With the geographic world continuing to shrink in the 21st century and the increased ease of travel and communication opening new doors every day, today’s musical landscape is constantly evolving. Instruments from other cultures have always been utilized in western music, but of late, world styles are making major dents in the indie scene. Be it Vampire Weekend’s African accentuation, M.I.A.’s Bollywood beats, or Beirut evoking adventures in far off lands, we have been privy to some choice innovations in this decade. New York based Gogol Bordello’s brand of “Gypsy Punk” (falling in the geographic vicinity of Beirut’s concoctions) has been garnering momentum with the release of 2005’s Gypsy Punks: Underdog World Strike and last year’s Super Taranta!...

Waller Creek Design Workshop. Image from City of Austin News Austin Music Commission's Town Hall Meeting Notes AMD Sued Over Birth Defects Plant a Tree for Freedom Waller Creek Design and Vision Workshop At This Rate, We're Having Our Next Happy Hour in Cancun Pangaea: It's For Real, Y'all UT Biologists Propose Biodiversity Institute Save BookWoman! Austin Music Commission Considering Plan to Stop the Rock They've Got the Lasers... Now All You Need is......

Photos of MIA and Cool Kids from Saturday night's perfomance at Hogg Auditorium. Photos courtesy of Briana Purser. If you can't view the Flash slideshow above, an alternate version appears after the jump.......

When Animal Collective played in Austin last, it was at the start of our sticky, wet summer, and the band mesmerized their crowd at Antone’s with a remarkable set featuring quite a few tracks from the then-unreleased Strawberry Jam and even some post-Strawberry Jam jams as well. Now, at the advent of fall (or what we Texans call fall), the Collective returned to Emo’s, and fans of the New York-based group were more than ready......

M.I.A.'s Friday ACL performance felt so seductive because it was both spicy and sweet; but what else can you expect from a girl who salts and peppers her mango? She burst onto stage wearing pink pedal-pushers, white trainers, wrap-around glasses and war paint, all the while shimmying her heart out to Kala's "Bamboo Banga." Her dancing seemed confounded by tentative limb placement, and it marked her as one extremely sexy dork. (Hawt!) It's this......

Dandi Wind - Concrete Igloo (Summer Lovers Unlimited Music) Ok, we are fond of electronic duos. Even more so when they hail from Canada. Dandi Wind (comprised of Dandelion Wind Opaine and Szam Findlay) tests our undying affection with their hit or miss debut, Concrete Igloo. The duo combines a variety of genres to conjure up an adrenaline fueled, almost destructive sound that clicks wonderfully on songs like “Slumlord” and “Apotemnophilia.” The insistent “Hitch-Hiker” could......

This morning marks the release of the ACL 2007 schedule grid. This is probably the most stressful day of the year for the avid ACL festivalgoer, as hopes of seeing every act one likes are dashed when seeing how many of your favorite bands are playing at the exact same time. It's impossible to program such a big festival without a couple of conflicts, but three stand out to us this year as particularly......

After a month of guesswork, the ACL Fest lineup is here. And it's quite a good one. While the wild speculation of headliners like Neil Young and Stevie Wonder once again proved false, the key items one sees this year are depth and balance. Having spent yesterday looking over the roster, we have the following observations on the 2007 edition of ACL. The Good: A Great Top 10. Had you told us that we'd......

KUT's Laurie Gallardo dishes about Texas bands...

The Austin Center for FEMA Disaster Relief closed yesterday The New Pantheon shortlist nominees have been announced, and they are: Animal Collective, Antony and the Johnsons, Fiona Apple, Arcade Fire, Bloc Party, Death Cab for Cutie, The Decemberists, Kings of Leon, M.I.A., and Sufjan Stevens So there's evidently a species of rare African clawed frogs that, when injected with urine from a pregnant woman, will ovulate. There's also a story about how they're dying......

Last week we finally acquiesced to peer pressure and signed up for one of them MySpace accounts, something which our friends had long promised would bring us untold fortune, prestige, and - on a not infrequent occasion - direct access to a cornucopian bounty of slutty hipsters. The redundancy of that last term aside, we did find ourselves, nary an hour into our grand new social experiment, face to cathode-ray-tube with a bevy of:Internet......

: : FRIDAY : : [music] The Zippo Hot Tour Semi-Finals featuring Fractious, 9pm @ The Backroom - FREE! [film] A Bunch of New Movies Open! @ your local theater [film] QT6, 7pm & 9:30pm @ Drafthouse Downtown: Grindhouse Triple Feature also Saturday [music] Mike Graff, 8pm @ End of an Ear [dance] Refraction Arts presents "Shish-ka-bob! An Inventory of Works by Amy Cone," 8pm @ The Blue Theatre [music] Palaxy Tracks, The Glass......

That’s right bitches, Dave "I’m Not Crazy and I Don’t Have a Drug Problem" Chappelle is coming to the Frank Erwin Center on Sunday, November 13th. Chappelle has only a handful of dates scheduled for his comedy tour, including only one other stop in Texas. Tickets for the show are priced at $40-$50 and they will quickly sell out when they go on sale this Saturday at 10 a.m. Chappelle made news earlier this......

Yesterday the 2005 Nationwide Mercury Prize nominees were announced in London. The award - voted on by industry experts, writers, and artists - recognizes the best in British and Irish music. Why is this relevant halfway around the globe? Of the twelve bands in the running, over half of them appeared at this year's SXSW festival: Bloc Party, The Go! Team, Hard-Fi, Kaiser Chiefs, The Magic Numbers, M.I.A., and Maxïmo Park are among the......