MGMT capped off their Canada/West Coast tour on Saturday at Stanford University’s Frost Amphitheater. Kicking the set off with Record Store Day single “Alien Days” (frontman Andrew VanWyngarden had a martian head-shaped guitar and sunglasses to match), the New York psych-rock outfit showed themselves to be a perfect fit for the California sunshine. Yes, Oracular [...]

Randall Poster, the producer behind last year’s Buddy Holly tribute album Rave On, is back with another impressive cast of artists ranging from MGMT, Best Coast, The New Pornographers, Entrance Band, The Kills and Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top. His next target: Fleetwood Mac. The untitled album is set to be released on August 14 [...]

Cults came quickly, but they seem to be sticking around. Just another mysterious, ’60s girl-group channeling Brooklyn band? They surprised a lot of people when they signed to the venerable Columbia Records label after having been on the scene for barely a minute. But, Madeline Follin and Brian Oblivion have a lot of musical mojo [...]

The word Psychopompos is from ancient Greece and means “soul guide” – the leader of souls into the afterlife. Hank Sullivant says his new album, Psychopomp, is a combination of his band Kuroma’s two previous projects. After the ’60s psych-inspired Paris and a pop-exploiting singles project, “Get The Gunz” and “In New York, Everything Is [...]

MGMT on the phases of recording.

It’s been a great year for music. Here are 50 staff favorites from 2010. Let us know your picks for the best albums of the year in the comments. 1.Black Keys – Brothers 2.Mumford and Sons- Sigh No More 3.Dylan LeBlanc – Pauper’s Field 4.Jamey Johnson – The Guitar Song 5.Yeasayer – Odd Blood 6.Robert [...]

“Yeah, this is a big deal. ‘Cause we’re not joking,” says Andrew VanWyngarden, sipping yerba maté in a tiny teacup in one of the dressing rooms backstage at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium. “Yeah, we’re not joking,” adds Ben Goldwasser, the other principal of MGMT, sitting next to VanWyngarden on the couch. Last week, MGMT played their [...]

American Songwriter spent an afternoon with MGMT backstage at The Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, prepping for the evening’s sold-out show.

Asheville in the fall, nestled into the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, is an alluring place. But approaching the Asheville Civic Center from the hillside below on the first night of MoogFest, which took place over this past Halloween weekend, concertgoers must have felt oddly out of place. Once inside the empty shell arena, [...]

Whether your thing is knob-twiddling IDMers, dance, funk bands or psych-rock, MoogFest has you covered. And, wisely, they’ve programmed it so that fans will have to make some hard decisions. Girl Talk or Panda Bear? Thievery Corporation or Jonsi? Here are 10 artists we don’t want to miss. MGMT and Kuroma Okay, technically two bands. [...]

Buy current issue. Subscribe. Jennifer Nettles, one half of Grammy-winning country group Sugarland, spoke with American Songwriter about the group’s new album, The Incredible Machine, the influence of gospel on her writing, and her recent plunge into ‘80s music. What did you do differently on this album compared to Love on the Inside? We wanted [...]

MGMT is playing MoogFest on Friday night. Over Halloween weekend, ghosts, ghouls, goblins, partiers, ravers and electronic music freaks will all descend on the mountain hamlet town of Asheville, North Carolina, for the first-ever MoogFest, celebrating the art and innovation of Robert Moog, who made Asheville his home in 1978. The festival promoter, AC Entertainment, [...]