Trevor Moss and Hannah-Lou don’t follow the rules. Their last album, 2015’s Expatriot produced by Ethan Johns, found them in a real studio – an experience that wasn’t exactly what Moss had in mind. “I like to limit the possibilities,”…
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…
Unlike many acts who bill themselves as a cross between pop, folk, rock, and soul, Julia King has synthesized these genres into something cohesive and trained. Moreover, it’s undeniably her, representing a ‘Julia’ state of mind more than anything. Each…
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…
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.…
Never before has a title been quite as apropos as ‘Heavy Like a Brick’. The opening number from off of Jupiter in Velvet’s seventh album, Beautiful New Day, spends little time building into a crescendo. Instead, it’s hefty rock, straightaway, though…