Michaelangelo Matos talks about the 45-minute album:

Much has been said about the death of the album at the hands of the MP3. Certainly, pop music's center is no longer the album but the freestanding song, however many good or great albums may be released now or in the future. And there's been a seeming knock-on effect with albums themselves: They've been getting noticeably shorter for the last 10 years or so. That makes sense: The '00s have been the Incredible Shrinking Decade, from the reduction of newspaper and magazine word counts to digital media becoming more hand-holdable to the internet's reduction of any number of boundaries. Albums are now seemingly just as long as artists care to make them—a noticeable difference from the CD era, during which albums seemed to be as long as artists could make them.

Dave Segal talks to Night Beats:

The duo share one of those telepathic/ soul-mate bonds that rarely materializes in groups. Both are in their early 20s, but their influences reflect a preference for artists of their parents' era: Otis Redding, the Velvet Underground, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, Magic Sam, the Doors, and 13th Floor Elevators. That being said, Rajan and Traeger do admit to being fans of contemporary revivalists such as the White Stripes, the Black Angels, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, and the Black Keys (sadly, White Rainbow and Black Dice didn't make the cut).

Rajan left Dallas because, he says, the city "was a wasteland of music." He chose Seattle because "I wanted to find a city where there's a music scene that I knew about. It seems like everybody goes to Austin, but I wanted to go to Seattle. In Austin, there are a lot of people riding the coattails of things going on there. Up here, you can make something new. It's ripe to be taken over."

Up & Coming has your nightlift covered with shows and parties to attend, like the KEXP BBQ with Dinosaur Jr:

(Mural Amphitheatre, Seattle Center) Man, I can't recall there being this many good summer shows at the Mural Amphitheatre since the old days of Pain in the Grass. Good times. And today's KEXP BBQ is another great lineup. Dinosaur Jr.'s latest, Farm (amazing bad/good cover art, btw), doesn't rival the band's noisy best, but it's a fine album, the sound of three veteran musicians well over their past feuds and settling into some comfortable and still occasionally combustive jams out in the garage. Down the bill are Vancouver, BC, duo Japandroids, whose swelling, anthemic guitar and drum blasts sound sort of like a kinder, gentler Death from Above 1979 and whose songs ably balance shooting-for-the-hips rock grooves and reaching-for-the-sky sing-alongs. ERIC GRANDY

Fucking in the Streets on Peter Bjorn and John:

But even more likely is that openers Peter Bjorn and John will go down in the mass consciousness as only a one-off, on account of their eternally, infernally whistling slice of pop bliss from 2006, "Young Folks" (#110 U.S., #13 UK), which featured the Concretes' Victoria Bergsman singing in sweet duet with PB&J's namesake Peter Moren on the rapture of falling in love and feeling oblivious to the eyes of others, young and old. Nothing the band has done since has achieved the ubiquitous status of that single (though the band is fairly young yet), but if they are only remembered for "Young Folks," it'll be history's loss. Writer's Block, the album that spawned "Young Folks," is pretty much wall-to-wall pop hooks. Even this year's lesser follow-up, Living Thing (which underwhelmed upon first listen), turns out to be full of unlikely yet effectively catchy tunes—the delightfully foul-mouthed kiss-off "Lay It Down," the Graceland-aping title track—as well as a number of songs that just add a little more space to the band's slightly groovy sound ("It Don't Move Me," "Just the Past," "I Want You!").

Catch up on the new releases from Ben Kweller, Muse, and others in It's a Hit:

"Fight"
by Ben Kweller
(ATO)

A pseudo country song that expresses its bland sentiment ("You've got to set your sight on the Lord in your life/You've got to fight till your dying day") with some genuine enthusiasm; it even devotes its first verse to a trucker, just to be completely shameless about it. Makes me wonder what some actual Nashville dude (or nondude) might do with it—probably a lot more.

Data Breaker previews Amon Tobin:

Brazilian-Anglo Amon Tobin has built a stellar rep over seven albums (including the triphop classic Adventures in Foam as Cujo) for darkly surreal electronic music that threads drum 'n' bass, samba, hiphop, exotica, and ambient into distinctive, disorienting fusions. His tracks can shift from friskily festive to damned disturbing in the tap of an MPC pad. He later, inevitably, delved into video-game-, soundtrack-, and field-recording-oriented works with Chaos Theory - Splinter Cell 3 Soundtrack and Foley Room. Tobin's most recent project, Two Fingers, finds him working with Joe "Doubleclick" Chapman and rapid-cadenced MC Sway to forge a ruggedly skewed take on grime and dubstep.

Larry Mizell Jr on Blue Scholars:

OOF! That could damn well have been your reaction to walking outside into the record-breaking heat or to the screaming blue bastards flying over your crib here last week in Seatown—but it's also the name of the upcoming EP from local heroes Blue Scholars. Having parted ways with Rawkus, Geo and Sabzi are releasing OOF! (due August 25) and a yet-to-be-named full-length (due next year), and rereleasing Bayani through an ingenious partnership with local coffee-roaster Caffe Vita and iconic New York hiphop label Duck Down Records. "With the record industry in flux, conditions are ripe for an alternative," Geologic writes in their sharply penned press release. "One where the artist, rather than becoming an employee of a label or sponsor, contracts the label and sponsors to do work for them. Everybody still gets a check. But it's a relationship where the artists (and their handpicked 'team') not only have creative freedom but economic power."

Christopher DeLaurenti on The Ring:

Key players in Seattle Opera's 2005 Ring cast return this summer: The stunning Stephanie Blythe and Margaret Jane Wray reprise their respective roles as Fricka and Sieglinde. Let's hope Greer Grimsley, who occasionally sounded underpowered in the 2005 Ring, has aged well and acquired more bottom end to sing Wotan, ruler of the gods. In lieu of Jane Eaglen, I'm betting that Janice Baird, who raged and fulminated as Seattle Opera's Elektra last fall, will be a riveting Brünnhilde. Blessed with a strong, pining heldentenor, Stig Fogh Andersen debuts here as the irrepressible man-child Siegfried.

Megan Seling on upstarts Koalacaust:

And the award for Best Band Name Ever (or at least of the week) goes to... Koalacaust! I know, making light of the Holocaust is generally frowned upon, but Koalacaust is just cute. And the band ain't bad, either. They come from California, they play delightfully sloppy basement pop songs, and they often use an accordion.

If that sounds like a fine time to you, the cuddly/crass quintet are playing a show at Squid & Ink in Georgetown this Saturday, August 8. Opening is local beardo Jason Clackley, a former Bremerton resident who's done time in bands like the Flex and Valley of the Dinosaurs.

Party Crasher goes to the South Beach! Check out Poster of the Week! For more music happenings, live concerts and DJs, take a look at our searchable music calendar.