Hanging Valleys Behind The Backs Of Houses Pedro Y El Lobo These days, it is not an uncommon thing that a relatively or completely unknown artist gets millions of streaming hits online. There could be many reasons why that happens. It often [...]
The Mystery Kindaichi Band The Adventures Of Kindaichi Kosuke (Reissue) We Want Sounds French reissue label We Want Sounds is one of the rare ones operating today that really makes an effort to do things properly. The motto is obviously pick [...]
Stars And Rabbit Rainbow Aisle Independent There are usually two trends with artists originating and working in those parts of the world that are not considered centers of modern music. They often walk (or play) in the footsteps of their [...]
AM Clouds Rainmaker Independent Is it OK for a band to re-create a certain musical vibe? That is the question that immediately comes to mind as soon as “Paradise” kicks in, the second track on Rainmaker, the new album by Oregon quartet AM [...]
stAlkid Spooky Tunes, For Lovers And The Dead Independent The story goes that Minneapolis’ Roman Non, aka stAlkid was part of that city’s experimental metal/industrial scene. Maybe. Judging by his album Spooky Tunes, For Lovers and The Dead, you [...]
The Saxophones Eternity Bay Full Time Hobby Back in the ‘50s and early ‘60s, ballrooms and dance halls were in vogue. One of the popular features during dance nights was the so-called ‘ladies’ choice’, when the girls would pick their dancing [...]
Olivia Henry Expectations Independent On Expectations, her second release, Los Angeles singer Olivia Henry tries one of the harder things in modern pop – give her alt-pop some jazz/soul overtones. To make it work, she would have to make it as [...]
Destroyer Have We Met Merge Records Since the release of Streethawk: Seduction in 2001, Dan Bejar has been coming up with one great album after another. Destroyer’s Rubies from 2006 Poison Season from 2015 can certainly end up on many, ‘best of [...]
Katie Burden Edge Of Sleep Cautionary Tail It is really hard to be surprised by any ‘new’ sounds these days. Somehow you just get the feeling you’ve heard it all before. Too much of it. The influences are not only worn on a sleeve, they’re [...]
Brandon Wolfe Scott Burden On Your Shoulders Dine Alone Records Brandon Wolfe Scott is a familiar name to all those who have been following Kelowna, BC ‘bigwigs’ Yukon Blonde. While in the band it is Jeff Innes who handles most of the [...]
Marcus King El Dorado Universal Music Producer Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys handles production on Eldorado, the new album by the guitar prodigy Marcus King. Auerbach also recently Yola’s album, and with all the praise and success it had, there [...]
Death Party Playground Little Joy Independent “Sounds like” is probably the most common comment you’ll hear about music. Any music. Expect no exceptions with Kitchener Waterloo, Ontario quartet Death Party Playground and Little Joy, [...]
Øzwald Born In A State Allswell Records Albums released mid-December of any year are usually by big name artists, or are some form of a lavish rerelease serving as a ‘perfect gift’. Nothing wrong with those, it is just that practically all the [...]
Be-Bop Deluxe Modern Music (Limited Edition Deluxe Box Set) Esoteric From hero to zero and back again, yet just another of those standard rock stories. Bill Nelson and his Be-Bop Deluxe were originally hailed as saviours of what is now called [...]
Various Artists Brown Acid: The Ninth Trip RidingEasy Records Riding Easy Records are obviously doing well with their Brown Acid series, now in its ninth incarnation. It is probably time again for all fans of late ’60s, early ’70s [...]
Coco Love Alcorn Rebirth Independent Coco Love Alcorn has been around for a while, and if you haven’t heard of her, you might want to take notice. She has an incredibly versatile voice which you might want to check out on one of her previous [...]
Scizzorman SCHIZoPHoNiC Independent Scizzorman is Terry J Vinci, drummer and producer from Perth, Australia, who like many other acts from ‘down under’ shows a penchant for quirky, off-kilter musical combinations. SCHIZoPHoNiC is actually two [...]
Mike Patton & Jean Claude Vannier Corpse Flower Ipecac Recordings There are many names for the incarnations of the musical mind of Faith No More’s Mike Patton, Mr. Bungle being one of many. But there are two things you can’t call his music [...]
Brother Oliver Well, Hell Independent Bands with the term “brothers” in their name often are neither brothers, nor is the last name they mention connected with any of the members. Well, not this time around, as far as the South Carolina duo [...]
R.W. Roldan Can You Feel This Allswell Records With Americana, Country, or however you want to label that genre or genres, one of the key things that keeps coming up as a key ingredient in producing real, deep, and meaningful music is life [...]
Alex Haas & Bill Laswell Smoke + Glass Sonicontinuum Bill Laswell is a well-established name in the music world as the producer/bassist has worked with almost everybody in any music genre you can imagine. On the other hand, Alex Haas, a [...]
Bus Stop Poets Leave It To The Kids Independent Combining Americana with the unabashed pop sounds of Fleetwod Mac actually sounds like a great combination. Anybody afraid of Fleetwood Mac? Or Americana for that matter? Based on Bust Stop Poets’ [...]
Eli Raybon Supertoys Independent In the Eighties, a geekey teen (or any other) movis was always accompanied by some (usually exquisite) electro-pop. Human League, Orchestral Maneouvres In The Dark, Heaven 17, even A Flock of Seagulls (they had [...]
Historian Spiral Again Independent At some point at the beginning of this century (more or less) somebody came up with the term folktronica. It was supposed to designate basically gentle singer/songwriter fare embellished with electronics. A [...]
