Iggy Pop's 2016 record, Post Pop Depression, might be the Ann Arbor native's swansong for albums. That's still holding true, but since then Pop's been popping up on other people's recordings. 

In 2017, former Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker teamed with Pop for a cover of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds' "Red Right Hand," which is the theme song for Netflix's British crime drama Peaky Blinders. Every season features a new version of the tune, and Cocker and Pop recorded their's for season four.

In 2018, Pop joined fellow Trainspotting soundtrack stars Underworld for the Teatime Dub Encounters EP, which was recorded in a London hotel room. Underworld's Rick Smith met up with pop at The Savoy Hotel to work on music for the T2: Trainspotting soundtrack, but the tracks weren't used. Pop's stream-of-consciousness lyrics are not his finest, but Underworld's thumping techno never disappoints.

Now in 2019, Pop is back with two more guest spots: Pan Amsterdam's new single, "Mobile" and Fémina's "Resist."

Kristianna didn't mean to write a concept record about relationships. The Ypsilanti native wrote the five songs on Too Late to Be Sorry over five years "and once I came up with the concept, I placed them carefully in order to tell the story," she said.

The slow-jam R&B tunes are bookended by two voicemails, which tie together the tale.

"The album concept is all about communication, or the lack of, using telecommunication, and is meant to be heard in the track order," said Kristianna. "So the intro is the girl calling this guy letting him know her feelings through these songs, then you hear voicemails throughout the project back and forth from the female and the male perspective. The outro is him calling back after he listened to the mixtape that was made for him, leaving the listener ready for part two."

It may sound like a movie title ripe for a Mystery Science Theater 3000 show, but Robots vs. Aliens is the name of a new multimedia art project by Joe Bauer, an Ann Arbor-based musician and co-founder of the North Coast Modular Collective. 

Produced under Bauer's stage name, Verzerren, Robots vs. Aliens is comprised of a concept album featuring modular synthesizers, illustrations, mailed letters and postcards, and performances at Riverside Arts Center in conjunction with the new exhibition Towards/Past the Future, which explores "technology, society, and identity through the lens of science fiction."

Set 100 years into the future, Robots vs. Aliens tells the story of humans and cyborgs living together, but their equilibrium is disrupted when peaceful dispatches from extraterrestrials are misinterpreted. The robots revolt, aliens invade, at the Earth is devastated. But the remaining humans have a chance at redemption when intercepted messages are sent back in time in hopes that people will read them and make different choices to induce an alternative future. This is where the postcards and letters by Bauer and artist Aaron Graff come into play: participants will receive these documents in the mail over a two-week period with the object of piecing together the story and solving the mystery of how humanity can save itself.

I asked Bauer some questions over email about the inspirations and ideas behind Robots vs. Aliens, which you can also listen to below.

Happy birthday, MF'ers: February 22, 2019, was the 50th anniversary of the MC5's Kick Out the Jams album.

To celebrate, guitarist Wayne Kramer posted a new video for the record's title track featuring Leni Sinclair's original promo footage and Cary Loren's edited footage, shot at three different performances in Michigan: Grande Ballroom in Detroit, The Village Pub in Birmingham, and at the Delta Pop Festival at Delta College in Bay City.

In fact, Kramer's been celebrating the 50th anniversary of the MC5 for the past year with a tour, an autobiography, and more videos featuring long-lost or remastered footage of the band, including:

The documentary Half Japanese: The Band That Would Be King begins with a title card that says, "Ann Arbor, Michigan - 1975" and then cuts to a blurry, grainy, backlit film of David and Jad Fair with their friend David Stansky jamming in the Fair family's living room.

[Edit, June 8, 2022: WCBN-FM DJ Frank Uhle recently talked with one of the Fair brothers and asked him if the family ever lived in Ann Arbor; the answer was "no." The Fairs did grow up about 90 miles away in Coldwater, Michigan—the same town where Uhle grew up and the families knew each other. The confusion may come from Half Japanese's 1980 song "Ann Arbor," which makes it sound like the Fair brothers lived here; apparently, it was more aspirational than actual:

Kiss me now
And if you want to later on
We'll open the window
And put the speakers by the window
And put on Springsteen
And wake up Ann Arbor
And we'll tell everyone on Hill Street
And we'll tell everyone on State Street
And we'll tell everyone on Shakin' Street
And we'll tell everyone on Love Street
We'll tell about a real love
In Ann Arbor, Michigan
I'm talking about
Real
Love

End of edit.]

The brothers' time living in Ann Arbor Coldwater was a warm-up run for the primitive rock 'n' roll band that they officially started in Uniontown, Maryland, in 1977 with the car-crash-erific Calling All Girls 7-inch EP. The Fairs couldn't play their instruments whatsoever, but their unholy sound became an inspiration to Yo La Tengo, The Pastels, Beat Happening, Nirvana, and countless other punk-adjacent bands.

Forty-two years later, Jad is still bashing his untuned guitar and singing about love and monsters in Half Japanese, which just released the Invincible album. Meanwhile, David is a retired librarian and, like Jad, a prolific artist.

Jad's wondrous paper cuttings are featured in the 15 videos he made for every song on Invincible, which is far more musical than some Half Japanese offerings but no less sui generis. Check out the video playlist below. 

The last time British pianist Gwilym Simcock was in Ann Arbor, it was as a sideman with Pat Metheny's quartet when the guitarist played Hill Auditorium in October 2018.

But in June 2017, Simcock played Kerrytown Concert House solo, which he'll do again on March 3.

I interviewed the pianist then and asked him how his playing changes when performing solo versus with a band:

John Coltrane on the saxophone.

Eddie Van Halen on the guitar.

Link on the ocarina.

These are giants of their instruments.

But only one of these masters will be feted by The Seven Sages, a new quintet dedicated to playing music from The Legend of Zelda video game series.

Comprised of accomplished jazz and experimental artists Kirsten Carey (guitar), Andrew Hintzen (keyboard), Neal Anderson (EWI / trumpet), Jon Hammonds (bass), and Jonathan Taylor (drums), The Seven Sages make their debut at Ziggy's in Ypsilanti on February 21 -- the 33rd anniversary of the first Legend of Zelda game being released.

Carey and Hammonds answered some questions in an email interview about how The Seven Sages materialized, which Zelda songs the band will play, and their favorite tunes from the games. The queries were posed by myself and Eli Neiburger, who is deputy director of the Ann Arbor District Library and a member of the Nintendoland Family Band.

In "The Heart Sutra," one of Buddhism's most famous texts, there's a line that's often translated as "form is emptiness and the very emptiness is form."

I don't know if this particular sutra informed Robert Spalding Newcomb's structured improvisation "Dance of the Heart," but this long-form piece revels in the sort of free-flowing ambiance that feels simultaneously disembodied and corporeal. The music is an ode to freedom and that freedom helps shape the music's form.

Newcomb is a polymath -- computer expert, software developer, yoga teacher, stringed-instrument virtuoso (guitar, sitar) -- who combines all his talents to create modern music that's rooted in ancient traditions. "Dance of the Heart" is a reflection of that unique skillset, combining electronic percussion, synths, and effects-laden guitar.

"Dance of the Heart" premiered March 13, 2018, at the Riverside Arts Center in Ypsilanti -- you can watch the high-quality video here -- with Newcomb (guitar, sitar, laptop), Ken Kozora (electronic and acoustic percussion, iPad, trumpet), and Erik Gottesman (analog synthesizers, bio-sensors with EEG/shortwave/Theremin-style gesture proximity and ribbon controllers). The trio is reuniting at Riverside Arts for another performance of "Dance of the Heart" on Sunday, February 17, at 8 pm.

Newcomb explained the concept behind "Dance of the Heart" in an email interview:

A regularly updated collection of music released in 2018 by Washtenaw County-associated acts and labels. Submit music to pulp@aadl.org.

A regularly updated collection of music released in 2018 by Washtenaw County-associated acts and labels. Submit music to pulp@aadl.org.