actually filed class-action lawsuits against both companies?Now, Marlboro's MXBeat concert series...

Photo by David HorvitzWhen Xiu Xiu's Jamie Stewart does the solo-acoustic thing, he doesn't exactly render his band's noise-pop in Starbucks-friendly form. Next year, Stewart plans to release a new Xiu Xiu record called Dear God, I Hate Myself, so that should give you some idea of what you'll be getting with solo Stewart. If he doesn't make your...

'Tis the season for giving and hall-decking and so forth, and in the spirit of both, Oregon's Glass Casters Union is back with another round of indie rock-themed charity ornaments.Last year, the GCU offered up decorations designed by the likes of Wolf Parade, Band of Horses, Of Montreal, Deerhunter, and, for those bad-ass little boys and girls, ...