It is a little odd that Robyn Hitchcock has just released an eponymous album forty-one years into his musical career. Then again, Hitchcock has seemingly always managed to do whatever he pleases just outside of the fringe of the mainstream music industry. Perhaps even more odd is that the eccentric British artist now lives in […]
It has been twenty-one years since Ride called it a day back in 1996, after the two primary songwriters, Andy Bell and Mark Gardener, dissolved the band in the wake of clashing egos and an inability to adapt to the evolving direction of the music scene in the mid-1990s. Since then, Andy Bell played bass […]
Transience. Traveling to escape customary life. Wandering. Vagabond impulses. Songs that were born and created throughout a determination to experience scenes and emotions outside of the routine experience. Sometimes, one must venture outside of familiar cities, states, countries, and climates in order to reflect upon the beauty of an otherwise uneventful daily existence. This is […]
As the weather warms and we shed our headphone-ear-muffs for backyard party mix tapes, the time is perfect for Rat Fancy to release their debut EP: Suck A Lemon. Rat Fancy is ex-Sweater Girl Diana Barraza (vocals/guitar), Gregory Johnson (guitar / keyboard) and Gavin Glidewell (drums). Hailing from Los Angeles, they know a thing or […]
Full disclosure: I’m Rob Crow fan and have been one for a long time. When he announced, just over one year ago, that he was quitting music, I was simultaneously sad and grateful. A reliable source of interesting new music (including Heavy Vegetable, Thingy, Optiganally Yours, Pinback, plus one hundred other bands and his own solo work) […]
If it’s the frozen, outer space soundscapes of Sigur Rós that floats your soul, it can seem like your only hope is a genre of one. But as Yoda said, “No, there is another.” Also hailing from Iceland, also active since the late ‘90s, and equally bizarre, múm use electronics embellished by ethereal, child-like vocals […]
I am obsessed with Artificial Daylight, the second album from the independent Icelandic folk-pop band 1860. Far from a sophomore slump, Artificial Daylight draws inspiration from the same well as Fleet Foxes and the Waterboys, hitting the sweet spot between artsy-fartsy indie and totally accessible pop. When I talked to them last year, the boys in […]
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 […]
