In more than one way, Eyes Rest Their Feet is a bittersweet listen. The debut album of duo Thaba is one packed with expansive synths and deep emotions. The latter depth comes largely by way of Cape Town-based vocalist Khusi… Read More
Multi-instrumentalist and singer Sam Amidon reworks the nine folk songs on his eponymously titled album because they were familiar to him and associated with personal memories. The original material is recognizable even in its contemporary garb and includes such popular… Read More
Like many elder millennials, my 1990s childhood consisted of a steady diet of MTV’s Total Request Live, Cool Ranch Doritos, and The Baby-Sitters Club books. The series, by Ann M. Martin, tells the story of five teenagers who start an… Read More
From as early as his teenage years, it was plain that Warren Zevon was never going to be an ordinary person, or at the very least an ordinary writer. In the oral biography compiled by his first wife Crystal, I’ll… Read More
The ‘people’s history’ approach to thinking about and interpreting the past has gained momentum over the last few decades. From Howard Zinn’s indispensable A People’s History of the United States in 1980 to the ReVisioning History series from Beacon Press… Read More
Why shouldn’t jazz and metal find a common cause? A good slice of both genres thrive and precision, complexity, and instrumental prowess. The composer (and sometime saxophonist) John Zorn put them together in bands Naked City and Pain Killer a… Read More
In 1977, Randy Newman had the biggest hit song of his career, “Short People”, which somewhat incredibly made it to number two on the Billboard Hot 100. It attracted a fair amount of controversy by people who didn’t realize that… Read More
Ron Miles’ last album, 2017’s I Am a Man was elite. It brought together a striking band—his triomates Bill Frisell on guitar and drummer Brian Blade, along with Frisell’s bassist Thomas Morgan and the always-interesting pianist Jason Moran. The Miles… Read More
6 April 2020, “The Quarantine Concerts”: This is the first time I remember hearing David Grubbs like this, and I was unmoored by the presentation and the humble kind of luminosity to it all. Grubbs doesn’t break his poker face… Read More
John Ford launched his career as a feature director with a string of more than 20 wildly successful westerns starring cowboy actor Harry Carey, who often played an iconic character type known as “the good bad man”. Only a handful… Read More