September 6, 2012 – When it came time to conceptualize the video for "Splitter," first single from Algiers, the latest from Arizona indie-folk cross-pollinators Calexico, Spanish director Paloma Zapata looked toward the heavens. "The idea came after a conversation with [Calexico guitarist/vocalist] Joey [Burns]," says Zapata. "For him, the song was about the migration going through the border of any country. I thought that setting up a story within a particular border was very limiting. So I developed the idea of 'the escape' into a generic concept, adding a touch of fantasy to lighten the dramatic tone that those situations already have. To escape aboard a spaceship to an unknown reality as an idea of change, mystic encounter and rebirth." The resulting visual, premiering exclusively below, was so cinematic it's inspired Burns to take things further.

September 6, 2012 – This past weekend in Philadelphia, Pearl Jam and Jay-Z joined forces onstage at the latter's Made In America festival for a rousing rendition of 2004 Black Album single "99 Problems," a tight-fisted collaboration the Seattle alt-rock survivors' bassist, Jeff Ament, says took shape at the eleventh hour. "We had been talking about it loosely," Ament says of marrying a song of theirs (lyrically connected, long-forgotten protest cut, "W.M.A.," from 1993's Vs.) to one penned by their co-headliner that night. "Ed [Vedder] had a conversation with Jay-Z maybe a month ago, so we knew it was a possibility and started doing the work on our end, mashing up one of our songs with one with one of his because groove-wise, we thought it would work. But we didn't really know until a half hour before the show, when he came back and played it with us, that we were going to do it.

September 5, 2012 – When founding member Syd Barrett left Pink Floyd unceremoniously in 1968, many were convinced the legendary band wouldn't survive without him. Both parties would continue creating, though, Barrett's imprint on British psychedelia made deeper still by a pair of definitively schizophrenic, chaotic solo releases (recorded with his former bandmates as well as members of Canterbury psych-hounds Soft Machine, featuring Robert Wyatt on drums) in the early '70s that would preface both 30 years in self-imposed seclusion as well as a legacy of wild-eyed experimentation, fractured fable-spinning, hard-angled folk and gleefully derailed song structures. Geologist: He's probably the most important musical inspiration, at least for me. Everything from the playful songwriting to the fantasy side.

September 5, 2012 – May, a former NYU film student who made his way back to Mississippi to pursue music, debuted in 2007 alongside his Magnificent Ukulele, his onetime instrument of choice. Since then, the 27 year old has played an integral role in fostering the Cats Purring, a community of artists and musicians centered around the 5,000 square foot barn he now calls home. Signed to AnCo's Paw Tracks imprint, his winsome, Serge Gainsbourg-indebted songbook bears little resemblance to that of his label's founders, but his free-wheeling approach (he's swapped the uke for beatwork of late) is definitely at one with their worldview. Back to the Centipedia glossary NEXT: The NBA

September 5, 2012 – Oneohtrix Point Never is the nom de drone of Brooklyn experimentalist Daniel Lopatin, who, working largely with vintage synthesizers, has created some of the borough's most enlivening soundscapes of late, garnering enough attention locally and afield that Mexican Summer awarded him (and frequent collaborator Joel Ford) their own imprint and recording setup. His breakthrough LP, 2011's Replica was created by sifting through hours of vintage television audio, creating a dense, dystopian, sometimes disorienting fantasia that touches on AnCo's themes of indistinct memories and hazy dream states. Back to the Centipedia glossary NEXT: Onibaba

September 5, 2012 – From the moment they formed in Brixton in 1976, this English trio began experimenting beyond the guitar. In the process, they became instant, uncompromising heroes to generations of tape loop-torchers, soundscape-searing post-punkers, post-rock nerds, pre-industrial primitivists, noise-pop scamps and free-spirited rappers alike. Back to the Centipedia glossary NEXT: Traxman

September 5, 2012 – The first studio full-length from David Berman's Silver Jews' project, 1994's Starlite Walker found the Virginia native's poetry paired with languid, lived-in instrumentation provided largely by his friends in Pavement: Stephen Malkmus, Bob Nastanovich, and Steve West. The loose experimentalism that marked Berman's earlier recordings is still there in parts (a certain attraction to the budding minds in Animal Collective, teenagers at the time of its release) but the songwriting here is a genuine wonder, an early page in what has become one of indie-rock's most cherished songbooks. Avey Tare: Just coming from the time we made mixes for each other. There was times I'd make mixes for Brian of seven-inches I had, and I'd have the record on the wrong speed.

September 5, 2012 – Pavement's essential bootleg recording, 1994's Stray Slack, gathered audio from the vaunted indie rock fivesome's two night-stand at London's Brixton Academy two years earlier, months after the release of their much ballyhooed debut, Slanted and Enchanted. Live, they were all over the place: looser and tighter and noisier all at once. The recording also captured them at their shambolic best (their line-up still featured drummer, noted eccentric, and fan favorite Gary Young), just before they'd begin transitioning away from the experimental tunings and lo-fi tomfoolery of their psyched-out beginnings, toward the more polished "Cut Your Hair" fare that would land them on MTV and Lollapalooza the following year. Avey Tare: Pavement were definitely a unifying factor in Brian and I's friendship. "Cut Your Hair" came out in 9th grade and we got that.

September 5, 2012 – A longtime friend, fan, collaborator, and "honorary member" of Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti collective, the Minnesota-bred Maus is a student of music theory and philosophy currently juggling doctoral work in the latter with his own solo career. Those two purviews collide in his own work, though, Maus using a primitive keyboard palette to construct iridescent, experimental pop songs that — in addition to evoking classical music's titans — also function as treatises on a variety of existential quandaries. Also of note: his startling live presentation, a thoughtful combination between karaoke and performance art that's impossible to forget. Avey Tare: He's a really interesting dude. I met him on tour with Ariel when we toured with them in 2006, I think. It's hard to put a finger on it. I guess it's the dark…it has a fantasy quality to it. It's hard to put into words.

September 5, 2012 – The Beatles' seventh studio full-length was not only a rapid departure from its largely acoustic, folk-inflected predecessor, 1965's Rubber Soul, it was a kaleidoscopic break from anything pop music had proffered before. Though the Fab Four experimented in just about every way possible — phased vocals ("And Your Bird Can Sing"), dreamlike guitars running in reverse ("I'm Only Sleeping"), the wild abuse of tape loops ("Tomorrow Never Knows") — the songwriting was as strong as it had ever been. Its dissonance was modern, and the wake it's left is audible in everything Animal Collective has achieved. Geologist: I think the Beatles album I've always liked the most is Revolver. I think in the context of Centipede Hz, you'd kind of have to go with "Tomorrow Never Knows." We all grew up as huge Beatles fans. My parents were huge Beatles fans.