The amount of recorded music that exists in the world is mind-boggling. Even with the limited scope of contemporary rock, pop, country and hip-hop, sorting through all of it would take a lifetime, three quarters of which would be wasted on awful material. Read more...

Clinic “Visitations” DOMINO RECORDS Whether it would be better set to a warped neo-noir chase scene or looming through the blue mist of a Tennessee Williams playhouse, Clinic’s music is defined by the uncharacteristic use of its components: irreverent, clanging rhythms and amplified melodic effects lend an air that is nothing short of widescreen. Read more...

Menomena “Friend and Foe” BARSUK RECORDS Portland-based experimental rock group Menomena’s members Brent Knopf, Danny Seim, and Justin Harris don’t write music like other bands do. Read more...

All I remember before the crash is Scarlett Johansson’s face. As I wake up in the hospital bed, I struggle to connect the dots. There I was, driving to Hyde Lounge to do some celebrity sighting at 1 a.m. Read more...

While some artists use paintbrushes to make a masterpiece, Samta Benyahia uses the ambiguities between the seen and the unseen. On Sunday, the Fowler Museum at UCLA presented “Architecture of the Veil: An Installation by Samta Benyahia,” which serves as the artist’s U.S. Read more...

Translating a photograph into a film is tricky. But translating photographs of puppets, dolls and objects with legs (think walking guns, clocks and cakes) into a full-blown musical motion picture is downright challenging. Read more...

“Vija Celmins: A Drawings Retrospective” Hammer Museum Jan. 28-April 22 Nicholas Copernicus’ worst enemy might be Vija Celmins. If in trying to fathom the world, Copernicus revealed it was actually round, Celmins tells us the universe is flat. Read more...