Iowa City’s kitchen sink indie-poppers The Western Front have themselves a new EP: The Balkanization of Epistemology.
The EP was recorded during their road waring summer in a sweaty, dingy trailer…and apparently fueled by Black Velvet. The four-song-EP breaks down into two sort of mini-suites. The two opening tracks (the title cut and “What Kind of [...]

It gets a little funny tonight in Iowa City. A handful of the finest and oddest pop craftsmen are on display this evening at the Mill. Headlining this motley crew: Dead Milkmen guitarist Joe Jack Talcum. Talcum’s still writing jangly pop gems with healthy dollops of irreverence and humor (check “U Turn Me On” and [...]

It’s upon us again. It’s Iowa Hawkeye football. And while that means that traffic and studying come to a grinding halt, but that doesn’t mean the arts don’t keep on truckin’. We already gave you a rundown the weekend, but it’s chock full ’round Iowa City for Labor Day, so strap yourself in for a [...]

Prolific much? Today marks the third release in 18 months from the Kentucky (formerly of Iowa City) collective These United States and they’ve dubbed it Everything Touches Everything. Dudes have been brewing batch after batch of Dylan-inspired freak-psych-folk, this latest brew is a bit more distilled. Everything is tighter on Everything.
TUS will be trekking through [...]

A dispatch from our record label: It’s been straight-up crazy time over here at Mission Freak Records. This past week has seen the release of several albums both physically and digitally. If you are interested in checking out the artists that we support there couldn’t be a better time than now to order a CD [...]

Iowa City’s favorite double bass-wielding loop mistress has a Daytrotter session. Over the 4th of July weekend while we were bathed in jazz and/or indie rock and fireworks, our good friends over at Daytrotter posted the hotly anticipated (in certain circles) session from Ms. Olivia Rose Muzzy. Olivia turned in four splendid performances of songs [...]

A little late on this post, but June has inexplicably been off the chain for music performances, with more coming up. It’s hard to top some of the reunion shows coming up, but we’re particularly excited for the return of Toronto’s Rock Plaza Central, who previously rocked a Mission Creek birthday bash in September and [...]

If we here at Mission Freak were going to have a “release of the week,” it would shamelessly have to be this, or less shamelessly and just plain admiringly this, but we don’t. And besides, you ought to already have your finger on the pulse of those two records. What you might have missed is [...]

‘Round here we can get a bit full of ourselves, but I don’t think it’s any stretch to say that the Porno Galactica stuff on KRUI last night was pretty freakin’ awesome. You heard tracks four and five—”Sea Beast Released” and “Spills and Thrills” respectively—off the duo’s debut full-length Romance in the Modern World out [...]