THE MATINEE CHANGE OF SCENE INDEPENDENT After 15 years on the scene, sticking to your guns by remaining within a genre (in this case roots, Americana/Canadian), you might expect an artist or a band to show the signs of getting tired, or being [...]
PENELOPE ANTENA JAMES AND JUNE YOUNGBLOODS & PARAPENTE MUSIC If the excellence of James And June, the new album by Penelope Antena, comes as a bit of a shock to the uninitiated, it shouldn’t be. First of all, Antena is the [...]
CHARLIE KAPLAN COUNTRY LIFE IN AMERICA INDEPENDENT Don’t let the title of the latest Charlie Kaplan album fool you – Country Life in America. Well, ok, maybe just a little bit. You see, don’t expect that twangy Nashville sound [...]
HALEY BLAIS WISECRACK ARTS & CRAFTS Going for a theme or a concept in your music can be a double-edged sword for many artists, particularly singer-songwriters. Even though it is done in songs (chapters, if you will) the theme has to be [...]
SARAH JANE SCOUTEN TURNED TO GOLD LIGHT ORGAN RECORDS You just don’t get nominated for 4 Canadian Folk Music Awards, a Western Canadian Music Award and an International Folk Music Award for being simply good. You also don’t get to [...]
D.A. STERN DON’T TAKE YOUR HEARTACHE OUT ON THE WORLD SYMPHONIC/MISRA The art of good and/or excellent pop rock has not been lost in modern music, and New Jersey to Los Angeles singer songwriter D. A. Stern is here to prove it with his [...]
SERENE LIFE CAN PRODUCE EXCELLENT ART A CONVERSATION WITH JENN GRANT Slowly but surely, Jenn Grant has become a fixture of the Canadian music scene, with her quality music echoing not only down across the border but elsewhere. It was her assured [...]
Birthh Moonlanded Carosello Records Some artists go all out on their presence on social media. That rare minority, that includes Brooklyn-based, Italian singer songwriter Alice Bisi who works as Birthh, essentially don’t care. She has a [...]
Berkley Pueblo Big Secret Records For those who have missed our Berkley premiere recently, or those who might have doubted that Andrew Jones, aka Berkley can maintain such high quality throughout his latest album simply titled Pueblo, just a [...]
Strawberry Runners Strawberry Runners Duper Moon records Strawberry Runners is one Emi Night (they/them) whose musical project has been running for some ten years now. After a series of quite noticed releases and a move to Philadelphia, some [...]
Sea Lemon Stop At Nothing Luminelle Recordings When twee pop phrase was coined sometime during the heyday of Sarah Records, not many reviewers thought that such a sound would turn into a full-fledged genre, at least not into one that will stick [...]
MARVIN GAYE LET’S GET IT ON (DELUXE EDITION) MOTOWN RECORDS When the news broke out back in 1973 that Marvin Gaye is to release a new album that was to follow What’s Goin’ On, an album that even then was considered as one of [...]
Nora Kelly Band Rodeo Clown Mint Records Nora Kelly Band’s Rodeo Clown is band’s debut that is being released into the more and more congested field of Americana/Canadiana music. This means that Kelly and her Montreal-based band [...]
Stephen Steinbrink Disappearing Coin Western Vinyl Sure, it has been tried before. That is, combining Brian Wilson-like harmonies with meandering and subtly complex San Francisco psych vibes. Yet integrating the two into an artful combination [...]
Sloppy Heads Sometimes Just One Second Shrimper Records Brooklyn trio Sloppy Heads have been around since 2009 and have created their own underground scene that covers a wide musical palette seen through their seemingly sloppy, slop-rock [...]
Melodiesinfonie Softboi Independent You really have to be truly versed in music to be able to come up with an album that is basically all soft, funky, jazzy soul. Those elongated notes and spaces have to really work to have their effect and you [...]
McKenzie Stubbert Waiting Room Curious Music Making neo-classical music work as pop in a way, seems to be quite popular these days, what with the success of artist/composers like Ludovico Einaudi. Yet, very often, such artists/composers tend to [...]
CORDOVAS THE ROSE OF ACES ATO RECORDS These days, Americana music space is getting crowded with artists coming up with some high-quality music that spreads across genres with quite some ease. Still, even with such quality around, for whatever [...]
HOLY WAVE FIVE OF CUPS SUICIDE SQUEEZE RECORDS Esoteric is the term that qualifies all somewhat special, often mystical things that are of interest to a very specific group of people. That surely includes Tarot cards and Tarot readings. It is [...]
CHARM SCHOOL FINITE JEST sonaBLAST! The call and recall of the original Velvet Underground sound continues, unabated. A problem? Definitely not, as any new band and artists that draws inspiration from such seminal artists deserves commendation, [...]
FRED ABONG FEAR PAGEANT DISC DRIVE Fred Abong has been around a while, starting up as far back as the 80s as part of the hardcore punk scene, and then playing bass for Throwing Muses and Belly. As a solo artist, working as a singer songwriter [...]
KOLB POWER OF THOUGHT RAMP LOCAL Another singer-songwriter, another artist located in Brooklyn that doesn’t really fit into the strict confines of what a singer-songwriter should sound like. His second outing, an EP titled Power of Thought [...]
KITBA KITBA RUINATION RECORD CO. Behind Kitba’s moniker and her self-titled debut album is New York’s singer-songwriter and harpist Rebecca Kitba Bryson El-Saleh. As a part of Brooklyn’s musical hub, Kitba has already cooperated with [...]
12 Rods If We Stayed Alive Husky Pants Records Yes, there is a sensible meaning in naming the new 12 Rods album If We Stayed Alive. It is the first in 21 years from these Minneapolis indies stalwarts, who always seemed to have a passion for that [...]
