It’s simply amazing to me that a group from the drizzly grey of Glasgow could consistently creates such effervescent, make-you-want-to-sing-along head-bopping pop music — but that's exactly what Camera Obscura does time and again. Their fifth album, Desire Lines, is a stunningly bright ray of musical sunshine. This latest release is grounded in beach music […]
Maybe you’ve noticed that Iceland is having a moment? Between volcanic eruptions on the news, nonstop flights between Seattle and Reykjavík advertised on the side of every bus downtown, and oodles of on-air love from KEXP, it seems like Iceland is in the spotlight wherever you turn. The attention is well deserved; despite housing a […]
The self-titled debut from Chicago, Illinois, duo Hobbyist is a knock out-passionate post-punky protest against all the societal gears that grind women (and men) down every day in work, religion, home, health, life and death. Holly Prindle (vocals) and Marc Mozga (vocals, drum machine programming, guitars, bass, melodica) angle their arch, sample-fueled, dubby rant-stomps as musical […]
Tullycraft's first single came out when I was fifteen. Played heavily on WPRB Princeton, "Pop Songs Your New Boyfriend's Too Stupid To Know About" was the start of MY long and damning relationship with indie pop. Yet, like the boy in that 1995 single, Tullycraft has made me worry I was too stupid to know […]
This is Solvents' least stylistically ambitious release — and that is a very good thing. The band hasn't gone purely minimalistic in working with Karl Blau for one day in his Anacortes studio; the absolutely luscious violin of Emily Madden honey-drips upon her husband Jarrod Bramson's salty sighed-vocals in a way that could never be […]
Lines We Trace opens up suddenly, with all kinds of ache laced through the echoes of a well-worn Andrew Bird album, cut beautifully with strains of Matt Bishop's unmistakable vocals. It's a powerful track ("Tides"), the line I would trade ten thousand days / for one more hour with you immediately vaulting the listener into […]
Here is some fantastic news to brighten any grey Seattle Fall day — our favorite garage-surf rockers the Tea Cozies are releasing a new EP on October 30! I don’t think I have stopped randomly breaking into “sha lalalala”-style choruses since their last album Hot Probs dropped. Their latest effort, titled Bang Up, is a […]
For their fifth full-length album, Moms, Portland’s Menomena underwent a significant lineup change: front man and multi-instrumentalist Brent Knopf left the group in January of 2011 to focus on his own project, Ramona Falls. Thankfully, the remaining members of the band — bassist and saxophonist Justin Harris and drummer Danny Seim — are not short […]
I never really *got* Swedish singer-songwriter Jens Lekman till now, I don't think. Which is kind of bizarre, considering I've bought several of his many EPs and previous albums, and have seen him live. Also, there's the way that he's compared to the league of rogue cosmopolitan pop composers that I richly enjoy, such as […]
Ryan Monroe may be a member of Band of Horses, but his solo album A Painting of a Painting on Fire is decidedly not a BoH album. To strengthen that point, the album opens with a Rush-ish rocker so layered, so textured, so loaded that it's almost cluttered. Monroe comes charging out of the gate […]
