Rarely does it seem that even contemporary folk releases on the indie scene wear their hearts on their sleeves as wholly and evidently as Twisted Oak’s Cold Coffee and Half Smoked Cigarettes. Its influences and central themes are presented right on…
The titular opener of Steve Wheeler’s Stormseeker wouldn’t feel unfit in a cinematic score. As raucous strings soar with abandon, pounding percussion drives the track forward as it continuously builds in tempo. An operatic section liberates itself as bombastic horns sound…
Basking in understated poignancy, Geoff Gibbons’ Shadow of a Stone EP is a potential sleeper hit on the indie folk scene. Inundated by lush production and lyric-focused arrangements, the Vancouver singer-songwriter’s intimate knowledge of what makes contemporary folk shimmer stands to…
With his debut album, Scattered Poems, Alex Dunn proudly walks in the footsteps of singer-songwriters who have laid Seattle’s unwittingly roots-laden musical foundation. A gateway of the Gold Rush, Washington has a hefty catalog of warm folk songwriting enveloped in the…
In the end, love is the answer. This philosophy may well be as timeless as love itself as an end-all answer to what has, is happening, and has happened. It’s no wonder that the meditative ponderance is at the center…
If ever you were going to look for the most unlikely array of instruments the combination of mandolin, bouzouki, and guitar would finish high on the list. Yet using these instruments along with a tenor banjo, The Trials of Cato…
It’s hard to believe that the Fleet Foxes could have been The Pineapples. But that name had been taken by another band so Robin Pecknold decided on Fleet Foxes, thinking it was “evocative of some weird activity like fox hunting.”…
Our culture talks about a boy genius, but girls (or women) don’t seem to get the same treatment. Women in music get treated differently simply because they are female. As Lucy Dacus notes, “I think it’s great that people are…
On her newest single, Jane Frank lays it out, well, frankly. The San Francisco indie artist revels in musical influences ranging in eras as far back as 1950s rock’n’roll to more contemporary alternative facets. That much is evident from the…
There is a specific kind of music that seems to be engineered to be a gift to the listener, but in a totally disinterested way. The whole career of Damian Kathkuda might be viewed in this light, to be honest.…