Yoav, though, is something different. The guy has a voice capable of – or perhaps pushed to be – all things: he sounds just as good singing in falsetto as in a gravelly, crooner-ish voice.
Tori Amos has a knack for picking male singer/songwriters with looper pedals types to open for her. Thing is, she does a good job of it. In a recent show at Seattle’s Paramount Theatre, singer Yoav (who has yet to release a full-length, and yet is somehow opening for Tori Amos) put on an excellent set.
The recent show by Maximo Park and Travis at Seattle’s historic Moore Theatre was one to remember – high-energy, with great music and even better performances. Opener Maximo Park, already big in Europe, is relatively unknown in the States, despite regular recent airplay on KEXP (90.3fm/KEXP.org) and other college stations; if the show they put on opening for Travis is any indication, they will soon be much better known.
Master collaborator James Lavelle has arisen again as UNKLE, releasing UNKLE’s third album, War Stories, after a four-year hiatus since Never, Never, Land. Unsurprisingly, given that UNKLE is the work of a multi-person collaborative effort, War Stories is a mixed bag of quality tracks and songs that will be gone from your recollection as soon as they end.
Some musical pairings, in the form of openers and headliners, simply shouldn’t happen. Others are matches made for memory. The latter is the case in the current Eric Bachmann/Josh Ritter tour match-up, with the former Archers of Loaf and current Crooked Fingers frontman opening for Ritter and his band.
Spanish for 100 is yet another recent Seattle “buzz” band, securing a coveted designation as “your new favorite band” by KEXP’s John in the Morning. One can’t help but listen to their recent album Say What You Want To Say To Me with a mixture of doubt and the desire to not buy into the aforementioned hype – and yet, the catchy, driven album has a way of worming its way under one’s skin. Their formula is nothing new: two guitars, a solid rhythm section
Eat Me, Drink Me is fairly classic Manson, if perhaps lightened up a bit. His voice is every bit as crusty, dark, and angry as ever, and the synths, bass and drums pound out their usual aggressive anger, but the guitar work, in particular, seems to have lightened up, with occasional riffs that don’t sway too far from slack guitar while other guitar lines are straight-up rock ‘n roll.
One would have thought only Joanna Newsom could sound like Joanna Newsom…yet somehow, Anais Mitchell manages to sound like her. Or at least, to take elements of her childlike, nasal voice, and combine them with the much more classically beautiful, neo-folk sounds of Edie Carey or perhaps a more robust Rosie Thomas.
Stars of Track and Field is a three-piece indie pop band from Portland, Oregon. Paying reference to their elders of indie genre, their name is in reference to the Belle and Sebastian song of the same name found on their 1998 album – If You're Feeling Sinister. Glide recently met up with the Stars of Track and Field after their Seattle date and had the chance to talk with frontman Kevin Calaba. The conversation spanned songwriting, life on the road, and politics.
After a nearly 30-year hiatus (his last album of new works was released in 1978), the man now known first as Steven Georgiou, then as Cat Stevens, and now as simply Yusuf Islam, has put out a new album. And the new album, while clearly inspired and influenced by Yusuf’s spiritual journey of the last three decades, sounds remarkably like, well, Cat Stevens.
