Our rock music club was down in numbers this month but made up for it with less pop or sensitive songwriter material and rawer rock: The Life of the World to Come, a rather uncharacteristic release by The Mountain Goats Rob Thomas’s Cradlesong Havilah, more dirty bluesy epic stuff from The Drones Spoils by Alasdair [...]
Some catching up but otherwise a most diverse mix of rock, including more than the usual amount of electronica: The self-titled release of the kind-of supergroup Monsters of Folk Former frontman of Something For Kate, Paul Dempsey’s solo debut Everything Is True From Sigur Rós guy and his collaborator, Riceboy Sleeps by Jónsi & Alex [...]
My son rang with the news – Idlewild have a new release out called Post Electric Blues! The Scottish band is one of my faves. How on earth it snuck past me I don’t know, but I’m holding my breath until it’s released in the United Kingdom on October 5.
Mark Lanegan’s gravelly, low voice seems to pop everywhere. I had no idea he sang on the previous CD of British electronic duo Soulsavers, but he’s on their latest, Broken, and all I’ve seen so far are rave reviews. Onto the list it goes.
If I ever noticed young British singer-songwriter Patrick Wolf before this year, no doubt I glossed over his foppish, overdressed appearance, dismissed the British press hullabaloo about his sexuality, and then forgot he’d ever existed. But I heard it at our local rock music club and was immensely attracted to the overblown synth-pop overlaid with strings. [...]
One of the pleasures of Stephen Cumming’s memoir Will It Be Funny Tomorrow, Billy? is its fleeting impressions of a similarly individualistic Australian rock musician, Steve Kilbey, he of The Church fame. Cummings clearly is wary of Kilbey, with whom a clash is to be expected (both are volatile as all heck), but he also [...]
The rock music club went all alt. Obscure might be a better descriptor: Kid Sam’s leftfield two-piece rock in their self-titled debut Paul Dempsey’s Everything Is True – wonderful sound (I must get it!) The self-titled release of American band The XX Steve Kilbey’s Painkiller Hometowns by The Rural Alberta Advantage – how’s that for [...]
Mostly this continues August’s roster: Quirky art-rock from Dirty Projectors, Bitte Orca Steve Kilbey’s weird Painkiller Kilbey’s band, The Church, has a new one, Untitled #23 Let me try some electronic music, Subway II by Subway A strange cove, Patrick Wolf and his The Bachelor How many years since the last Tortoise album? Welcome to [...]
Grandaddy lives, long live Grandaddy. A collective sigh could be heard around the globe when the gorgeously melodic, geeky group called it quits a couple of years back. Never fear, for the band’s main man, Jason Lytle (check out how nerdy he looks in the album photos – that’s a compliment, kiddo!) is out with [...]
Tangerine Dream were a key part of my rock education. Only gradually, over decades, did I tire of electronic music’s descendants, be they ambient or techno. But every now and then I dip back into that peculiar niche of rock music. The August issue of Uncut magazine has two rave reviews tbat I followed up. [...]