[Photo by Alexander Wagner]
He’s baaaaaack. And by he, we mean J. Bennett–the rather wild and crazy guy who earned a spot in last year’s Best Music Writing book for his extensive self-titled profile on Jay Reatard. We pay our respects to Reatard in the final pages of our new issue, which debuts today along with Bennett’s cover story on Liars and the following features:
- We talk to Owen Pallett about the around-the-world recording of Heartland and posing for Butt magazine half-nude.
- Hot Chip fills out one of our ridiculous Mad Libs sheets.
- The guy who designed logos for Nachtmystium, Emperor and Wolves in the Throne Room gives us a black-metal makeover.
- Toro Y Moi sends us a photo inspired by Pantha Du Prince‘s new album.
- Phantogram tell us how dead rats and dreams informed their debut record.
- Yeasayer give us a track-by-track breakdown of Odd Blood–kinda like a DVD commentary, only interesting.
- And, well, these photos of Cold Cave, Sonic Youth, Frankie Rose, Total Slacker, Converge and Electric Tickle Machine sure are rad, aren’t they?
To celebrate our seventh slice of digital magazine goodness, Liars gave us an exclusive Fol Chen remix from the deluxe edition of Sisterworld. We’d tell you how amazing the album is, but Pitchfork already did that earlier today. You can stream it below, along with a playlist we built specifically for the issue. As always, we encourage you to flip through our issue in Safari at full screen for the best viewing experience. And in case you were wondering, we’re gonna be tablet ready when the iPad drops in April. Take that, Conde Nast.
