PRYMEK & SAGE SHELTER AKP RECORDINGS If somebody would mention ambient music at this very moment, the first thing that might come to mind would be meandering electronics sounds. Yet the variation and spectrum of ambient music these days has [...]
SPACEPORT CUT THE LAKE AURA VORTEX RECORDS Minneapolis trio Spaceport is back with their second album Cut the Lake, with many missing their first offering Window Seat (2023). Maybe this time around that initial slip will be corrected, as the [...]
ELIZABETH AND THE CATAPULT RESPONSIBLE FRIEND COMPASS RECORDS The oh so sophisticated and fluid sound Responsible Friend, the new album by Elizabeth and the Catapult, might come as a surprise to the uninitiated, but Brooklyn-based Elizabeth [...]
KATY PINKE WONDER GLAMOUR GOWNS Sometimes you wonder, and it seems so does Katy Pinke on her new 4-song EP, with such a title, why do artists bother to release EPs that barely scratch over 6 minutes – is it just teasing ahead of something [...]
THE NEW PORNOGRAPHERS THE FORMER SITE OF NEW PORNOGRAPHERS MERGE RECORDS Despite the initial controversy with its name when the band first appeared, The New Pornographers made it big instantly, and it was the quality of the music, lyrics and [...]
TRUE GREEN HAIL DISASTER SPACECASE RECORDS Minneapolis-based novelist/songwriter Dan Hornsby is not the first to lead a band, but might be among the first ones to set his lyrical vision through jangly guitar rock with his band True Green. Hail [...]
MARNIE WEBER RETURNING HOME: THE MUSIC OF MARNIE WEBER PHANTOM LIMB RECORDS Wikipedia defines art rock as “ a subgenre of rock music that aims to separate the genre from popular entertainment, with the term typically being applied as the middle [...]
JACKIE WEST SILENT CENTURY RUINATION RECORDS Some would say that singer-songwriters are dime-a-dozen these days (again!), and the proliferation is certainly there, but there seems to be a deeper thematic shift compared to the initial [...]
CHARLOTTE CORNFIELD HURTS LIKE HELL NEXT DOOR RECORDS/MERGE RECORDS Big life changes impact everybody, but such changes are more visible, or to be precise, more audible with musicians. Motherhood is one such big change in life, and it had its [...]
EM SPEL BIRD OR SNAKE BIRDWATCHER What would be experimental folk exactly? As with any other genre, it would approximately mean that you as an artist are not taking the usual routes associated with such a genre, and it could be anything from [...]
THE TINES BARROWS FUNNYBONE RECORDS You really have to hit the right notes to come up with unmistakeably great melody. And if you get it right once, you are bound to hit it again and again, and come up with an almost perfectly consistent album, [...]
SPECIAL FRIEND CLIPPING SKEP WAX RECORDS You can try and make a direct comparison to what French/American duo Guillaume Siracusa and Erica Ashleson of Special Friend is doing on Clipping, their second, simply titled album, but at some point, you [...]
MIINA WHERE THE LIGHT GOES INDEPENDENT “Live My Life on Holiday” is one of the singles Miina, aka Laura Mina Mitic. picked from her debut album Where the Light Goes, but what it takes today to makes your music heard (whether it [...]
TEDESCHI TRUCKS BAND FUTURE SOUL FANTASY RECORDS Okay, you don’t have to be a fan of a certain genre, but then, if you are trying to be objective, there are certain things you simply cannot ignore, and that is the capabilities, [...]
DRIVING MRS. SATAN LATE EVER AFTER LIBURIA RECORDS If you think that covering the songs of others is easy by just picking up your instruments and microphones, than you are quite mistaken. Sure you can do that, but then you are just a cover [...]
SPENCER HOFFMAN CHERRY PICKER ANXIETY BLANKET RECORDS Being a singer-songwriter from Los Angeles will always draw comparisons with the early to mid-70s, when the so-called golden age of California Sound ruled, well, the airwaves then. In the [...]
CAT CLYDE MUD BLOOD BONE CONCORD RECORDS Really good singer-songwriters these days take much harder routes to creating music of substance. Of course it is the much harder road than just strumming your guitar, tinkling your piano and singing [...]
WHERE’S BETH ACHE IS A CRICKET IN THE NIGHT INDEPENDENT Good to great singer-songwriters seem to be creeping up on us daily (again!)—artists obviously seem to have a greater need to try and express their personal sensibilities and whatnot [...]
JENN GRANT QUEEN OF THE STRAIT INDEPENDENT With three Juno nominations, millions of streams, and critic accolades all over, Jenn Grant is becoming yet another Canadian music giant. And Grant has not reached that status by sticking to some strict [...]
DONOVAN WOODS SQUANDER YOUR GIFTS INDEPENDENT Donovan Woods is one of those singer-songwriters who have a strong fan base, based much more on his excellent songwriting and subtle, hushed vocals rather than any hype or PR, as Woods is one of [...]
IRON & WINE HEN’S TEETH SUB POP There are few characteristics you can attribute to Iron & Wine, aka Sam Beam, through his artistic career for this quarter of a century or so that he has been on the music scene. First of all, he [...]
ELIZA NOXON GOOD MONSTERS WITH BAD HABITS INDEPENDENT Some artists turn up on the music scene as rough diamonds, so to say, with talent showing, but with some edges that need to be finely honed through time to make their music sound great and [...]
MICHAEL CORMIER-O’LEARY PROOF ENOUGH DEAR LIFE RECORDS Michael Cormier-O’Leary is no newcomer to Spill Magazine, and getting right down to it, there is a good reason he reappears here. Not only because he has a new 7-song EP, but [...]
SUZANNE JARVIE MOTHER’S DAY WOLFE ISLAND RECORDS Is Toronto currently becoming one of the hotbeds of emerging singer-songwriters? Quite possibly, as that artistic field seems to be repeating the growth it had in the early to mid-70s. [...]
