Posts by Chris Calarco

By alternating between expressive and easygoing folk-balladry and narrative, mid tempo rock n’ roll, Stories highlights Dawes’ enduring melodic focus. While many young bands fall prey to cheap songwriting thrills of loud n’ long histrionics, from the beginning Dawes has been cut from a different mold.

The Black Angels' recorded efforts have demonstrated a commitment to an assertive, dense, and kaleidoscopic worldview. While Indigo Meadow stays firmly rooted in these stylistic conventions it also offers some nuanced texture. By downsizing to a four piece the band has granted greater influence to producer and live mixer John Cagelton, resulting in a vibrant, compelling album with fresh production clout.

Following the dissolution of both his marriage and his first band, The Black Lillies’ founder Cruz Contreras spent a year on the road as a truck driver for a stone company in East Tennessee. Thus, after playing more than 200 shows in 2012 upon the release of The Lillies’ critically acclaimed debut, Contreras has lived a relentlessly nomadic existence. With its mix of pedal steel guitar, banjo, and crystalline harmonies, the melancholic and modern Appalachia-meets-Americana sound of second LP Runaway Freeway Blues is firmly rooted in the wandering spirit of a restless heart on the run.

When Sharon Van Etten joins Pickwick for a cover of Seattle indie-rock icon Richard Swift’s “Lady Luck,” their debut LP Can’t Talk Medicine reaches its zenith. The collaboration coalesces into a stone cold neo-soul classic. With a nod to Hall and Oates’ falsetto harmonies, “Lady Luck” is pitch-perfect; a patient rendering that exemplifies Pickwick’s triadic harmony of rock n’ roll, indie-blues, and classic soul.

FaltyDL is Drew Lustman from New York City by-way-of New Haven, CT. His pseudonym has been gaining steam in electronic music circles due in large part to his association with Thom Yorke and Radiohead. Lustman was invited to open for the iconic band at New York City’s Roseland Ballroom in 2012 but prior to this anointment he was an in-demand re-mixer for the xx, Scuba, Photek and many others. With the tastemakers listening closely, Lustman drops his first full length, Hardcourage on inimitable UK label Ninja Tune.

Chicago’s Speck Mountain is built around the song writing pair of Marie-Claire Balabanian and Karl Briedrick. On their third album, Badwater, the pair is joined by drummer Chris Dye (formerly of Chin Up Chin Up) and organist Linda Malonis and the band drafts a wide open, woozy statement of ambient rock n’ soul.

Unknown Mortal Orchestra's second album, aptly titled II, is being released on Jagjaguwar and the band shows off some musical evolution in its sly psych-rock skronk. An amalgamation of dusty, garage-rock production, cozy, “as if” sampled grooves, falsetto vocals and opaque funk nudge the band forward.

No one is making music like Free Energy. The Philadelphia-by-way-of-Minnesota five piece just self released their second full length, Love Sign, after parting ways with James Murphy’s DFA Records.

The Vaccines, one of the UK’s most buzzed about rock bands of the last few years just released their sophomore album, Coming of Age, on Columbia records.  The record debuted at #1 in England as that provincial land loves to push its native lads to the top of the pops fast, brash, and loud.

Niki and the Dove are an electro-pop trio from Stockholm, Sweden. Their first full length, Instinct, was recently released on Seattle’s legendary Sub Pop Records. The band generated significant blog hype last year with their first single “DJ, Ease My Mind”, a piece of jack-nugget ear candy that makes a lush and ominous case for the healing power of the dance floor.

This is a throwback to the moment college rock wrapped earnest woe and anger into the sweetest of melodies. Delayed Reaction is an example of a band that is deeply in touch with what they do best. There are no curve balls here, just fire from the heart.

When the band recorded and finished their third album this amorphous lack of center became self-evident and the band scrapped it, feeling as if they were on the verge of something. Founding members Stakee and Terry Wolfers hunkered down into the relationship that forms the core of Alberta Cross and edited, remixed, and wrote anew. Through the trials and tribulations comes the appropriately titled, Songs of Patience.

Todd Boston is an acoustic guitarist, flutist and multi-instrumentalist from the San Francisco Bay Area. His new album, Touched by the Sun was recorded across the country, in the vibrant, green hills of Vermont and his virtuoso guitar work is backed on record by a wide range of world class musicians including percussionist Jeff Haynes of Pat Metheny’s band, bassist Tony Levin of Peter Gabriel/King Crimson and Snatum Kaur on vocals

In his integration, MC Yogi represents a generation with limitless influences and big dreams of changing the world. His ability to express a vividly detailed and utterly unique identity is the heartbeat of a new paradigm that calls upon the wisdom of ancient Eastern tradition but stays firmly planted in the creative language of postmodern culture. Through this dialectical pulse we remake ourselves on a Pilgrimage toward consciousness.

Fulero//Lehe is the brainchild of keyboardist Asher Fulero and guitarist Sean Lehe. Having met on the west coast festival circuit the two road warriors found time to spend three days recording with bassist Mark Murphy and drummer Zach Bowden in Sacramento in 2011. Their self-released debut, Cocoon, is out now and is a creative amalgamation of Phish-influenced jams and Steely Dan jazz-rock. Fulero and Lehe split the writing duties on six originals and the band wisely chooses a cover of Radiohead’s “In Limbo”.

The Parlotones are the musical equivalent of drinking with your favorite crush. The one who likes to tease you by buying drinks with that knowing smile but only offers verbal tales of angst and confusion. You know its a little manipulative but damn it feels good. Then in the morning you’re confused. Why did you do that to yourself?

Constantly experimenting with a mélange of sounds and styles, Aufheben finds the band cooly combining an instrumental hybrid of modern garage rock, moody electronics, eastern-influenced dub-lite, and Velvet Underground cool.

With the Disco Biscuits existing in something of a musical purgatory these days, playing only large scale events like Camp Bisco and Mayan Holidaze, founding members Marc Brownstein (bass) and Aron Magner (keys) are focused squarely on Conspirator, the side project they developed in 2004. Enfolding guitarist Chris Michetti into a permanent guitar slot and calling on a rotating cast of talented livetronica drummers, the band just released Unlocked: Live from the Georgia Theater on SCI Fidelity.

Two years ago, Oregon native Scott Pemberton was hit by a car while riding his bike and given little chance to live.  A long standing member of the Portland music scene, Scott made a miraculous recovery and committed himself to starting a “solo” career after years of session playing and various bands. This past Friday night at the Doug Fir Lounge in Portland, Scott and an expanded band celebrated the release of his debut album, Sugar Mama, with a downright raucous celebration of life, love, and guitar pyrotechnics. 

Long celebrated for his ability to capture the mood of a specific American moment (New Jersey 1975, USA 1985, New York post 9/11,) Bruce Springsteen had his work cut out for him with his new album, Wrecking Ball. For such an earnest songwriter to strike a resonant tone in perhaps the greatest social, economic, and cultural upheaval in American history is no easy task