Junk Drawer The Dust Has Come To Stay Art For Blind Records These days, it seems that the sort of guitar-driven alternative art rock is on a back burner, not many new artists taking the quite tricky road Television and/or Galaxie 500 took in [...]
THE MONOCHROME SET ALLHALLOWTIDE TAPETE RECORDS If you ever wondered what would constitute something that would bear the name of ‘intelligent pop’, The Monchrome Set would certainly fit the bill. 16 albums (including the latest one) [...]
Matt Hannah House Of Illusion Independent The quality of a singer-songwriter album essentially relies on two key qualities – some good melodies supported by with as best possible musicianship and arrangements that go beyond just solo [...]
Alyssa Gengos Mechanical Sweetness Egghunt Records During the nineties it became all the rage to call any combination of folkish, singer songwriter sounds with electronic musical elements folktronica. Unfortunately, things got a bit complicated [...]
Various Artists I Love To See You Strut: More 60s Mod, R&B, Brit Soul and Freakbeat Nuggets Cherry Red Records There’s only a handful of labels around that can turn out a practically flawless compilation of various artists celebrating [...]
ERIC CHENAUX SAY LAURA CONSTELLATION RECORDS Well, here’s a category that might be new to some – spiritual jazz folk. Or, if you want to simplify things, very, very listenable and enjoyable experimental music. Actually, it is [...]
ALISON SHEARER VIEW FROM ABOVE INDEPENDENT What exactly would be a perfect genre fit? Don’t worry, even the people that make up genre definitions would have a hard time telling you. Actually, there probably isn’t such a thing, no [...]
PAN AMERICAN THE PATIENCE FADER KRANKY When someone mentions ambient as a genre, the first thought that would come to many listeners is electronic music and drifting soundscapes. Ok, fine, and that is a description that would fit a number of [...]
Tomo Before The Dawn Independent In these streaming days, if you aren’t able to read much about an artists, it doesn’t necessarily mean that listeners are not out there, giving traction to them and picking up on their music. [...]
GREAT LAKES CONTENDERS HHBTM RECORDS It seems that at the moment, if you exclude grunge, most of the music of the 90s is in some sort of a doghouse. And like any other decade in music that was residing there (at least for a while), there are not [...]
SPACEFACE ANEMOIA MOTHLAND Quite a few bands and artists have their favorite pastime, and usually it is yet another music project, that somehow or partly doesn’t fit with their ‘main’ project. It also can happen that this side project can become [...]
Various Artists C91 Cherry Red Records Almost four decades ago, back in 1986 when New Musical Express ruled the world of music journalism, the paper issued now the now-famed c86 cassette, which was full of sharp, sometimes shocking new [...]
RAINE HAMILTON BRAVE LAND INDEPENDENT Chamber folk never really became a sub-genre in itself. Usually, artists that pick up on that concept, and quite a few did go that route, usually have a song or two on their albums that can fall within that [...]
Clever Hopes Artefact Independent When a band (in this case a duo) takes its name from a W.H. Auden poem, you simply have to prick up your ears and listen. Sometimes such a build-up can be a big letdown, but in the case of Clever Hopes’ debut [...]
Tall Folk Wiser Independent Having a good sense of humor in any kind of music, even more so in melancholy-oriented folk/roots genres certainly can further artists’ cause: “Lara is from a long line of long legs. Jack is an extension of [...]
SHIPS IN THE NIGHT CAN TAKE YOU TO DREAMS OR TO NIGHTMARES A CONVERSATION WITH ALETHEA LEVENTHAL OF SHIPS IN THE NIGHT Playing with your dreams and nightmares, transforming them into music can be a tricky game. On one hand you can come up with [...]
Alex Albrecht Resolve Constellation Tatsu Sometimes, album covers can be deceptive, other times, they can be dead on. This is particularly true of albums that contain some form of ambient music and all the shapes and forms it comes in. In the [...]
AURA BLAZE OPEN MINDEDNESS INDEPENDENT There is a trend these days for solo artists working under a band guise to create their music based on the ‘everything, including a kitchen sink.’ Of course, more often than not that concept backfires where [...]
1st BASE RUNNER JUST MIGHT COME UP WITH A HOME RUN A CONVERSATION WITH TIM HUSMANN When we mention the term singer-songwriter, the first thing that comes to mind is a single person crouched over their acoustic guitar, say somebody like Joni [...]
The New Pornographers Mass Romantic (Reissue) Matador When A.C. Newman formed The New Pornographers 22 years ago, he seemingly had no high hopes that the project would make any serious impact. After all, Zumpano, his previous brilliant effort [...]
1st BASE RUNNER ELLIS INDEPENDENT Austin Texas electro-rocker Tim Husmann, aka 1st Base Runner has been on quite a roll this year. After two singles and a mini-album, Seven Years of Silence, he made a few videos with Matt Mahurin, who directed [...]
Various Artists Home Warm Mood compilations have been around for a while, and with the advent of ambient and all that can be cramped within the lounge category the actually started dominating the ‘shadow charts.’ If you’re wandering what ‘shadow [...]
Jason Boland & The Stragglers The Light Saw Me Thirty Tigers I’m sure most of you who are reading this have heard all sorts of country music variations, conventional country, left-field country, country rock, Americana, roots, what not. [...]
LUKE MICHIELSEN LANDLOCKED INDEPENDENT Somehow it seems quite fitting for singer songwriters to have a connection with nature and environment. Yet, very often, the music they come up with covering these themes can sound contrived or kitchy. The [...]
