The Believer 2008 music issue comes with a CD of songs by Animal Collective, Dirty Projectors, Madlib, et al, along with music that inspires them from Africa, Iran, Jamaica, and everywhere else; Haruki Murakami on Thelonius Monk; Rick Moody on Gentle Giant; the definitive essay on U.S. black metal; Interviews with Ian MacKaye, Alan Bishop, and Irma Thomas, the Soul Queen of New Orleans. PLUS: Singing babies; the history of dentistry in music; dog-pound field-recordings; dematerialized honky tonks; Davy Rothbart’s reviews of CDs rappers sold to him on the subway; failed ethnomusicology in Laos, lots and lots more.
