Mould’s emotionally sprawling eleventh solo album finds the formidable singer-songwriter coming to terms with the passing of his father, with twelve tracks condensed into 36 minutes. The album, now available from Merge Records, is Mould’s follow-up to 2012’s Silver Age. Critical reception suggest that Beauty and Ruin could be Mould’s finest work since his 1989 solo debut, Workbook.

Mould’s earlier material as the singer, guitarist, and songwriter for legendary alternative rock band Hüsker Dü was a big influence on DIY culture within the alternative music scene, building a network with other alternative bands with things like fanzines and college radio.

Bob Mould’s fall tour makes a stop at The Fillmore on September 26. He recently appeared on Conan to perform the Beauty & Ruin song “I Don’t Know You Anymore” shortly after the album’s release. Also, Mould also recently sat down with The Fader to discus the inspiration for his new singe, “Hey Mr. Grey.”

Tim Draut

THANK YOU FOR A FANTASTIC YEAR!

We wanted to send out our love to the almost 200 people, artists, engineers, and projects who helped make 2013 such a fun year and our most successful year in a decade. Each and every one of you has contributed something special to us and we hope to do the same for you. We’re very excited for everything 2014 has in store!

Thank you to Franko Ali for the design.

What happens when musician Robert Pera and Different Fur engineer Patrick Brown team up to create underground hip hop? WOOF, with an eight-song debut album The Thrill of it All. At first glance the group’s name and album title might evoke a carefree, “fuck all y’all” essence – but one listen proves the album is no simple effort.

The Thrill of it All features some of the strongest voices from within and beyond the hip hop realm, including buzzy up-and-comers like Mykki Blanco, Tragik, and Deniro Farrar, plus veterans like G-Side and even non-rappers Doe Eye and Koley O’Brien. Brown and Pera pretty much gathered some of the industry’s most talented lyricists that they were already fans of, and proceeded to make some serious, sometimes sinister and often contently dark beats in collaboration. It’s no surprise that the album has already gained attention through an interview with music site The Bay Bridged.

The album was in fact done, as the title states, for the thrill and love of creating music. Produced after long work days, sewn together between Brown and Pera at Different Fur Studios (where else?). The Thrill of it All is a weird and ingenious pairing of two individuals with a finger on the pulse, an unbeatable knack for production, and some of the brightest musical minds in the business.

Commentary by Katie Kopacz.

Every high school has it’s cliques, and in GRMLN’s new video “Teenage Rhythm”, the coolest of the cool party kids are a wily pack of geezers. The video opens with the old folks busting out of detention hall like bats outta hell, proceeding to take the town by storm with their bong-hitting, house-partying ways. “Teenage Rhythm”, along with the rest of GRMLN’s Empire EP, was engineered by Patrick Brown and Sean Paulson at Different Fur Studios over the course of five days. The track’s upbeat drum tempo and pop-grunge guitar, spaced out with a slower finish, does give feel of the roller-coaster ride of teenage daze, even if the video’s main characters couldn’t pull off a kick-flip without some sore joints.

Commentary by Katie Kopacz.

San Francisco’s electro-pop group The Frail has debuted their new video for “You Just Wanna Leave” on MTV Buzzworthy.

The video captures the band, along with a bunch of their good-looking friends, running around the city and beyond, from flea markets to city streets. “You Just Wanna Leave”, which was produced in the studio by Patrick Brown, appropriately describes the rest of in house director Frank Door’s video, following the band on a perfect day trip out of the city. The whole thing is shot in black and white with little splashes of electro color, a pretty accurate image of what most people might imagine a sunny get-out-of-town Sunday to be.

Keep a look out for The Frail’s Patrick Brown-produced debut, LoveDeathLegend, release later this year.

Commentary by Katie Kopacz.

On July 23rd, MATRiXXMAN drops his solo EP, The XX Files, produced in-house at Different Fur. The first single “Credentials” gives us a taste of what MATRiXXMAN does on his own, some house beats that approach the boundaries of techno so real you get lost in it. It’s a step away from his electro-house work as one-half of duo 5kinAndBone5, and certainly from his hip-hop beats featured in rapper Le1f’s prolific “Wut”.

“Credentials” was featured in Pitchfork earlier this month. Have a listen here.

Commentary by Katie Kopacz.

The Music Video Race is an interesting event indeed – 20 bands are paired with 20 filmmaking teams to produce 20 music videos in only 48 hours. The concept combines independent filmmaking with local music to create a one of a kind 90-minute screening followed by an awards ceremony.

One of the 20 bands was Happy Fangs, who teamed up with the BLAKETS film crew to create a video for “Lion Inside You.” The gritty garage punk song was tracked and mixed at Different Fur Studios by engineers Patrick Brown and Sean Paulson. “Lion Inside You” was the first video from Happy Fangs, who started as a band just last year. The resulting product flashes from ironically cheerful to eerily dark, most notably capturing super close-ups of the band’s mouths drinking coffee, eating spaghetti, singing and oozing black goo, all in black and white. The video swept in three of the seven awards at the Music Video Race, “Best Cinematography”, “Best Art Direction”, and “Best On-Screen Performance” by front woman Rebecca Bortman.

Commentary by Katie Kopacz.