King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard Live In San Francisco ’16 ATO Records It has become standard in modern music to say that a certain artist or band is “on a roll”. Usually that means that they have issued a series of releases or have [...]
Blinker The Star Juvenile Universe Independent Jordon Zadorozny is one of those one-man musical operations that always surprises but never lets down. Juvenile Universe, his latest album as Blinker the Star, is no exception in either of those [...]
Young Marble Giants Colossal Youth (40th Anniversary Edition) Domino Records There are only two questions concerning Colossal Youth, the seminal album by the British trio Young Marble Giants. The first one is asks “was this album evolutionary or [...]
Billie Holiday Billie: The Original Soundtrack Verve Records What can you say that has not already been said about Billie Holiday, one of the best–if not the best—singer, male or female, ever? Maybe that there’s an upcoming documentary [...]
Various Artists Brown Acid: The Eleventh Trip RidingEasy Records There could be a few reasons why RidingEasy Records have had 11 runs with their ‘Brown Acid’ series so far, but two pop out as key. One is that their crate diggers have had great [...]
Stephen Becker Nothing Sun Under The New NNA Tapes The so-called bedroom artists are becoming ‘dime-a-dozen’ these days. After all, quite a few are stuck in their bedrooms and make music there. Literally. But with all the faded or not so faded [...]
Other Infinities Smaller Than Some Independent What if you tried to combine the smart synth-pop of LCD Soundsystem with the more boisterous side of heyday Britpop bands like Blur, throwing in vocals that range between those of David Bowie and [...]
Melody Gardot Sunset In The Blue Verve Records Some music reviewers try to be critical and stay polite at the same time. One of the ways to do so is to lump together into a subgenre a few artists they think are similar but not up to their taste, [...]
Palace Winter …Keep Dreaming Buddy Tambourhinoceros Electronic music these days has been used and abused. Unfortunately, more the latter than the former. That is why good exceptions shine through like some sort of musical jewels. This is [...]
Dex Wolfe Lightness Independent Usually, there is Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde side to musical polymaths. They are certainly extremely talented people, but often, with all their abilities, they tend, well, to show off. Minneapolis artist Dex Wolf, is [...]
Garcia Peoples Nightcap At Wits’ End Beyond Beyond Is Beyond Have you been hiding all those faves you have from the psych/prog era, particularly those that have folkish tendencies and vocal harmonies that do not overtly show off their [...]
Anne Malin Waiting Song Independent How does a combination of Cowboy Junkies and Coco Rosie, both at their most imaginative, sound to you? If the answer to that question is an emphatic yes, then Waiting Song, the second album from Anne Malin, is [...]
Bendrix Littleton Deep Dark South NNA Tapes Initially, many music fans didn’t realize what kind of a gap was left when late great Sparklehorse, aka Mark Linkous, left us prematurely. These days that left-of-center nether space between roots, [...]
Télépopmusik Everybody Breaks The Line Warm Music So, you think electro pop music has nothing substantial to offer? Have you forgotten LCD Soundsystem, or any of the ‘thinking’ French electro bands, like Télépopmusik for example? The duo of [...]
Ian Wayne Risking Illness Whatever’s Clever Getting over sad times sometimes requires sad music. Still, for such music to work you need to not only feel it in yourself as an artist, but also to be able to transform it into music that [...]
Mines Falls Mines Falls Independent Saying that something sounds ‘cinematic’ can mean 1001 things to 1001 different people. Still, most would agree, that a rock sound that leads a line from the melodic side of Pink Floyd to Elbow and Radiohead [...]
Social Gravy A Different Kind Independent If you have any grievances with quality pop/rock akin to Coldplay or say, even Dawes, you may freely skip this review. You see, Belarusian musician Vee Bordukov & British producer/songwriter Brad [...]
Oh Susanna Sleepy Little Sailor (Deluxe Edition) MVKA Deception can be an art, and sometimes, that is for the best. This is particularly true of those artists/musicians that seemingly don’t come up with music that is strikingly new, but somehow, [...]
Waxfeet Dream Independent Back in the late ‘90s and the beginning of the 2000s, those lucky enough to catch the brief run of Alan McGee’s Poptones label were able to marvel the musical wonders that were gnac and The Montgolfier Brothers, both [...]
The Cradle Laughing In My Sleep NNA Tapes How do you make a difference as a singer/songwriter? Well, you can start by creating music under a band moniker, but that certainly isn’t enough. The other possibility could be to make spontaneous [...]
Pat Keen Cells Remain Birdwatcher Records It has now become quite a common thing for an artist to move from one genre to another. This is particularly true, say, if you start out as a jazz experimentalist or an all-out rocker and, for whatever [...]
Jonathan Richman I, Jonathan Craft Recordings Jonathan Richman’s 1992 masterpiece I, Jonathan, is now remastered for its first ever vinyl release. The cover should say it all, initially. You see Richman smiling, but it is a smile that reflects [...]
Arlo McKinley Die Midwestern Oh Boy Records A debut album at 40? Before you rise your eyebrows or hear a single note from Arlo McKinley’s album Die Midwestern, bear one fact in mind–McKinley was the last artist signed to the late great John [...]
Allegra Krieger The Joys Of Forgetting Northern Spy Records These days, there are so many singer-songwriters around, male or female, you can easily get the impression that they’re doing one and the same thing. Still, you can actually divide them [...]
