For over 35 years, 63 year old James McMurtry has been one of America’s most literate and quietly powerful songwriters. The Black Dog and the Wandering Boy, his eleventh studio album, and his first in four years, is further proof of his enduring craft.
Mary Chapin Carpenter’s Personal History is sad, lonely, nostalgic, reflective and, most of all, painfully honest.
Van Morrison fans tend to be loyal. My friend Tim named his dog after the musician. And back when I was 21, I was besotted enough with Van to go to Ireland and take a train south of Dublin just to walk The Streets of Arklow (a favourite song off 1974’s Veedon Fleece).
There’s always been a streak of theatrical grit in Kate Vargas’s music, emphasised by a taste for the surreal, the Southern Gothic, the seen-it-all-before drawl. Across the eleven restless tracks on Golden Hour in the House of Lugosi, she blends jazz touched textures, rock and roll swagger, and off kilter ballads. Where her last album […]
I’ve only listened to this “debut” album by Neil Young and his “new” band, The Chrome Hearts once, and I probably won’t be returning to it anytime soon.
Cosey Fanni Tutti is one half of industrial synthpop act Chris & Cosey, the two remaining living members of 70/80s groundbreaking Industrial act Throbbing Gristle. On her latest solo album, 2t2, the last being Tutti in 2019, Cosey has given us nine new compositions, composed, recorded and produced exclusively by her.
Gasoline Lollipops took their name from a moment of surreal inspiration during a teenage psychedelic experience that shaped and defined their creative spirit. Sweet and volatile, strange yet grounded, the phrase captures the musical and emotional dualities that have defined this Colorado-based group for over a decade.
The first time I saw Jazmine Mary live was at Auckland’s Ministry of Folk, in February 2021. They shared the stage with BEING., and together they performed a set that included a haunting version of Jolene. Later that evening, phones buzzed with the news that New Zealand was heading back into Alert Level 3. Another lockdown. […]
Dee Dee Bridgewater and Bill Charlap have consummated their on again, off again live affair with a first recording together in Elemental.
There’s something otherworldly about Phoebe Rings’ debut album: a somewhat mysterious title and a sound as transporting as the band’s name suggests. And maybe it’s just what we need in these times.