JULIA-SOPHIE FORGIVE TOO SLOW BA DA BING! RECORDS With any form of electro music, pop, or ambient (take your pick) the key question these days is “what is that new element an artist can bring to the genre?” It can be big, it can be small, just [...]
LITTLE MYSTERY LITTLE MYSTERY RUINATION RECORD CO New York’s Ivy Meissner is one Little Mystery, and her self-titled debut album amply shows that she has chosen quite a fitting moniker to present her music. With quite an intriguing voice [...]
LYS MORKE KNIFE THERAPY ARTOFFACT RECORDS Taking a route less traveled for any artist/musician is always filled with dangers and pitfalls, and to overcome these, you have to have a clear vision, determination and knowledge to truly overcome [...]
COLOR GREEN FOOL’S PARADE NEW WEST RECORDS Modern psych rock is tagged as such because it often includes a number of other musical elements that the initial psych rock from its late 60s heyday possibly didn’t have. Think of all such [...]
HANNAH MOHAN TIME IS A WALNUT EGGHUNT RECORDS Formally, Time Is A Walnut is Hannah Mohan’s solo debut, but Mohan has already created quite a buzz while she was fronting And The Kids for some ten years or so. That buzz was based both on [...]
DONOVAN WOODS THINGS WERE NEVER GOOD IF THEY’RE NOT GOOD NOW END TIMES MUSIC Some would say that singer songwriters are ‘dime-a-dozen’ these days, but there are quite a number of such artists that simply stand out, depending [...]
FRED ABONG BLINDNESS MOOCHIN’ ABOUT RECORDS To those who follow Spill Magazine more closely, the name of Fred Abong might be familiar, and even more so, if they are fans of Throwing Muses and Belly, as Abong played bass for both bands back [...]
GHOST FAN CLUB GHOST FAN CLUB KNIFEPUNCH RECORDS Tyler Costolo has been making music since 2017, and it all ranged anywhere between the softer side of slowcore and bedroom pop to something heavier and more experimental. Ghost Fan Club seems to [...]
NATHANIEL RATELIFF & THE NIGHT SWEATS SOUTH OF HERE STAX RECORDS When Nathaniel Rateliff cropped up on the scene some four years and three albums ago, the brilliance and assuredness were evident from the get-go. It was Rateliff’s [...]
DOUBLE WISH UNIVERSE SOMETIMES HIT THE NORTH RECORDS According to Double Wish, the Orange County duo of Adam Sabolick and Philippe Andre, create music that falls under the category of ‘dark sunshine pop’. Ok, so it is a nice ide to [...]
DANIEL NUNNELEE JUNE, BABY INDEPENDENT It just might be the case that Daniel Nunnelee, as a true Southerner (born in Memphis, and now located in Nashville), has decided to call his debut album June, Baby after the cover of a Merle Haggard/Willie [...]
PERRY BLAKE DEATH OF A SOCIETY GIRL MOOCHIN’ ABOUT RECORDS There is a tragic coincidence that came a week or so before Irish singer-songwriter was to release his latest album Death of a Society Girl, which celebrates his 20 years as a [...]
MAX BLANSJAAR FALSE COMFORTS BEANIE TAPES Ok, so you are born in Amsterdam, raised in Oxford, and end up recording with Katie Von Schleischer in Brooklyn. That is the brief story of Max Blansjaar and his debut album False Comforts. The main [...]
LARA TAUBMAN THE GOSPEL OF GETTING FREE ATOMIC SOUND RECORD COMPANY There is a certain assured quality that was tied with the prime, 70s era of West Coast singer-songwriters: excellent songwriting, strong lyrics, and detailed arrangements and [...]
BOULDER FIELDS WITH ALL THE OTHER GHOSTS LET THERE BE NUMBERS Edinburgh, Scotland artist Cam Fraser has been around for a while, starting out as a punker with Cateran (supported Nirvana in UK back in 1989), then worked with Borrowed Books, and [...]
EAMON FOGARTY I’M AN ANIMAL NOW ORPHEAN KIOSK RECORDS How much of the (for some dreaded) genre of prog rock has filtered through into another ‘dreaded’ genre of singer-songwriter? Quite a bit it seems, particularly as both [...]
JESSICA WILDE TEACH ME HOW TO LOVE ABSOLUTE LABEL SERVICES When critics aren’t sure where to neatly categorize a solo artist, they usually reach for that often clumsy one – singer songwriter. Yet, these days, quite a few artists [...]
SLOW JOY MI AMIGO SLOW JOY MICK MUSIC Slow Joy is Dallas via New Mexico artist Esteban Flores, who started out back in 2020 with a pair of singles that made quite some impact on TikTok, with kind of an indie rock sound that isn’t usually [...]
IDAHO LAPSE ARTS & CRAFTS Back in the 90s and on into the new century, Jeff Martin and Idaho were coming up with some of the best sounds within what was dubbed as slowcore. While all the sounds connected with slowcore slowly went into the [...]
THE BIRD CALLS OLD FAITHFUL RUINATION RECORD CO. Taking a similar route to the likes of Bill Callaghan and/or Will Oldham, often means that the artist in question is an individual that prefers solitude to create some delicate, well, [...]
ANASTASIA COOPE DARNING WOMAN JAGJAGUWAR Being labeled as a singer-songwriter and taking quite an experimental route with your music can be both a blessing and a curse for an artist. Doing that on your debut album, as Anastasia Coope does on [...]
DAVID PICCO UNTIL NOW INDEPENDENT So, the singer-songwriter scene, with those artists leaning towards the more roots/Americana sound is getting a bit crowded these days. It is getting harder and harder to make an impact, particularly if you are [...]
ANDREW BIRD SUNDAY MORNING PUT-ON LOMA VISTA RECORDINGS/CONCORD RECORDS Andrew Bird is one of those artists that never stood still, nor does he now, even when he is in a way taking a look back, as he is on his late offering Sunday Morning [...]
RISING APPALACHIA FOLK & ANCHOR INDEPENDENT Doing a covers album is far from easy, as some might think. You don’t simply sit down or stand up and cover a song you want and/or love. An emotional connection to the song is not enough. [...]
