The Vinyl Anachronist Gets Behind the New One From Sunny War
Part-Time Audiophile’s Vinyl Anachronist calls Sunny War “a prolific artist, the kind who keeps releasing quality albums because there’s so much she needs to say.” The site lovingly reviewed her 2018, With The Sun, and now it has thrown its weight behind her new offering Shell Of A Girl. Comparing War To Tracy Chapman, to […]
Arts Fuse Recommends Tinariwen Live
We’re elated over the success of Tinariwen‘s Amadjar. The record has topped the NACC World chart for a month, and it’s also reached the top of the Earshot International and Transglobal World Music charts. One of the most magical aspects of the record, however, is how well it captures the live energy of the Tuareg […]
KUTX Shares Fruit Bats In-Studio Session
Fruit Bats‘ summer release, Gold Past Life, is still getting lots of radio play and charting high at the NACC Radio 200. A big reason for this is the album’s quality, but another has been a relentless tour schedule that has put the band in front of ravenous fans throughout the US and Canada. As […]
New Music From Mount Eerie with Julie Doiron
Over the past couple of decades, Phil Elverum – who initially released music as The Microphones before transitioning to the Mount Eerie moniker – has developed a cult-like following amongst listeners for his sonic adventurousness, prolific creation, wry lyricism, and relentlessly DIY ethos. Yet his last few years have been a whirlwind of change. A […]
The Absolute Sound Explores The Sonic Universe Of The Flaming Lips’ King’s Mouth
The Absolute Sound says the new King's Mouth LP from The Flaming Lips is "yet another lofty chapter to the Lips’ keen catalog of wide-eyed aural head trips." The review specifically mentions the album's stunning sound design, writing that "the cinematic nature of King’s Mouth comes across in full-bore exploratory Lips style, challenging stereo soundfield […]
The Straits Times Hails Devendra Banhart’s Latest
Devendra Banhart‘s new Ma LP is “a feat of quiet radicalism – a reflection on motherhood, a way of getting in touch with his feminine side and a heartfelt tribute to his other motherland, Venezuela, where he spent his childhood.” This is according to The Straits Times, which hails the album for its “insistent optimism […]
Ink 19 Compares Sunny War To Nick Drake and Joao Gilberto
“Shell of a Girl is a quiet, meditative, melancholy collection of folk-blues tunes,” writes Ink 19 of the new Sunny War album, “built around delicately plucked guitar lines.” The site compares the songwriter, who once lived on the streets of Los Angeles, to Joao Gilberto and Nick Drake. Her “songs may not be about the nicest […]
The Daily Californian Enjoys Devendra Banhart
The Daily Californian – an independent, student-run paper serving The University of California in Berkeley – says that Devendra Banhart’s new LP “offers cohesive life lessons.” Reviewer Maisy Menzies says the artist works with “themes of introspective dread, tie-dying them with the thoughtful colors of life’s simple joys. This is an artist not looking back, […]
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 […]
