Phases follows last year’s My Woman which landed in our top 5 of 2016. So it may be easy to initially take this rarities release as a fans-only, hold-you-over journey. But jumping to conclusions is never a good idea because this record provides great evidence of Olsen’s range that shines regardless if the songs are…
With the recent passing of the “Screaming Eagle of Soul,” Charles Bradley in September, Sonny Knight in June and Sharon Jones last year, the retro soul movement has taken a serious blow. Their talents are irreplaceable but with Curtis Harding’s new record, Face Your Fear, you will quickly realize that the genre will continue to…
As a critic, I learned long ago to lower my expectations. When you expect greatness, that is when you get burnt. The same goes about expecting a poop emoji. If you go into a record thinking it is going to suck…most likely it will. That is why music is subjective. I say all of that…
You must reach a point, one would guess, where you’ve had as much success as you need or that you expect to get, and you can stop striving for some elusive brass ring, and settle in with your friends for the sake of making music with your friends. That certainly seems to be the case…
In the mid to late 70s, Neil Young had a particularly productive period in his songwriting, it was shortly after the release of the grief-ridden Tonight’s the Night, and Zuma, which featured “Cortez, the Killer,” and his too brief exploration with Stephen Stills that produced one album, Long May You Run. David Briggs, often Young’s…
Sandgrown is the debut solo album from Ultimate Painting’s Jack Cooper. He also was in the band Mazes. Cooper has a super smooth voice that is in the same tone of Dean Wareham (Luna) or Stuart Lee Murdoch (Belle & Sebastian). His delivery is similar to his band Ultimate Painting, without his band mate James…
Australian singer/songwriter Leah Senior’s second album finds the artist travelling the quiet path of the folk song troubadours of years past. Pretty Faces is recorded, for the most part, in the minimalist folk-singer tradition of Joan Baez, Judy Collins, and the early work of Joni Mitchell. Senior’s gentle voice floats over finger-picked or lightly strummed…
What’s in a name? For Jon Dwyer, it doesn’t seem to matter much as his OCS/The Oh Sees/Thee Oh Sees/Oh Sees project continues to morph its 20 year psychedelic garage rock arc and it just keeps getting more interesting. Orc is Oh Sees 19th record and feels as fresh and new as anything the band…
The Murlocs are part of the current wave of Australian psychedelia that keeps rolling on. The group has that 60’s swag of the 13th Floor Elevators and the bounce of the nice guys next door like The Association. Not experiencing the 60’s for some of us music fans feels like a total missed opportunity, so…
There’s an often unspoken challenge for artists that find a strong artistic footing early in their musical careers, sometimes tasting critical acclaim while still in their teens. If all goes well, an artist will grow in musical skill and develop and grow as both a person and an artist, so how does one stretch and…
