Chimpomatic

Stumbling across Alligator in Fopp on a non-descript weekday afternoon in 2005 worked out to be one of the sweetest and unexpected musical highlights of the past ten years. Since then, this Brooklyn band has consistently honored that experience by confidently building on Alligator's success. 2007's Boxer raised the bar to heights that even Alligato ....read more

LCD Soundsystem and The National were among the acts on Jools Holland's live show last night. Watch that on iPlayer here or catch the finished show tomorrow night on BBC 1. ....read more

The highly-anticipated new albums from favourites The National and Band of Horses seem to be in something of a space race. BoH followed The National's free Bloodbuzz Ohio download with an mp3 of their own - Compliments. Now both bands have loaded up a second preview - Laredo from Band of Horses and Afraid of Everyone from The National. The Nationa ....read more

The US National Archives have made a large chunk of their Documerica project from the 1970's available on Flickr. In the wake of the Nixon-created Environmental Protection Agency, the project set up to document the environmental state of the US at the time - with Koyaanasqatsi-esque results. Via WIRED ....read more

The National have previewed Terrible Love - the lead track off their new album High Violet (due May 11th) - on the Jimmy Fallon show. Pretty great lead-up to an album with a lot of expectation after Boxer, which we rudely only gave 4.5 stars. ....read more

Chimp favourites The National are back in business in 2010 - with a new album due in May. They will also be popping over to Europe for a couple of shows, at the Albert Hall on May 6th (Tickets here, La-di-da!) and the Zenith in Paris on May 7th., where they will be supporting Pavement. Read our 2006 interview here. ....read more

The 00s have certainly been a turbulent decade for the music industry, from the rise and fall of Napster, through the MP3 and iPod revolution and on to the reality TV dominated close of the decade. Drum and bass infiltrated pop music so throughly that it's now just part of the furniture, while Hip Hop blew up to dominate the US charts, nabbing a g ....read more

The 00s have certainly been a turbulent decade for the music industry, from the rise and fall of Napster, through the MP3 and iPod revolution and on to the reality TV dominated close of the decade. Drum and bass infiltrated pop music so throughly that it's now just part of the furniture, while Hip Hop blew up to dominate the US charts, nabbing a g ....read more

Clever clip pulling together the many assets of Google, in a National-centric way. ....read more

Cathedral in Washington with a Darth Vader Gargoyle ....read more

Full length trailer up for James Cameron's Avatar movie. I'd like to tell you this one doesn't make it look so much like "Jar Jar Bink's National Vacation". ....read more

Covers compilation Ciao My Shining Star brings together a broad range of bands to cover the songs of influential musician Mark Mulcahy - with the aim of raising money to support the artists and his daughters after the tragic death of wife and mother Melissa Mulcahy. Mulcahy and his prior bands Miracle Legion and Polaris were never big names in the ....read more

I guess in England, we'd use a skip for this. Update: Oops. Too late. ....read more

With the 20th Anniversary of it's release upon us, the Pixies are touring pre-grunge indie-classic Doolittle in it's entirety - plus b-sides. Tickets on sale Friday.   OCTOBER Thursday 1st - Olympia, Dublin, IRE TICKETS Friday 2nd - Olympia, Dublin, IRE TICKETS Sunday 4th - SECC, Glasgow, UK TICKETS Tuesday 6th - Brixton Academy, Lond ....read more

Ouch.  ....read more

"When I used to go out I knew everyone I saw / Now I go out alone, if I go out at all" so sang front Walkman Hamilton Leithauser on ‘The Rat’, which along with ‘Little House of Savages’ was the other ‘Hit’ from ‘Bows and Arrows’, the New York Five Piece’s second album  released in ....read more