All right, The Cure fills a rather large, shadowy, lovelorn pair of shoes. That didn't stop a bunch of people from trying.
Pandora Radio took online music streaming to a whole new level with their Music Genome Project—tagging songs with over 400 musical attributes like “minor key tonality” and “subtle latin rhythms.” One of the aural geniuses near the center of the project is Bay Area resident Michael Zapruder, who carries the is-this-my-dream-job title of “Music Curator” for Pandora. No wonder his new solo release is like strolling through a contemporary showcase of some of the best creativity indie music has to offer.
The bodies of the musicians in Weird Owl may be located in modern day Brooklyn, but their spirits are somewhere on the Wyoming or Montana frontier a couple hundred years ago. Relapsing into past lives is just something that Weird Owl does on their first full-length album, Ever the Silver Cord be Loosed.
For awhile there, it looked like U2 were finally back on track. Starting in 2000, when the band atoned for their past sins. In Bono’s words they “reapplied for the job… of the best band in the world” with the fantastic All That You Can’t Leave Behind, followed by 2004’s almost as stellar How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb.
This is the sort of music that makes 20-somethings remember what it's like to be a teenager and 30-somethings remember how it feels to be 25.
Or something.
Mining influences as varied as the Beatles (before they discovered LSD and meditation), Buddy Holly and power poppers like Milk N’ Cookies, Central Pennsylvania’s The Tamboureens sound like nothing being released today… and that’s a very good thing.
In the early 1990s, major record labels were binging and purging on Seattle bands like a bulimic at an all-you-can-eat-buffet.
We are living in the age of what’s old is now new – or at least still old and now very cool and hip – be it fashion or music. Well, this is a music publication, so feel free to get your fashion kicks elsewhere. Psychedelic rock isn’t making as big of a comeback as leggings or big-ass sunglasses, but when a current band does psychedelic rock right, it is quite a joy.
Long Island’s Danny Rocco aims pretty high with his debut The Future is Now, going beyond the staid and routine songs his peers have been churning out. Unfortunately, he doesn’t always reach the intended heights. The acoustic strumming, singer songwriter (backed by the band End the Stars) starts the album of with the strongly original, addictive title track “The Future is Now,” but the rest of the album tries, and for the most part fails, to live up to that first song.
At 75, and with a legacy as a national musical treasure already firmly cemented, you’d think Willie Nelson would at least take a little time off to relax. On average, the prolific cowboy churns out at least two or three releases a year. This year looks to be no different.
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More Articles from IW!
These Canadians are a hard band to pinpoint, but that is also the reason they are so damn fun to listen to.
Every town should have, assuming that it is a place worth living, a band like the Soul Movers. It makes for a great night out. Real music performed in bars for real people with real beer.
Ari Up and Tessa Pollitt are back with a band whose ingredients — punk, reggae, hip hop, and even middle eastern music — have had enough time to blend, ferment, and become spicy, pungent, and tasty.
The Chicago-based post-rock unit Russian Circles is a three-piece group known for their instrumental approach to post-hardcore/post-melodic.
A friend asked me to describe The Prairie Cartel’s sound to him, and the first thing to come to mind was “electronic rock you could dance to while punching someone in the face.”
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