Magnum Dopus Suburbanova Independent How do you characterize a rock music genre that goes under the title of goth, and where does it stem from? Of course, many would point to the 80s and bands that stemmed from the almighty New Wave, anybody [...]
Various Artists Almost Famous Soundtrack (Expanded Uber Box Set) Universal Music Involving personal experience and emotions in art can be quite a tricky proposition. You either fail miserably or you come up with something that has a timeless [...]
Cots Disturbing Body Boiled Records How many Canadian artists do you know that spent time as bookkeepers in Brazil? If the answer is none, then here’s one — Steph Yates, who also goes by the name of Cots, and who just came up with a [...]
1st Base Runner Seven Years Of Silence Universal There are two ways you can approach music in dark times like these. One is to make music as dark or even darker. The other is to do completely the opposite and come up with some light, fluffy [...]
David Crosby For Free BMG Sometime this August, David Crosby will turn 80. He has practically been around throughout the entire history of rock music in all its forms. That, along with working solo, working with such iconic bands as The Byrds, [...]
Dallas Burrow Dallas Burrow Independent For some, the cowboy hat Dallas Burrow is wearing on his second, self-titled album might be the only reason to skip on it. For others, it might be exactly the reason to pick it up. In both cases, they [...]
John R. Miller Depreciated Rounder Records Yet another Americana/alt country album you would say? Maybe. That is a remark that you can encounter from anyone that isn’t too keen on the genre and takes only a cursory listen to Depreciated, [...]
Bryan Away Canyons To Sawdust Independent There are so many sounds around that have been dubbed as Baroque pop, that quite a few of those actually have no connection with either Baroque or pop. The phrase that was coined back in the second part [...]
Raymans Welcome To Gerrard Square Independent I guess it would have been a legal hassle to use anything connected with Rayman, the Ubisoft video game character, for your fledgling band. Just a few guys hanging on the street on a sunny day will [...]
Michael Cormier More Light!! Dear Life Records How do you survive in a music world as an artist these days? Unless you are a big name (and even then, it could be a problem), you have to take on a few musical roles, and then, that might not be [...]
Rose City Band Earth Trip Thrill Jockey Every discerning fan of modern-day psychedelia has encountered the name of guitarist Ripley Johnson. You see, Johnson is one of the driving forces behind some really accomplished psych that has come our [...]
Mike Gale Twin Spirit Baboo Records Who can you call the UK version of a combination of Robert Pollard and R. Stevie Moore? Could be a hard choice to make, but here’s one proposal — Southampton’s Mike Gale. Not only is Gale as [...]
Six Organs Of Admittance The Veiled Sea Three Lobed Recordings Ben Chasny, or Six Organs of Admittance is one of those artists to whom you can attach only one label — expect the unexpected. Throughout his quite illustrious career [...]
Liz Phair Soberish Chrysalis Records There are quite a few scenarios about what happens when your first record is proclaimed (and actually is) a true classic. Most of them are not so good for the artist in question. And Liz Phair could be a [...]
Mercury Rev Snowflake Midnight (Deluxe Edition) Cherry Red Records Let’s put things straight where Mercury Rev is concerned: they are a prog rock band. However, instead of being part of the much-maligned branch of prog rock that deservedly [...]
Robert Finley Sharecropper’s Son Easy Eye Sound There’s something about what some call ‘old-fashioned’ soul/blues/roots combo that just hits you right away and doesn’t let you go as long as the sounds come out. Just [...]
Violent Femmes Add It Up (1981-1993) (Reissue) Craft Recordings It is now 40 years on since Gordon Gano and his crew brought us their souped-up, brilliant musical vision of post-punk/new wave/whatever on mostly acoustic instruments. Some put [...]
Great Lake Swimmers Live At The Redeemer 2007 Weewerk Recordings Some of the (somewhat older) readers might remember the good ole commercial for Memorex cassette tapes: “Is it live, or is it Memorex?”. For some (good) reason, that is [...]
Sara Bug Sara Bug Egghunt Records For quite a while now, you can simply label anything coming out of Nashville as country music, or even Americana. Still, those listeners who cringe at any mention of music out of that city tend to mention [...]
Phantom Handshakes No More Summer Songs Z Tapes It just might be that boundaries are going away, at least, as far as music is concerned. New York duo Matt Sklar and Federica Tassano that work as Phantom Handshakes, have released their second [...]
Nick Hudson Font Of Human Fractures Independent Modern music genres can really be strange constructs. They can be proclaimed on the basis of musical structures, lyrics or just simply the mood they create. Very often though, they overlap, and you [...]
THE PROMISE OF A DISAPPOINTMENT GIRL A CONVERSATION WITH DELYN GREY Musicians often refer back to some dark places and thoughts in their lives and try to turn them into best possible music they can. This is probably one of the toughest artistic [...]
Various Artists Brown Acid: The Twelfth Trip RidingEasy Records How long can these people have this going on? Wasn’t the Brown Acid compilation(s) just a one or a few volumes thing? Or maybe it was a gimmick? Whatever the thing is, [...]
Wax Moon Hello Morning Independent There is always a musical element that presses exactly the right button with every listener. It could be a good guitar lick, a synth line or, say, a string arrangement. For quite a few listeners, it is a set of [...]
