Since 2003, Los Angeles based post-rockers El Ten Eleven have been creating some of the most unique music around. The duo, composed of bassist/guitarist Kristian Dunn and drummer Tim Fogarty, combines elements of pop, electronic, rock, and dance music into soundscapes that often defy description.

Every good student knows oil doesn’t mix with water, the greater density of the water pushing it to the bottom as the oils rises and floats to the top. Los Angeles band RACES displayed such a dynamic on stage at Boulder’s Fox Theatre, one half of the band rooting the music down with a heavy rhythm section, the other floating just above that with glossy harmonies and melodies.

Erika Wennerstrom, lead vocalist and guitarist for the smashing rock band Heartless Bastards, spoke to Billboard Magazine this past November to promote the February release of the group’s new album, Arrow. She said, “I feel like this is the strongest record I’ve ever done. I’m really, really happy with it.” She made a damn good point.

The biggest sham perpetuated by mainstream rock and pop music magazines is the narrow “greatest guitarists of all time” annual issue. In the editor’s defense, it’s probably a dreaded task. Most of these sorts of publications (none specific come to mind, of course) tend to focus their top picks on the straightforward rock guitar heroes. Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Duane Allman.

Lacking both the alluring eccentricity of Arm’s Way and synth drenched electro pop driving Vapors, Islands’ A Sleep & A Forgetting is unmistakably the least compelling album overextended singer/songwriter Nicholas Thorburn has ever hatched.

If you are a Deadhead living in SFO, PDX, PHL, BWI, or NYC, I need to talk to you about time and energy. But not in the “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” tradition of “Practice, Practice, Practice”. Instead, I need to talk to you about the temporal evolution and aggregate electrical output that are quickly molding The Motet’s funkified adaptations of the Grateful Dead songbook into an instant must-see classic.

Amy Ray’s newest solo release Lung of Love expresses the folk elements of Indigo Girls, while allowing Amy to stretch her rocker wings a bit more than she did on last year’s Beauty Queen Sister. She has been called the more edgy half of the duo, and her solo material has always displayed that. Ray is an adept songwriter, known to weave lyrics that stir heavy emotions about serious issues, both political and personal.

What happens when you take little pieces of bluegrass, surf rock, Afro-pop, Spanish flamenco, hip-hop, and blues, and then shake them up in the “Boggle cube” of these North Carolina based artists?  Well, you’ll get ONE of The Toubab Krewe’s songs.  Shake it again, and these same pieces of musical inspiration will form a totally different song, while retaining their distinctive sound.  This outside-the-box approach, combined with creative song writing and a slew of skillfully played instruments, has given them a rep