More than 250 bands will invade Williamsburg, Brooklyn, from June 16-19 for this year’s edition of Northside Festival, a four-day party featuring some of the best bands in indie-rock, hip-hop, and electronica. Since its start in 2009, the event has become one of the city’s cultural highlights, and this year is no different: Indie icons Guided By Voices will be headlining, while Deertick will be performing an entire set devoted to Nirvana covers.

Less than a week after Zach Condon’s Beirut project announced a new single, the new Beirut album has been announced. The Rip Tide is due out August 30 on Condon’s Pompeii Records (Revolver will handle distribution in the USA). Above, listen to recent single A-side and album track “East Harlem”, and listen to the B-side and other album track “Goshen” over at Listen Before You Buy. We have the tracklist for you below, as well as Beirut’s updated tour dates.

The Strokes’ new album Angles was made available a couple of days ago to be streamed from the band’s official website, one week before its official release date of March 22. It’s been five years since The Strokes last deigned to release new music, so Angles is bound to get lots of attention. Noises from The Strokes camp have revealed the making of the album to have been a difficult and fractured process. For a long time it was touch and go as to whether they’d get the thing finished.

The serene sound of The Album Leaf flows through its very veins song after song. The calming effect is empowering in every way. The music fuses classical, electronic and rock influences to create their own unique style. We had the opportunity to sit down with the bands founder Jimmy LaVelle to talk about imagination, songwriting, and their latest album, A Chorus of Storytellers.

After years of Jack White pursuing his own musical endeavors without Meg the band has finally broken up.

As their official press statement on their website says, “The reason is not due to artistic differences or lack of wanting to continue, nor any health issues as both Meg and Jack are feeling fine and in good health.”

So after thirteen years of making music together it seems the enigmatic duo that created such hits as “Fell in Love with a Girl” and “Seven Nation Army” are over.  But for fans who still wish to hear new music by the band Jack’s record label, Third Man Records, plans to release live and unreleased recordings.

The final statement by the band in their press release seemed to attempt give closure to their fans and  it stated, “The White Stripes do not belong to Meg and Jack anymore. The White Stripes belong to you now and you can do with it whatever you want. The beauty of art and music is that it can last forever if people want it to. Thank you for sharing this experience. Your involvement will never be lost on us and we are truly grateful.”