Review: Soft Plastics – “5 Dreams” June 5, 2020 Carey Mercer is back! Just two years after the glorious art-rock ensemble Frog Eyes dissolved into the ether, Vancouver’s favorite troublemaker surfaces today with company as… Continue Reading
Review: Inventions – “Continuous Portrait” June 5, 2020 After some laughter, the song “Hints and Omens” begins with a swirling sci-fi refrain, a keyboard-pulsing “space-themed” trill that could be a stand-in for… Continue Reading
Review: Stuck – “Change Is Bad” June 3, 2020 Holy mother of fuck, how did this one slip below the radar? Born Yesterday Records released the Chicago quartet Stuck’s debut LP, Change Is Bad,… Continue Reading
Review: David Grubbs/Taku Unami – “Comet Meta” June 1, 2020 In “Heart of the Thrumming House”, the fourth track off the new David Grubbs and Taku Unami collaboration, Comet Meta, listeners can be forgiven for feeling… Continue Reading
Review: Same – “Plastic Western” May 19, 2020 SAME, the post-something quartet with the un-Google-able name, is from southwestern Pennsylvania, the duly coined Paris of Appalachia, but not entirely of the place. Now, Pittsburgh… Continue Reading
Review: Melkbelly – “PITH” May 14, 2020 Sorry, as much as you want them to be, Melkbelly aren’t a 2020s reincarnation of the Breeders. There are parallels, yes, yes, but it’s not that simple,… Continue Reading
Review: Sufjan Stevens and Lowell Brams – “Aporia” May 11, 2020 Lowell Brams has been part of singer/songwriter Sufjan Stevens life since Stevens was barely out of toddlerhood. Brams – the titular “Lowell” of Stevens’… Continue Reading
Review: El Ten Eleven – “Tautology I” May 8, 2020 The first chapter in El Ten Eleven‘s new three-part musical journey seems to be written entirely in the third person and drained of all impulse… Continue Reading
Review: Built to Spill – “Built to Spill Plays The Songs of Daniel Johnston” May 4, 2020 Listening to Daniel Johnston is a lot like playing a game of Fill in the Blanks. The core melodies and the song’s basic structure… Continue Reading
Review: Avishai Cohen – “Big Vicious” April 27, 2020 As a bandleader, the Israeli-bred trumpeter Avishai Cohen leans democratic. I don’t mean that in the American political connotation of the word – sorry, Biden 2020… Continue Reading
