Archive: 2022

Courtney Barnett today announces ‘Here And There,’ a boutique touring festival with a rotating line-up featuring many of the most exciting songwriters in music today. This August and September, Barnett will take the one-day, one-stage festival to 15 locations around North America, each city with an extraordinary and unique line-up.  Joining Barnett at various points […]

Guitarist Stone Gossard says Pearl Jam is recording new music and working on a new album — interesting considering the music from 2020’s Gigaton, arguably the band’s best effort since 1994’s Vitaology, has yet to be toured. “We’ve recorded some songs,” he said. “We’re on our way.” He also mentioned that starting next week he will begin […]

This summer, legendary Newport Jazz Festival returns to historic Fort Adams State Park, July 29 – 31. Today, Thursday, March 24, Newport Jazz announces its 2022 line-up along with a tribute to late Newport Jazz and Newport Folk Festival Founder George Wein featuring very special guests to be announced. This year’s festival features Norah Jones, Esperanza […]

FREAKONS has delivered a self-titled, stirring studio album combining Midwestern Americana/folk with the English/Welsh traditional tunes, all based around soot-covered coal songs. The project combines two bands as Freakwater’s Janet Bean and Catherine Irwin join forces with The Mekons Jon Langford and Sally Timms. Both outfits have been running in the same punk/alternative/folk circles for […]

These are unprecedented times to be living through and the Philadelphia-based, experimental hardcore outfit Soul Glo are trying to therapeutically scream their way through the pain.  The four-piece (vocalist Pierce Jordan, guitarist Ruben Polo, bassist, vocalist, and programmer Gianmarco “GG” Guerra, and drummer TJ Stevenson) put punk, hardcore, screamo, hip-hop, and more into a blender, […]

Jon is the former frontman for the band Rainmaker who found their fans among the jamband and world music scene. The band’s second album, Long Slow Fade, reached #2 on the jambands.com radio chart and featured Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart. Chi has gone on to create two solo efforts, Just For Now and Another […]

If you’ve ever lost a dog, you can relate to the poignant stages of grief and reflection. Composer and bandleader Michael Leonhart does exactly that with his The Normyn Suites, inspired by the life and death of his 15-year-old dog, a female mini dachshund named Normyn. This requiem and celebration may seem relatively tame at […]

Although saxophonist Mark Turner has been a valued sideman on several ECM projects recently, Return from the Stars marks his first ECM recording as a leader of his quartet since 2014’s Lathe of Heaven. Although this recording at times swings and is somewhat structured, Turner’s writing and the absence of a chordal instrument provide a […]

One cannot help but be impressed by this mammoth undertaking by producer Stefany Calembert, with help from her husband, veteran bassist Reggie Washington. Fueled by the social unrest and protests in the summer of 2020, Calembert obtained funding from the Brussels government to commission a new work on the subject of racism and Black realities. […]

Happily fall through the looking glass with “Bombshell”, the reverb-drenched single off Tommy and the Ohs debut album “Mariposa Gold”. A feel-good tune despite danger seemingly lurking around every corner, “Bombshell” is the classic “country music goes surfing in California” tale that sets the surreal tone for the rest of the genre-blending album. “Bombshell’ was […]

Sometimes just a little bit can accomplish a whole lot. That is shown to be the case both in the instrumentation and the storytelling with “Land of Plenty”. Fitted with only a voice, acoustic guitars, and sparse, ethereal keys, Toronto’s Abigail Lapell bridges current events with lessons from the past in the time-honored tradition of Woody […]

This summer, Marco Benevento pulls back the curtain on his latest studio effort, simply titled, Benevento. Due June 10 on Royal Potato Family, the 11-track collection presents 40-minutes of small-batch psychedelia, bubbled up from his home studio (Fred Short Studios) at the base of the Catskill Mountains in Woodstock, NY. Its title nods to Paul […]

Eminent Malian guitarist Vieux Farka Touré will release his new album Les Racines via World Circuit Records on June 10. Known as the “Hendrix of the Sahara,” Touré is the son of the late “Desert Blues” pioneer Ali Farka Touré; Les Racines is Touré’s debut album for World Circuit and his first since 2017. The […]

For Mike Campbell and crew, “Breakdown” took on a whole new meaning on March 20th, as the band’s tour bus had a mechanical failure which had the potential to sideline the Knobs’ second show of the weekend at Boston’s legendary gem, Brighton Music Hall (formerly Harper’s Ferry). The band had played the night before, where […]

When you add up the respective years that Ministry, Melvins, and Corrosion of Conformity have been playing, the sum is a rather mind-blowing 120 years. It might stand to reason, then, that at least one of these bands should be slowing down. Eventually, the energy should wane, right? Wrong. Each a pivotal player in the […]

Like Rhiannon Giddens and Dom Flemons, Paula Boggs has continually gone above her steadfast role as a musician to let music serve a greater purpose. The Seattle-based “soulgrass” singer sings with the urgency of Janiva Magness and the relentless charisma of Yola, yet retains a sense of linear musical motion that transcends typical pop song […]

An idiosyncratic artist with a background in classical piano, Stacy Antonel makes jazzy, country-leaning, clever Americana that feels both vintage and hyper-modern at the same time. Rooted in classic country but influenced by jazz, pop, and R&B, her throwback “country jazz” style conjures the 20s-30s musical era when jazz and country weren’t such disparate genres. […]

Less than six months after releasing their Feel the Light EP, Oklahoma’s Beau Jennings & the Tigers are back again, this time with a full length entitled Heavy Light. Though a little uneven in places, it’s a decent mix of classic roots rock and modern Americana. The album opens on the Petty-esque “Sunflower,” a song […]