Even from the video at the bottom of this post you can tell that Doomtree isn’t your average hip-hop collective. They are co-ed and multiracial, and they eschew BMX bikes for what looks like something I bought off Craigslist to pick up my farm share. Founded in Minneapolis in 2010 by members POS and Cecil Otter, the group is currently on a string of tour dates that takes them through DC today.

Standout writer/MC Dessa Darling was nice enough to answer our questions about being straight, and in doing so has made me love her. Because who wouldn’t love a 29 year-old rapping college professor with awareness of straight privilege? Check ‘em out.

Glasser, nee Cameron Mesirow, is the newest addition to my favorite musical microgenre, which I’m coining as we speak: “Ethereal Women.” As far ranging as Kate Bush, Liz Frasier, Bat for Lashes and godmother Stevie Nicks, the EW is usually categorized by hazy, swirling, gorgeous music that makes you want to wrap yourself in white muslin and twirl slowly around the halls of an abondoned gothic mansion while making out with a guy in eyeliner. I’m a sucker for all new entries into this too-slim canon and Glasser is definitely hitting the spot. You can check out her video for “Apply” at the bottom of this page, and her tour starts today if you really dig her.

If anyone has seen The Go! Team live, then they know just how unstoppable their MC/frontwoman, Ninja, can be. I embedded a couple videos below the interview just so you can see it for yourself, but in the meantime I’d definitely check out her thoughts on being straight.

Do you ever get the impression that the English encourage our stereotyping of them as sweater-clad tea-sippers because it provides a scrim for them to sit behind and just have fun? Neon Hitch (her real name) is a UK artist who has written songs for artists like Ke$ha and 3OH3 who I don’t like all that much, but I’m enjoying her own talents way more. The video for her track “Piece of Shit” is embedded at the bottom of this page, and it sounds like VV Brown’s voice over one of Pink’s sentiment. It’s a rare and enjoyable combo, that’s for sure.

I saw Corinna Repp open for Colin Meloy in 2005. She slowed my sense of time in a fast way. I have not, and will not, forget anything about this show- about the fried tofu-in-peanut-sauce appetizer I shared with my friend Liz for her birthday, about how it seemed like Corinna Repp should be a household name, about how I am now so glad that she, Joe Haege, Toussaint Perrault and Liza Rietz have formed a band: Tu Fawning. When I lived in Portland, I stayed away from this band- finding out anything about it- but I am glad I did because World, We are READY. This band. Fast and slow and full of more influences than I will fucking bother to list. Listen to them. Corrina Repp answered the following questions. You can also check her out on 12/11/10 Seattle at Sunset Tavern w/ Black Prairie

Right now, Iceland is primarily known for two things: Bjork and a volcano. And until each and every one of us can visit the reportedly amazing city of Reykjavik, it will be fairly impossible to write about that country without mentioning Bjork and a volcano. Though Olof Arnalds is an Icelandic musician whose newest album One Little Indian is really gorgeous, it’s still very hard for me not to mention Bjork and a volcano.

As much as no one likes the term blog rock, some bands do it nonetheless and do it well. For me, the term usually just refers to people who play tight, catchy music and don’t appear to be taking themselves too seriously. And that’s why its no shame to call Missouri outfit Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin blogrock. At this point, I’d rather ten more bands like this then one more Spicoli-haired beach rocker. But that’s just me.

Regardless, SSLBY were nice enough to band together and answer some of our questions about being straight. Check out the interview, tour schedule and video below.

One of the great unheralded tragedies of the year 2009 was that enigmatic LA party band Fol Chen did not take over the world. Anyone who heard their breakout single/ best song ever, “Cable TV,” has probably not forgotten it. (and if they did it’s embedded below the interview.) They strike some similar chords to other indie bands – electronic tinges, amazingly sticky choruses – but the sense that they are having fun will have you listening to their discs again and again when the luster of the others has faded. This years Part II: The New December (sequel to last year’s John Shade, Your Fortune’s Made) just continues the streak.

Fol Chen is currently on the road with !!! and Apples in Stereo. Dates are below. Singer, and sole female member, Sinosa Loa, was nice enough to answer some of our questions. Check ‘em out, and then get your ass to the show.

hoegaze forever! Brookyn hypno-rock outfit Asobi Seksu made a splash a couple years ago with their breakthrough single “Thursday”, and last year’s release Hush continued the trend of music that makes you want to lie in a field on your back and daydream clouds into the shape of your crushes. And then make out with the clouds. And then lie in a field some more, and maybe look wistful. It’s good stuff.

The band launches a small tour tomorrow in Cleveland (dates below), and I thought that’s as good a time as any to get their gorgeous frontwoman, Yuki Chikudate’s, thoughts on being straight. Check ‘em out!

Call them post-Peaches? NYC electro-raunch duo Hank & Cupcakes call to mind any number of cheeky new-new wave bands like New Young Pony Club, all which trace their ancestry from the Filthy—mouthed Corset Queen. A band like this screams “bi vibe” but are actually a married couple from Israel who were at least straight enough to answe