The Bird And The Bee’s Greg Kurstin Tells His Story To Tape Op
Greg Kurstin announces that “music is [his] happy place” in a new feature in Tape Op. The article lists the stunning array of top-notch artists with which the producer has worked, including “Lily Allen, Sia, Pink, The Shins, Foo Fighters, Liam Gallagher, Beck, The Flaming Lips, Tegan and Sara, Peaches, Kelly Clarkson, Lykke Li, Ellie […]
New Music From The Innocence Mission
Love. Connection. Community. Understanding. Not everybody can turn these intimate feelings into song, especially not with the beauty and sensitivity of the orchestral Lancaster, Pennsylvania folk band The Innocence Mission. Led by Karen Peris and husband Don Peris, the band has spent years trying to voice the inexpressible, and Sufjan Stevens – who has covered […]
New Music From Deap Lips (Flaming Lips + Deap Vally)
The seeds of Deap Lips were first planted years ago, when Deap Vally‘s Lindsey Troy & Julie Edwards each fell in love with the music of The Flaming Lips. “There are very few artists,” says Edwards, “who can offer the same experience on a decades-spanning deep dive.” In 2016, as Deap Vally were touring with Wolfmother, Wayne Coyne […]
Third Coast Review Enjoys A Performance By Mount Eerie And Julie Doiron
Third Coast Review, a site based in Chicago, had the pleasure of seeing a Mount Eerie and Julie Doiron performance last month at Thalia Hall. According to the site, “Their converging back together for Lost Wisdom pt. 2 feels right and brings together elements of Phil Elverum‘s early writing with his more forthright, almost diary […]
The Good Ones’ Adrien Kazigira Plays Solo For Fretboard Journal
During a recent trip to visit Fretboard Journal, The Good Ones‘ bandleader and guitarist Adrien Kazigira saw a guitar he liked. The site says he “noticed the Preston Thompson 0000 we had on the wall. He put down the Yamaha he usually employs and promptly launched into this tune, ‘My Smartest Friend Has Lost His […]
Lemonwire Says Leif Vollebekk’s New LP Builds On His Previous Work
Leif Vollebekk hit his stride musically with 2017’s Twin Solitude, Lemonwire writes, and new LP New Ways “serves as the next step of the progression.” The site says that the aim of the LP is to “deepen the grooves, engage desire and emotion with courage, and further dig into Vollebekk’s rhythmic explorations.” Over the course […]
LA Weekly Picks Samantha Sidley And Alex Lilly
According to LA Weekly, “Samantha Sidley’s 2019 debut album, Interior Person, is startling not because she’s radically experimenting with new sonic ideas but because the proudly lesbian L.A. vocalist upends romantic jazz-pop tradition by infusing it with long-missing tolerance and empathy. Sidley purrs such witty and melodically engaging tunes as ‘I Like Girls’ and ‘Butterfly […]
Bucketfull Of Brains Raves About Vetiver’s Up On High, Which Hit A New NACC Peak This Week
Bucketfull Of Brains writes that Vetiver‘s “Up On High is a record to take time with, as it gives of itself but gradually. Most of those songs simply don’t allow you to take short cuts, or think your way into them. They work by insinuation, as different fragments get their hooks in and hang on, […]
Leif Vollebekk, On Tour, Hits A New NACC Peak – Thanks!
We want to thank all of the stations that helped Leif Vollebekk‘s New Ways jump to a new peak at #34 on the NACC chart this week: CFOU, CHMR, CHOP, CHOQ, CHYZ, CJAM, CKDU, CKUT, KBVR, KCRW, KCSB, KGLT, KMHD2, KPUR, KUWS, KVNF, KVSC, SiriusXM: The Loft, WRMC, and WUSC! Vollebekk’s West Coast tour got […]
Fruit Bats End Up On Year End Lists By Tom O’Connor, KOSU’s Chad Whitehead, and Riff Magazine
Tom O’Connor says Fruit Bats‘ Gold Past Life was his favorite record of 2019. In a Medium Post, the music aficionado compares the band to ELO and The Bee-Gees and writes that the band’s Eric D. Johnson “has found a sound that is airy, progressive, traditional, and beautiful.” See the whole list here. Chad Whitehead […]
WV Public Radio Loves The Bird And The Bee’s Van Halen Tribute
Jim Lange of West Virginia Public Broadcasting recently featured The Bird and The Bee‘s Inara George on his radio program. About the band’s new Van Halen tribute album, Lange writes, “I love the irony, humor, disposition of musical elements of a good cover song, but this was something else: this [is] a true tribute. This […]
Pitchfork Calls Leif Vollebekk’s New LP “Understated And Affecting”
A recent Pitchfork review of Leif Vollebekk‘s New Ways gives the Canadian singer-songwriter high marks while exploring the production techniques that make the record sound so warm. “Vollebekk laces his capacious, meandering music with a ’60s folk-jazz sensibility. He recorded New Ways directly to tape, allowing each song’s mood to dictate its direction… The sparse, tense “Hot […]
Roots World Recommends The Good Ones
Roots World recommends the new album from Rwanda’s The Good Ones, entitled Rwanda, You Should Be Loved. “To listen to this record,” the site writes, “is to experience the redemption that follows heartbreak. There’s a slight creak in the harmony vocals, a sense of the forlorn in the acoustic guitars. It’s music of endless depth, […]
The Sheffield Hallam Students’ Union Draws Attention To Vetiver’s “Sweet, Tender, and Weathered” Voice
In a post promoting a Vetiver performance in the UK last year, a reviewer at the Sheffield Hallam Students’ Union wrote, “What’s magic about this new Vetiver LP Up On High is the way these tangents colour the ten songs without undermining a distinct move to more elemental, spacious and natural arrangements. At the heart […]
46-30 Podcast Shares Yorkston/Thorne/Khan’s “Westlin Winds”
Alongside Stephan Marshall, the head of the eclectic Triassic Tusk label, who hosts the regular podcast 46-30: Quality music of no fixed abode alongside Scottish folk musician and songwriter James Yorkston. On it, they play and discuss music from around the globe. Yorkston is also a member of the trio Yorkston/Thorne/Khan, and on the latest episode he […]
Flood Shares Devendra Banhart’s Carole King-Inspired “Taking A Page;” Pitchfork Shares His “Song I Wish I Wrote”
FLOOD has the video for “Taking A Page,” a song from Devendra Banhart‘s album Ma that the songwriter says comes from a lyric borrowed from Carole King. Banhart got permission from the legendary artist, who he credits with helping him navigate the emotional fallout after Donald Trump claimed victory in the 2016 presidential election. “I […]
Leif Vollebekk, On Tour, Plays For Paste
Leif Vollebekk, the Montréal-based singer-songwriter whose critically-acclaimed new album New Ways is at radio now, is on tour. For a taste of the Canadian heartthrob’s in-person charm, take a look at this performance from last month at the Paste HQ. Go here to enjoy the sparse, intimate performance. Vollebekk has 2020 shows starting next week. […]
Brooklyn Vegan and Pitchfork Laud Mount Eerie’s Songwriting
Brooklyn Vegan writes that on Lost Wisdom pt. 2, Mount Eerie’s Phil Elverum “again uses the plainspoken delivery that he used on his last two albums, though as with the first Lost Wisdom, the music and melodies often hearken back to ’60s psychedelic folk (except ‘Widows,’ where Phil shows off his love of heavier music). […]
The Good Ones, Hailed By Critics, Land On NPR’s 2019 Wrap Up
The Good Ones were featured on NPR‘s All Songs Considered Year In Review list at the end of 2019. Go here to check out the entire playlist, curated by Bob Boilen and company. Of course, the people at NPR aren’t the only fans of The Good Ones. The band’s new LP, Rwanda, You Should Be […]
LA Times Lists Samantha Sidley’s LP Among The Best Of The Year
The Los Angeles Times has included Samantha Sidley amongst heavy hitters like Taylor Swift and Lana Del Rey in its Best Albums list from 2019. The article calls Sidley’s Interior Person “a sweet, funny, tastefully arranged vocal-jazz disc about same-sex romance.” See the list here, and get the album (and Sidley’s take on Ry Cooder‘s […]
