The Bay Area Reporter Talks To Samantha Sidley
The Bay Area Reporter, which calls itself “San Francisco’s largest GLBT newsletter,” recently reported on Samantha Sidley’s new “I Like Girls” video. Sidley is “an out, proud lesbian,” and she told The Reporter that she has no desire to hide it with lyrical word games. “I believe in directness,” she’s quoted as saying. “No need to […]
Grlsplain Explains Sunny War
Grlsplain calls Sunny War “a soft siren for the restless” whose new LP Shell Of A Girl “solidifies her disregard for the confines of genre and delivers warm, whispery beats with intention.” According to the site, the album builds upon of all the work War has done over her career, starting with her self-released early work […]
The Times Of London Give Five Stars To Tinariwen’s Amadjar
The Times Of London has awarded five stars (out of five) to Amadjar, the most-recent release from nomadic North African guitar heroes Tinariwen. “Whether through shared landscape, the historical weight of slavery or something altogether more mysterious, the dusty desert music of northern Mali is remarkably similar to the hypnotic boogie blues of the Mississippi hill country,” […]
The Fader Walks Through The Cosmos With Devendra Banhart
Larry Fitzmaurice writes in The Fader that “Devendra Banhart’s tenth album in nearly 20 years, Ma, is small and gorgeous — an understated and folk-leaning meditation on parenthood, loss, and family that recalls Songs of Love and Hate-era Leonard Cohen as much as it does his early classic records like 2004’s double-stunner Rejoicing in the […]
Lab.fm Exposes The World To Samantha Sidley
Lab.fm invites listeners into Samantha Sidley’s world with a full-album stream of Interior Person, her new LP that “celebrates love, sex and femininity with songs penned by Alex Lilly, Barbara Gruska and The Bird and The Bee’s Inara George. Sidley, who calls herself a ‘jazz interpreter,’ brings their stories and compositions to life with her […]
The Arts Desk Hails The Soaring, Grooving Amadjar From Tinariwen
The Arts Desk believes that Amadjar, from Tinariwen, is “certainly their most satisfying album in a while.” The album, currently #1 at NACC World, was “recorded in two weeks, in a large tent outside Nouakchott in Mauritania, [and] is soaked in nomadic grooves with a dromedary’s gait and soulful singing that is really, quite beautiful… […]
Sunny War Announces Tour With Mandolin Orange
Sunny War, whose new LP Shell Of A Girl is at radio now, has just announced a tour with Mandolin Orange. Bitch Media has called War’s music “so simple, it’s moving, it’s gorgeous,” while Afropunk says she provides “the ultimate soundtrack to healing.” Check out the album if you’re a fan of virtuosic guitar playing […]
New Music From The Good Ones
2019 year marks the 25th anniversary of the Rwandan Genocide, during which more than a million people were killed – many who died after enduring gruesome torture. The Good Ones formed as a healing process after that genocide, and the original trio’s membership reunited Rwanda’s three tribes with one member each from the Tutsi, Hutu, and […]
The Aquarium Drunkard Podcast Speaks With Devendra Banhart
“Ma is the beautifully cohesive new record from Devendra Banhart. While it’s less a stylistically mixed bag than he sometimes crafts—it sticks to mellow folk, country, and samba feels—there’s still plenty of room for different moods and vibes,” writes Aquarium Drunkard in its introduction to a recent podcast interview with the artist. ” On this […]
The Young Folks Explore The “Brittle Beauty” Of Tinariwen’s Amadjar
A thorough and loving review of Tinariwen‘s Amadjar in The Young Folks writes that the LP might be “possibly their best” LP. The site begins by tracking the history of this nomadic Tuareg group, which has experienced war and famine over its long trajectory towards becoming the world’s premiere desert-rock collective. The review asks readers […]
Keep Walking Shares Bootstraps
Keep Walking recently picked up on “Evergreen,” the advance single from Bootstraps’ upcoming Demo Love LP. Keep Walking says, “Bootstraps is the latest and greatest to land on our radar and for good reason. Not only is ‘Evergreen’ one of the more catchier songs we’ve heard this week but Bootstraps has a very unique sound […]
Treble Appreciates The New One From Tinariwen
Tinariwen has the #1 album at NACC World with Amadjar, Treble writes about the album that, “while it retains common elements from across their discography, their new album Amadjar softens both the gloss of Tassili and the sharp guitar bite of work like 2017’s Elwan. This album’s particular collection of aboriginal strings and percussion alongside […]
Samantha Sidley Shares Her Story With The Windy City Times
Samantha Sidley recently participated in her first “face-to-face interview,” conducted by The Windy City Times before the jazz singer’s recent performance in Chicago. In addition to providing some backstory about Sidley’s new LP Interior Person, the interview also gives the backstory of Sidley’s relationship with her wife and producer, Barbara Gruska. According to Sidley, “She […]
Pitchfork Praises Ma As A Return To Form From Devendra Banhart
In its review of Devendra Banhart‘s new Ma LP, Pitchfork observes that “Banhart steps fully into these songs with a vitality that recalls his beginnings. The songs are arranged and rendered with nuance by a veteran band, as comfortable with synthesizer squall as they are saxophone fantasies. Puckish and tender, Banhart seems again delighted to […]
New Music From Bootstraps
Bootstraps is the moniker of singer and songwriter Jordan Beckett, who learned to play guitar after an injury interrupted his college baseball career. Originally from Portland, Beckett’s first steps into songwriting and recording were influenced by the rich indie backdrop of the Pacific Northwest. Beckett eventually moved to Los Angeles where he was approached by a […]
Tinariwen, On Tour, Hits #1 At NACC World
Congratulations to Tinariwen, who hit #1 in their second week on the NACC World chart with Amadjar. The stunning album, which includes guest spots from the likes of Cass McCombs, Micah Nelson, Warren Ellis (Nick Cave), Rodolphe Burger, and Stephen O’Malley (Sun O)))), also debuted in the Top 25 at the NACC Radio 200. Get Amadjar on […]
The Flaming Lips Post The Making Of King’s Mouth
King’s Mouth isn’t just the name of the new Flaming Lips album; it’s also a traveling immersive, interactive art experience that Wayne Coyne has installed at galleries throughout the United States. The album, in fact, is the installation’s soundtrack. According to the King’s Mouth press release, the surreal piece “is an enormous metallic head, beckoning visitors […]
Remezcla Talks To “Third-Culture Kid” Devendra Banhart
“Devendra Banhart connects with his multicultural reality,” according to Remezcla, on his “buoyant tenth Album, Ma.” In an in-depth review that also includes parts of an exclusive interview with the Nonesuch-affiliated artist, the site explores how Banhart grew up as someone “caught in the middle: a California kid in Caracas and a Venezuelan back in […]
The Alternative Root Reviews Sunny War’s Shell Of A Girl
Sunny War‘s Shell Of A Girl LP “is a softly quiet record,” writes The Alternative Root in a recent review, “and if it is a blues record listeners should find similarities in Nina Simone and not Muddy Waters.” The site picks out a few of the album’s tracks as highlights, drawing attention to War’s “quietly […]
Samantha Sidley Goes For Adds
Samantha Sidley’s Interior Person is a testament to the jazz singer’s lifelong love of vocalists. “My whole life was a song,” Sidley says of her childhood. “If I looked at a tree, it was a song. If I felt happy, sad, joy, it was a song… I’ve always considered myself an interpreter, which is sort […]
