Archive: 2020

The discoveries of unheard performances and unreleased albums have buoyed the jazz landscape in recent years. In fact, two years ago this month, this writer posted a review of MONK, an unissued release of a Thelonious Monk 1963 concert in Copenhagen on the Gearbox label. This past July we brought you Just Coolin’, a 1959 […]

Surely, we all miss live music, especially when you hear the rollicking jump blues on this latest recording, Too Far from the Bar, by the venerable Sugar Ray and the Bluetones.  In fact, due to the virus we cannot say that the New England blues scene is thriving but albums from Anthony Geraci (Daydreams in […]

Gillian Welch has announced the release of Boots No. 2: The Lost Songs, Vol. 2 via Acony Records on September 18th. Vol. 2 is the second installment of the newly unearthed and celebrated cache of home demos and reel-to-reel recordings from the vault of Welch and Rawlings and was recorded between the making of Time […]

The James McMurtry Band’s Blast From the Past is out today. The new and previously unreleased EP, featuring McMurtry on vocals and guitar, Ronnie Johnson on bass and Daren Hess on drums, was recorded live at the Continental Club in 2006. The singer-songwriter is donating 100% of sales to the legendary Continental Club (which has […]

Neil Young’s career arguably contains more milestones than any peer of his this side of Bob Dylan or Van Morrison. And After the Gold Rush (released 8/31/70) is certainly one of them, if for no other reason than it represents perhaps his greatest act of independence, a reaffirmation of his insistence, as the Sixties turned […]

Omnivore Recordings continues its series of expanded reissues of Little Richard’s ’70s and ’80s albums with 1972’s The Second Coming and 1986’s Lifetime Friend. Both are set for October 23, 2020 release. These collections continued the rocker’s successful album career, which followed his explosive, genre-launching run of late ’50s singles on Specialty Records: “Tutti Frutti,” “Long Tall Sally,” “Rip It Up,” “Lucille,” […]

What if your heartbreak was actually art?

From her debut Strangers Who Knew Each Other’s Names, her EP East Twenties and her second full-length Broken Into Pieces, produced by Nigel Stonier (Thea Gilmore), Dressner has taken her experience in musical theater and morphed into an acclaimed singer-songwriter, her music delivered with a conversational ease that often seems as if she is reading from an intimate letter set […]

Purple Witch of Culver is a unique meeting of forces by Sarah Safaie and Evan Taylor, the Echo Park-based duo exploring a diverse cross section of music and poetry. Raised on bebop and straight-ahead jazz before an obsession with Parliament-Funkadelic (the other Jazz kids took to calling her “funky child”) illuminated other musical avenues, Safaie […]

When Doves announced that they were on an “indefinite hiatus” after playing their last gig in October 2010, many fans were justifiably concerned that we had seen the last of the British indie rockers. After all, while Manchester has many great bands, they aren’t necessarily known for reuniting for much more than a gig or […]

Multi-Grammy award-winners trumpeter/Flugelhornist Randy Brecker and versatile saxophonist Eric Marienthal have long been friends and on-stage collaborators (Jeff Lorber, GRP Big Band) but are teaming for their first co-led album, Double Dealin’. Saxophonist Marienthal is a former member of the Chick Corea Elektric Band and has recorded 13 solo albums and performed with Elton John, […]

Some TV series deserve an encore, a trip down memory lane to revel in all its glory and keep the memory alive. If you hadn’t read the title, all that needs mentioning is David Hasselhof and those slow-motion runs across the beach – and you would almost instantly arrive at Baywatch. If you didn’t, have […]

Third Man Records is excited to announce Southeast of Saturn, a collection of music from Detroit’s space-rock/shoegaze/dream pop scene of the ‘90s, to be released November 20, 2020 digitally and on vinyl. To celebrate the announcement, Third Man has shared Majesty Crush‘s “No. 1 Fan” — listen to it below. Exclusive limited edition copies of Southeast Of Saturn on Deep Space […]

On October 9th, Future Islands will release their sixth full length album As Long As You Are and perform their only show of 2020. The Baltimore group have been road warriors for over a decade, touring extensively every year without fail and earning widespread praise for their incendiary live performances” Now, 2020 will mark the first […]

Bruce Springsteen’s new studio album with the E Street Band, Letter To You, will be released by Columbia Records on October 23. A rock album fueled by the band’s heart-stopping, house-rocking signature sound, the 12 track Letter To You is Springsteen’s 20th studio album, and was recorded at his home studio in New Jersey. “I […]

In anticipation of Serpentine Prison, the upcoming debut solo record from Matt Berninger—frontman of  The National—Berninger is premiering the new single “One More Second” alongside a lyric video. “I wrote “One More Second” with Matt Sheehy (Lost Lander, EL VY) with the intention for it to be a kind of answer to Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love […]

Jimmy Chamberlin Complex discovers Honor in a time sorely in need on its exhilarating new LP, out September 25th on Make Records. The acclaimed Smashing Pumpkins drummer collaborates with Billy Mohler, Sean Woolstenhulme, Frank Catalano and Kneebody members Adam Benjamin, Ben Wendell and Shane Endsley “I looked around,” drummer Jimmy Chamberlin said recently, “and I thought what – in […]

David Quinn likes to write in his old pick-up truck. Most of the songs on his second solo album, the sharp-tongued, open-hearted Letting Go (out 10/23/20), came to him during a ramble around the Midwestern countryside. “Driving is one of my favorite things to do. There’s something special about heading somewhere, but it’s not necessarily about where […]