Christopher Paul Stelling’s Forgiving It All begins with Stelling’s voice and finger-picked guitar, and the line, “When I was just a little child / It all seemed crystal clear / when I blindly trusted all of it / Before I […]
The phrase “Southern Gothic” brings to mind moss-draped drives to plantations, grotesque scenes peopled by mean-spirited men or by sideshow freaks, and haunted woods and houses with the skeletons of slavery filling the closets. In his novel Absalom, Absalom!, William […]
Cloaking a fear of doom and uncertainty in a joyful, vibrant sound is the name of the game on the latest release from The Felice Brothers, From Dreams to Dust. Ruminating on what often feels like end times, James and […]
If you catch The Barefoot Movement at a bluegrass festival, you’re going to get the standard blazing fast instrumental runs in traded-off solos, beautiful harmonies, love songs and heartbreak songs. But what you won’t get is bored. Members of the […]
Alexa Rose wrote most of Headwaters in the early stages of the pandemic, which she astutely characterizes as having “that weird lucid feeling of not-time.” Accordingly, there’s an eeriness about Rose’s second album; listening to its nine tracks feels like […]
Ana Egge has more than just her way with words. There’s an ever-interesting mastery over the music as well. Together, her creative talents are what make Between Us such a layered and lovely listening experience. Between Us is Egge’s is […]
The release of the 16th installment in Bob Dylan’s ongoing Bootleg Series, Springtime in New York, marks 30 years since the first three volumes appeared as a three-disc boxset in 1991. Three decades is an impressively lengthy career for anyone […]
On his three previous solo albums, José González showcased his mellifluous voice, bent for trancey atmospherics, and his adept guitar work that alternates between intricate fingerpicking and sultry strums. In 2010, González and Tobias Winterkorn, collaborating under the moniker Junip, […]
The Way Down Wanderers continue to grow, exploring new musical territory and plumbing new emotional depths on More Like Tomorrow with a new batch of songs that delve into loss and grief, resilience and hope, conflict and reconciliation, love and […]
For an artist on the cusp, 2020 was a particularly tough year. Unable to gain momentum with live shows and meeting new fans, many probably felt hopeless or forgotten. Julia Bardo channeled those emotions into songs about loneliness and isolation, […]
