Last November, we announced that iconic genre filmmaker and composer John Carpenter had completed an album of new music entitled John Carpenter’s Lost Themes that would be released by indie label Sacred Bones Records. The album consists of nine instrumental tracks Carpenter recorded in collaboration with his son and Ludrium frontman Cody Carpenter and musician Daniel Davies.

With Lost Themes set to drop a week from Tuesday, National Public Radio (NPR) has made the full album available for free streaming on their website. Check out one of the songs, “Night,” embedded here below.

Stoner/doom metal monoliths Sleep have just premiered their first new track in 18 years. Titled “The Clarity”, the new track is to be released this coming Monday, July 21st as part of the Adult Swim Singles Series. You can hear it here, below.

The nearly 10-minute song finds Sleep pretty much where they left off in 1996 with their opus, the one hour and three-minute-long single song album Dopesmoker. The recording of that legendary piece left the band at war with their label London Records and only saw the light of day in unauthorized bootlegs until it was finally released via Tee Pee Records in 2003, 7 years after it was recorded. The turmoil lead the band to split, with guitarist Matt Pike forming and fronting the ultra heavy High On Fire, while vocalist/bassist Al Cisneros and drummer Chris Hakius became the experimental rock band Om.

I had no idea how out of the loop I was when it came to my favorite musicians until this morning when I saw that singer-songwriter Beck‘s latest studio album is just eight days away from its release. Thanks to NPR, you can now listen to Morning Phase, Beck’s first album in six years and his first for his new label Capitol Records, streaming in full for free.

Beck has reportedly been working on this album since 2005 but had to put it on hold until 2012. Morning Phase is considered to be a successor to his low-key, lyrical 2002 release Sea Change. Critics are hailing it as one of his finest in years and after listening to selected tracks I’m inclined to agree. This is coming from a guy who can often find no fault with Beck’s work; to me anyway he’s one of the most consistently enthralling and innovative musicians in the world.

NPR recently did a feature story classifying geeks by the way they read their comic books. And while the article was worth every penny donated by the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, there were some discrepancies with their logic demanding immediate attention.

For instance, all comics-purchasing geeks and geekettes can be divided and classified into two possible sub-species according to author Glen Weldon –  (1) Grazers – who simply work their way through their stack of weekly titles in whatever random order the shop rang them up, or (2) Stackers, who have a ritual of carefully sorting through their selections prior to reading.

After working at a comic book shop for four years, I can honestly say I’ve never once heard my fanboy brethren classified as either a grazer or a stacker. This leads me to believe he bullshitted the entire thing, which doesn’t really matter. The article isn’t inaccurate, but it’s also not necessarily reality. It was an entertaining read and usually that’s enough for me to close the browser tab and move on. Instead, I’m going to make an example of Weldon and the blatantly Detective Comics-biased organization known as National Public Radio.