Category: Reviews

Album | Adrianne Lenker – abysskiss

Also known as Big Thief’s frontwoman, Adrianne Lenker is also a productive solo songwriter, and has released an album per year since 2013. However, this new record sounds like the product of a much longer time span, even despite its…

Album | Bert Jansch – Just A Simple Soul

Just A Simple Soul is more than just a collection of Bert Jansch’s solo work, it’s a testament to his talent as one of the great guitarists of all time (Rolling Stone Magazine dubbed him as one of the hundred…

Album | Laura Gibson – Goners

Laura Gibson’s fifth album, Goners, is largely about grief, not the sort of thing that immediately gets one tapping their toes. Yet from dealing with the loss of her father while only a teenager to wrestling with the idea of…

Album | Julia Holter – Aviary

The scope of Julia Holter’s new record is immense. Frightening, in fact. She has created her own universe, much like Björk did on Homogenic or Utopia, or Bowie did on Low, or Pink Floyd did on Dark Side of the…

Album | Roses & Cigarettes – Acoustic Sessions

Right away, Roses & Cigarettes Acoustic Sessions feels like home. At the very least, it does to this humble writer, who originally hails from the exact windswept plains and rolling hills so eagerly expressed through sound with their forward-looking folk-rock aesthetic.…

Single | Starla Starshine – Red Lagoon

Starla Starshine’s latest tune is pervaded by authenticity in a sense rarely observed, even in musical form. While, yes indeed, the indie rocker and psychedelic folkster’s transformation into both the Starshine moniker and the artistic expression to come with it…

Album | Jaakko Eino Kalevi – Out of Touch

It’s a genre that has come to dominate alternate music: that combination of 60s psychedelica blended with 90s stoner rock. With Tame Impala’s wash of guitar on one end and Mac Demarco’s synths on the other, a host of bands…

Album | Stephen’s Shore – September Love

In contemporary music, there’s a simple geographical rule if you’re looking for good tunes in general, in their various declinations (from indie-pop to new-wave and “folk” music): start from the latest Swedish releases. That’s what the guys at Meritorio Records,…

Live | Saint Sister @ Café Du Nord, San Francisco

For Irish electric-folk duo Saint Sister, Friday night’s performance (5 October 2018) in San Francisco marked a double celebration: It was the duo’s first time in the ‘City by the Bay,’ and it also marked the long-awaited release of its…

Single | Matt Massey – Built

They say to never judge a book by its cover, but the front piece artwork for Matt Massey’s new single, ‘Built’, conveys a message in and of itself. The tune itself is a blistering, driven development in indie rock with…