The Vinyl District Applauds Last Year’s Savage Republic Releases
The Vinyl District has included both Savage Republic releases from last year on its list of best reissues and archival releases from 2022. “Tragic Figures remains one of the more underrated records to have emerged from the US underground of the 1980s, expanded here to 2LP by Real Gone with an extra album of rehearsal recordings. Afrika Corps’ [sic] live […]
The Quietus Says Mary Halvorson’s New LPs “Mark A High Point” In Her Career
On new LPs Amaryllis and Belladonna, The Quietus writes, “Mary Halvorson establishes without any doubt her position at the vanguard of jazz and modern composition. For anyone who is yet to get on board with her work, this stunning ‘post-genre’ release offers the best chance to date to start appreciating her multifarious musical activities… Although the stylistic variations across the two […]
Gus Englehorn, Tapped for SxSw 2023, Lands on Queen City Sounds’ Best of 2022 List
Birdy Magazine has Queen City Sounds’ Best of 2022 list from writer Tom Murphy, who says this was “one of the best years of music in recent memory. According to Murphy, Gus Englehorn made one of the year’s best with Dungeon Master, a “wonderfully eccentric storybook of colorful dreams, fantasies and nightmares.” Get the full list here. The album is at radio now […]
MAGNET Honors Caitlin Cobb-Vialet’s Endless Void On Its End Of The Year List
MAGNET Magazine‘s list of best singer/songwriter releases of the year, as compiled by the site’s Hobart Rowland, includes Caitlin Cobb-Vialet‘s album Endless Void. While that list, here, is not much more than a collection of album covers, the magazine previously covered Cobb-Vialet in a feature to be found here. The site says Endless Void is “a surprisingly poised, brutally honest debut,” noting that “there’s […]
Aquarium Drunkard Includes Zachary Cale and Color Green Among The Best of 2022
Aquarium Drunkard has included Zachary Cale‘s Skywriting, which we serviced to radio this year, among its top albums of the year. The record is Cale’s “best, most powerful album since Duskland convenes a full band to put a cosmic, psychedelic gloss on his introspective songs. “Come on Easy” shimmers with layered guitars and pulses with motorik drums, a rupturing lick […]
Exploratorium and Savage Republic Are In The Pipeline
Pipeline Instrumental Review, a print magazine, has reviews of the new Independent Project Records releases from Bruce Licher – Exploratorium, an ambient solo work recorded in 1997 and originally released in 2006, and Savage Republic‘s Africa Corps Live at the Whisky A Go-Go 30th December 1981. On Exploratorium, the zine writes, “Licher stretches the roles of guitars and bass to create an a […]
Q104.3 Interviews Pluralone
As Q104.3 New York notes, “Josh Klinghoffer has been more than a little busy since leaving the Red Hot Chili Peppers in late-2019.” In addition to being the man behind Pluralone, Kinghoffer has helped Eddie Vedder write and record his solo album, toured as part of Pearl Jam and Jane’s Addiction, and collaborated with Morrissey and Iggy Pop. In a recent interview with the station, Klinghoffer spoke about all […]
New Music From James Yorkston, Nina Persson, and The Second Hand Orchestra
On January 13, 2023, James Yorkston, Nina Persson and The Second Hand Orchestra will release The Great White Sea Eagle, the follow up to James Yorkston and The Second Hand Orchestra’s The Wide, Wide River – a Guardian Top 10 Folk Album of 2021. The record didn’t start life as a follow up; in early 2021, Yorkston began visiting his studio […]
Westword Tips Its Hat To Savage Republic
Westword has a review of the new Savage Republic live album, along with some shade for people whose 80s alternative library is limited to a couple of tee-shirt bands. Africa Corps Live At The Whisky A Go-Go 30th December 1981 is “noisy, minimalist, and percussive as hell. The guitar melodies are reminiscent of East Bay Ray’s spacey surf-music contributions to […]
The Guardian Gives Mary Halvorson Five Stars
In a five-star review, The Guardian writes that Amaryllis and Belladonna are “new landmarks in Mary Halvorson’s already inimitable discography.” Both are at radio now from Nonesuch Records. According to the Guardian, the Macarthur Foundation “Genius” grantee is a “singleminded original.” Amaryllis “exposes avant-funk, fast bass-walking jazz, jubilant brass choruses and slow-sighing rumination to eloquent improvising… Belladonna is quieter, but it still buzzes with contrasts. […]
Razorcake Reviews Four IPR Releases
Razorcake has reviewed a grip of Independent Project Records releases, including the Source compilation. Razorcake says that “any fan of interesting art and music would find a lot to love here.” Read that review here. The zine has also reviewed the label’s recent re-releases by the “blissfully hard to categorize” Shiva Burlesque, here; Half String, “sounding like a precursor to the majority […]
American Pancake Says Gus Englehorn’s “Tarantula” Is An Earworm
According to American Pancake, “‘Tarantula’ by divergent artist, singer-songwriter and world class snowboarder Gus Englehorn feels like a punching forward amalgam of The Pixies, spaghetti western soundtracks by Ennio Morricone, Wall of Voodoo and maybe even a Paul Reubens incarnation. The thick palm mutes, the perfectly cajoling drum moves courtesy of Gus’s sig-other Estée Preda, the quirky vocal aesthetics and the B-movie feel sits perfectly […]
June McDoom Plots Early 2023 Tour
June McDoom is going on tour next year in support of the self-titled EP she released this year. McDoom has been hyped by the likes of Aquarium Drunkard, Flood, Grimy Goods, and Higher Plain Music, and her EP currently at radio from Temporary Residence Ltd. On tour, she’ll be opening for fellow Brooklynite Nick Hakim. See them live: 1/20 – Boston, MA – […]
Trouser Press Tells Savage Republic’s Story
Trouser Press – the original bible of the undergound rock and punk scenes – has an overview of Savage Republic‘s career. The seminal band has two records at radio right now – Africa Corps Live at the Whisky 30th December 1981, which was just released by Independent Project Records, and the 40th anniversary edition of their debut album Tragic Figures, put […]
Creature Canyon Plays Pioneertown For New Years
Creature Canyon has announced a New Year’s Eve show at Pappy & Harriet’s, the venerable performance space in the heart of Pioneertown, California, just north of Joshua Tree National Park. The band says, “Hang with us as we bring in the new year at one of our favorite venues.” If you’re in Southern California and looking for […]
New Music From Mary Halvorson
Nonesuch Records presents Belladonna, the second of two twin label debut albums (preceded by Amaryllis), from Brooklyn-based guitarist, composer, and MacArthur fellow Mary Halvorson. The two suites, which Halvorson describes as “modular and interlocking,” were produced and mixed by John Dieterich of Deerhoof. Belladonna is a set of five compositions written for Halvorson on guitar plus The Mivos Quartet: Olivia De Prato (violin), Maya Bennardo (violin), Victor Lowrie Tafoya (viola), and Tyler J. […]
MXDWN Reveres Alex Lilly’s “Remarkable” Songwriting
About the new Alex Lilly LP Repetition Is A Sin, MXDWN writes: “The siren of avant-pop strikes again… Inspired by predecessors Kate Bush and XTC, the album fuses familiar organic instruments like piano, acoustic guitar, and horns with a surreal universe of synthesizers, drum machines and warped samples. Lilly’s love of music theory certainly shines through in unorthodox note choices, harmonies and […]
Cult MTL Compares Gus Englehorn To Black Francis and The White Stripes
Cult MTL is out with a review of Gus Englehorn‘s final performance of the year at the M For Montreal festival. The site writes, “Quebec-via-Alaska oddball Gus Englehorn closed the Cléopâtre showcase with a short set full of his trademark quirkiness, simple-yet-hypnotic instrumentation and Black Francis-like spoken word sections. Playing a number of tunes from his album Dungeon Master, released back […]
Closed Captioned Cites The Magical Softness Of Jason Bajada’s “Walt Disney”
Closed Captioned has a feature on Jason Bajada‘s “Walt Disney,” among the standout tracks on his most recent LP Crushed Grapes. “The song,” according to the site, “has a numbness to it in its honesty. The softness in how the song plays out is magical while the realness of the video can’t be taken away. There’s a sweetness to […]
Pitchfork Gives The Nod To Mary Halvorson’s Two New LPs
Pitchfork has a glowing dual review of Amaryllis and Belladonna, the two 2022 albums from Mary Halvorson that are at radio now from Nonesuch. According to the review, “The most important thing is to find your own voice. More than perhaps any other guitarist working today, in jazz or elsewhere, she has succeeded at that deceptively simple aspiration. Hear her play […]
