The Elliot Potter Show

Kimya Dawson is a quirky lo-fi folk singer and Aesop Rock is a dexterous and dense rapper. The two have collaborated before, but Hokey Fright is their first full length album together.

This pairing makes sense because these two artists each have a conversational wisdom in their work. There’s a positivity to what they do: despite the heaviness of topics such as death, and not just the concept of death, but specific and personal examples involving someone one’s own age.

The early songs of Young Galaxy are slow-burners, lots of feedback and echo and space. But even then, they’ve always sounded like they secretly wanted to accompany the end credits of a John Hughes teen drama. To be the poignant punctuation to some grand statement about something that a lot of adults go on to realize wasn’t so grand after all. The great achievement of a good pop song is that it can say in three and a half minutes what might take 90 minutes in a film.

Dave Grohl has become the unofficial Mayor of Rock 'n' Roll: a gregarious ambassador who wins armloads of Grammys and even directed a music documentary. Live on March 14, NPR Music will stream and broadcast Grohl's keynote address at the SXSW Music Festival in Austin, Texas, starting at 11:00 local time, here.

In what's become one of the most anticipated showcases at the South by Southwest Music and Media Conference, NPR Music and partner public radio stations present a can't-miss night of performances, March 13 at Stubb's. The official showcase will be available on air, online and on mobile to audiences worldwide, and on a live video stream here at krcu.org. The lineup features Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Cafe Tacvba, Alt-J, Youth Lagoon, Waxahatchee and Le1f.