There's something about a two-person band that forces the members to play fiercer, louder and harder; each member has to work harder to throw in everything possible to fill up the sound. For Mou Ortiz and Anhelo Escalante of XYX, their drums and bass combo, piled on with reverb and delay, has a manic exhilaration that is downright intoxicating. The ...

Simon James is just your typical English-born, Los Angeles-bred son of a Scottish glam rocker- turned-manager-to-the-stars/pub owner, house DJ and musician. So, not really typical at all. Performing under the name Woolfy (which he gave himself because of his abundantly hairy legs) he has been making house beats and music since 1991. In 1999, a ...

Woodgrain might seem like a band name that means nothing, and that's exactly the way this Austin, Texas foursome want it. With no vocals or guitars, they opt for two synthesizer players with two keyboards apiece, backed by bass and drums to create frenetic, swirling, spaced-out heavy dance-rock. It's fitting that the cover of their debut release ...

Bruce Lamont isn't your average metalhead. As the frontman for Chicago-based quartet Yakuza, Lamont expresses an appreciation not only for other heavy metal bands but also for world music, experimental performance and Eastern religious and philosophical practices. That can go a long way in explaining the 10-year long career of Yakuza, in which they ...

Yacht is not a cult--they want you to know that. They are however, a multimedia operation encompassing everything from music to video to internet and performance, all backed up with a DIY ethos of hard work and saying yes to all opportunities. The project was founded by Jona Bechtolt in Portland, Oregon in 2002 and in 2008, his long time friend and ...

Yes Giantess began in late 2008 as a party band project of Jan Rosenfeld, and despite growing in numbers and size over the years, the purpose of Yes Giantess has remained the same: make it as big of a party as you can. With big, brash pop sounds coming out of the same Boston scene that gave birth to bands like Passion Pit (who helped them out along ...

Zlam Dunk! It's a name that demands attention, both with the force of the action implied and it's misspelled goofiness. It's what you get when you take a group of college kids from central Texas, mix with big guitars, electro-pop keys and screaming vocals, small-town kids looking to start a big-city fire. This ebullient band of young ...