Feature: Best Records of 2022, So Far (Spectrum Culture) July 19, 2022 Calexico – El Mirador [ANTI-] The tea leaf reading for those cribbing notes on Calexico: El Mirador, the once-Tucson-based collective’s 10th studio LP, is… Continue Reading
Review: Rachael McElhiney – “I Love It Here” June 24, 2022 Rachael McElhiney offers an odd kind of back-handed caveat to the seemingly decisive title of her new EP, I Love It Here, by mentioning the… Continue Reading
Review: Andrew Bird – “Inside Problems” June 2, 2022 How cerebral an experience, really, is listening to an Andrew Bird record? The singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and well-known whistler’s new LP, Inside Problems, rarely if ever… Continue Reading
Review: Girls Against Boys – “House of GVSB: 25th Anniversary Edition” June 2, 2022 Ladies and gentlemen: Girls Against Boys is back. It’s been nine long years since the New York noise rockers released The Ghost List EP and it’s… Continue Reading
Review: Frog Eyes – “The Bees” June 2, 2022 It’s about seven songs into the new Frog Eyes “comeback” LP – its first since 2018’s curtain-call Violet Psalms, a three-year hiatus, and frontman Carey… Continue Reading
Review: Calexico – “El Mirador” April 19, 2022 Here’s the tea leaf reading for all of those cribbing notes on the career of Calexico: El Mirador, the once-Tucson-based collective’s 10th studio LP, is… Continue Reading
Review: Kee Avil – “Crease” April 12, 2022 In a word: disquieting. It’s not like a blood-splattered horror film sequence, though the theatricality and melodrama clearly – some might say “defiantly” –… Continue Reading
Revisiting: Big Black’s “Atomizer” April 12, 2022 The year is 2006. We’re in Chicago. Touch and Go Records is turning 25, just old enough to rent a car. And Big Black,… Continue Reading
Review: Rolo Tomassi – “Where Myth Becomes Memory” March 17, 2022 What or who is Rolo Tomassi? In this age of musical uber-categorization and hyper-contextualization, it remains kind of tough to say, actually. When the… Continue Reading
Review: El Ten Eleven – “New Year’s Eve” March 17, 2022 There’s a surprising buoyancy to the new El Ten Eleven LP. While the post-rock band’s previous efforts, especially 2020’s Tautology trilogy, have dwelled in the chambers… Continue Reading