HamsandwicH Magnify Route 109 Picking up cues in pop music is seemingly easy, you find an artist or artists, remodel, combine, and presto you’ve got your song or set of songs. For some pop that indeed does not have to be hard, if you know how to [...]
Kolb Tyrannical Vibes Ramp Local What do you do if you are a classically trained opera singer that has serious love for sophisticated pop that is a cross between Fleetwood Mac and latter-day Doobie Brothers, sprinkled with touches of Steely Dan [...]
Office Culture Big Time Things Northern Spy Trying to swim in the waters of complex, sophisticated pop that spreads into rock, jazz, and elsewhere is something quite a few artists with good musical taste will try, but not that many will succeed [...]
Izzy Oram Brown Mess Independent The influence late Elliott Smith left on quite a number of artists that started out after him seems to be much greater than can be gauged just by cursory listen. Often, it is just closely following in [...]
DAVID LEAF – GOD ONLY KNOWS: THE STORY OF BRIAN WILSON, THE BEACH BOYS & THE CALIFORNIA MYTH OMNIBUS PRESS BOOK REVIEW BY: LJUBINKO ZIVKOVIC There’s rarely a band around which has more things written about it than The Beach Boys. [...]
Dan Lyons & The Tenants Shuttered Dreams Shaker Records Margate is one of those English seaside towns that really comes alive when the summer season is on with musicians confined to themselves most of the time and being able to either work [...]
Creedence Clearwater Revival Creedence Clearwater Revival At The Royal Albert Hall Craft Recordings It turns out that revival was always the key word with Creedence Clearwater Revival and John Fogerty, the band’s mastermind. And it is not [...]
Maeve Steele Overland Independent The number of artists doing their music the way they want is growing exponentially, which makes it exponentially hard for them to reach a wider audience, without something to make them stand out. Very often, [...]
Reuben And The Dark In Lieu Of Light Arts & Crafts Reuben Bullock and his band, aka Reuben And The Dark, have slowly been building a reputation as one of the more refined purveyors of what can be dubbed as intelligent rock, working in the [...]
Sparky’s Magic Piano Never Twice The Same Colour Independent There was rarely a middle ground with something that was labelled Britpop. That includes more or less anything that came out of UK from the late 80s up to mid-90s, either some [...]
The Afghan Whigs How Do You Burn? Royal Cream/BMG When Greg Dulli and his The Afghan Whigs started out in the nineties they were dubbed as one of the progenitors of grunge. Yet, throughout their career, Dulli and his bandmates always had the [...]
Sean Thompson’s Weird Ears Sean Thompson’s Weird Ears Curation Records The debate on what constitutes Americana music, whether there are any connected genres (like Canadiana) and what else should be included and what not is still [...]
Julia Jacklin Pre Pleasure Polyvinyl/Universal Music Canada Australian singer songwriter Julia Jacklin has had no problems with words so far. It didn’t matter whether it was her lyrics, album and song titles, or interviews. No problem in [...]
Dendrons 5-3-8 Innovative Leisure Would you like to refresh your memory of the first phase Talking Heads combined with the mid-period Pavement, all brushed up for more current trends? Well, then, you don’t have to look much further than [...]
Tiffany Williams All Those Days of Drinking Dust Blue Redbird If you think All Those Days of Drinking Dust, the title of the debut album by Eastern Kentucky singer songwriter Tiffany Williams sounds like a possible title of a novel or a [...]
Emily Elbert Woven Together Independent You have not have heard of Emily Elbert as a solo artist before, but there is quite a good chance you have heard her music. Elbert is quite a sought-out songwriter and guitarist who has already a series of [...]
Elaine Howley The Distance Between Heart And Mouth Touch Sensitive Records When singer songwriters decide to turn their written or recorded diaries into music, they are actually undertaking a very risky tactic. The results can be quite boring [...]
Ciao! Scary Haha Independent Usually, when an artist takes on a working alias, the public still gets a chance to learn his birth given name. At least, at some point. Still, New York artist Ciao! has decided to remain otherwise anonymous for his [...]
Roy Shakked Throwback Groove Gravy Records Since Steely Dan appeared in full force me 50 years ago, many other artists have tried to reach their almost inaccessible heights. They have sat with their combination of truly sophisticated infusion of [...]
Frances Chang Support Your Local Nihilist Independent It might be quite a task to locate New York artist Frances Chang on social media. One of the reasons might be that she is not a big fan of it. The other that so far, Chang has assumed and [...]
Maya Lucia miss girl world Independent New York via Minneapolis artist Maya Lucia has an attitude. It is an attitude that makes her garage-fuelled pop rock truly work, so easily heard on her latest, seven-song EP miss girl world. Some might [...]
iskwē And Tom Wilson Mother Love iskwē Music Inc Mother Love is the first long-awaited collaborative album released by award winning artists iskwē | ᐃᐢᑫᐧᐤ (Cree Métis from Treaty One Territory ) and Tom Wilson | Tehoh’ahake (Mohawk). Here, [...]
Ally Cribb Unbroken Independent Let’s be clear about Ally Cribb and her latest EP Unbroken – it is pop, pure and simple. Now there’s three facts about pop to keep in mind here. It has to follow a set formula of being either [...]
Queen Kwong Couples Only Sonic Ritual The moment The Cure stepped on the scene with their dark, gothic pop rock, that dark sound just kept on going, even when it was not fully in vogue. These days, such dark music seems to be in full favour [...]
