The Shins are an American indie rock band founded and fronted by vocalist and multi-instrumentalist, James Mercer. The Shins were formed in Albuquerque, New Mexico, but are now based in Portland, Oregon. Their 2001 debut on Sub Pop, Oh, Inverted World, was a breath of fresh air for the indie rock community and critics alike. The release of singles such as "Know Your Onion!" and "The Past and Pending" kept The Shins' success going into 2002, cementing "Oh, Inverted World" as one of the definitive indie-rock albums of the early '00s and The Shins as one of the genre's leading younger bands. It received critical acclaim for its lyrically deft and jangly pop sound. The song "One By One All Day" was featured in the 2003 film A Guy Thing, starring Jason Lee. Two other songs from this album, ("Caring Is Creepy" and "New Slang") were featured prominently on the soundtrack for the 2004 film Garden State, starring and directed by Zach Braff, exposing the music of The Shins to a much wider audience. Their music was also featured in the television series The OC, the film The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie and they performed on an episode of Gilmore Girls. Oh, Inverted World appeared at #71 on Pitchfork Media's Top 100 Albums of 2000–2004. Chutes Too Narrow, their sophmore album, was released by Sub Pop in the fall of 2003 to much fanfare in indie music circles, featuring even more multi-layered lyrics, as well as a musical approach that explored new genres, song structures, and levels of production fidelity. The band's third album, Wincing the Night Away, was recorded in Portland during 2006 by a largely solo Mercer, but with the production assistance of Joe Chiccarelli. It was released on January 23, 2007 and debuted at number 2 on the Billboard 200 album chart with 118,000 copies sold in its first week, the highest sales week and chart position an album released solely on Sub Pop has ever achieved. Their latest Release, 2012's Port Of Morrow, is in stores now.

For the uninitiated, Balkan Beat Box first burst out of New York City's underground music scene in 2005, with a self-titled debut that introduced the world to their Mediterranean-inflected, globalized electronica sound.

Founded by Israeli-born ex-pats Ori Kaplan (ex-Gogol Bordello), Tamir Muskat (ex-Firewater), the band built their reputation on explosive live shows. BBB soon added frequent collaborator Tomer Yosef as frontman – his wild onstage energy galvanizing live audiences ever since.

The three emerged as a cohesive songwriting trio on 2007's Nu Med – Tamir crafting hard-edged beats, Ori orchestrating melodies and Tomer writing the hard-hitting lyrics – and took their sound to Belgrade and other points East on 2010's Blue Eyed Black Boy.

Inspired by last year's people's protest movements across the globe – from the Arab Spring, to Occupy Wall St., to Israel's own massive social protests Balkan Beat Box's new album Give captures the cautious hope and re-energized spirit of our time.

Brimming over with handcrafted beats and samples, and recorded primarily at Tel Aviv's Vibromonk East studio, Give was conceived of as "a smaller, more introverted album," according to Ori Kaplan. "It was fun for us to see what just came out of the three of us while we played with old analog synths and children's toys".

"This is our most hardcore album so far," says Tamir Muskat. "Definitely musically – there's more of a harder-edged, electronic sound. The songs and their subjects are also kind of darker and more political."


One of the other animating forces on Give is fatherhood – all three members have become fathers since the recording of their last album, and Tomer explains how that influenced the band's outlook: "When you have kids, you become a little more aware of what's happening in the world and what kind of world that we're leaving your kids. "

"It was kind of a crazy vibe in the studio sometimes," Tamir laughs. "We were recording some of our most hardcore songs ever, but our kids would be there, too, running around and playing in the middle of everything. I think it gave things a hopeful vibe, too… it reminds us that we're fighting for something, not just against everything."