With the recent boom of female singer-songwriters in the past few years, there is reason to believe that there is room for all the talent in the world, even if you’re not the second coming of Lucinda Williams—you don’t have to write the next Car Wheels on a Gravel Road to make a decent living. But, the truth is simple for McCarley: if her first offering, Love, Save the Empty, gives us any hint about what is to come, it’s that her musical pulse is not to be denied.
Take a journey through Rachael Sage’s newest album, Chandelier, and you’ll find an independent artist asking many questions. Some are basic, some are personal, and some probably don’t have worthy answers. But the point is, Sage still doesn’t hesitate to inquire, and that is something you’ll need to know as you listen to her music.
Regina Spektor is pretty damn special. Special enough that for this trip to the Gateway City, she sold out The Pageant, which holds around 2,000. On a Monday night. With Thanksgiving and Christmas just around the corner.
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.
On Long Island Shores, Smith pervades her distinctly gentle voicing amidst soft modern country ballads and light gales of folk-pop textures.
With her latest album, Another Kind of Fire, Edie Carey has created another completely listenable, imminently catchy album. Released in September, this is the perfect album for autumn: reflective, a bit overcast (but not so much as to be depressing), and, like the gorgeous dying leaves, completely enjoyable.
In today’s world of rock, it’s hard enough for musicians to get a good gig, no less shine in the sound department. Alexa Ray Joel, 21, is up for the challenge. Yes, she is the daughter of the one and only Billy Joel and super-model Christie Brinkley, but she’s far from living in her father’s shadow.
n her Matador Records debut, Over the Mountain, Across the Valley, and Back to the Stars, Jennifer O’Connor delivers a pleasant album full of hum-along melodies.
Somehow, whenever Edie Carey and Holly Figueroa get together for a show at Seattle’s Tractor Tavern, the weather seems incapable of cooperating. Such was the case for Monday’s show, during which Seattle got a wicked (to borrow from Carey’s Bostonian vocabulary) snow and ice storm, leaving the roads unto impassable.
or the first time in years, Ani DiFranco recently took some time off, as the touring grind was finally wearing her down. Following a live album (Carnegie Hall 4/6/02) released earlier this year, DiFranco has returned with Reprieve. Never one to back down from a political firestorm, DiFranco was forced to leave New Orleans during Reprieve
