The releases just keep coming -- I seriously can barely keep up! One of my favorites is finally back with a new album: Explosions In the Sky! They have been around for over ten years now, which is hard to believe. They put out their first album, How Strange, Innocence, in 2000, and it has been 4 years since their last brilliant album, All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone. It would be very easy for you to have never heard of Explosions in the Sky because they are one of those quiet little bands that have managed to become very popular without anyone really noticing. Their fans are fanatical and devoted and they wait in the sidelines patiently for each new album to come out. I don't want to bore you too much with my love for this band, so if you want to read more about them and my love for them...check out my blog about their last album, All of A Sudden I Miss Everyone, from 2007. The new album is called Take Care Take Care Take Care. Explosions In The Sky is an all instrumental group. You can call it post rock if you want, or post instrumental rock. They are one of the bands that I listen to alone, one of those bands I listen to when I need to think or process my life. Their music is my therapist, I guess, although sometimes all I can think about when I listen to them is how good they are! Check them out for yourself.

              

Even five short years ago, many clubbers, ravers and dance music fans would be hard pressed to recognize the names Ron Hardy or Larry Levan (above, R-L), let alone acknowledge African American influence on the music they get freaky to on the weekends. Even in the black community, whole generations seem completely oblivious to this part of their musical heritage. Thankfully, that's changing. With a renewed interest in disco, 80's uptempo R&B aka boogie, techno and early house music over the past few years, knowledge of dance music's history and the role blacks (and gays and latinos) played in its inception is growing. Nightclubs where the music was allowed to evolve, like Levan's Paradise Garage (right) in New York, Hardy's Music Box and Frankie Knuckles' Warehouse in Chicago (the latter being where the name House Music was coined) and Detroit's Music Institute remain legendary not because of the venues themselves or the people who owned them, but due to the DJ's who made those places immortal by performing an aural alchemy that transformed the American soundscape.