New York-founded, Vancouver-grown, Los Angeles-based duo Bob Moses found their musical niche early on: smooth, gloomy synthpop with subtly driving beats, a balancing act between richly indulgent melancholy and tight grooves that speaks to the members’ backgrounds, Tom Howie’s in… Read More
I really never intended to start reading the comics page of the Sunday newspaper again. As a kid, I always read the funnies, but when I was old enough to start getting a paper myself, it was the New York… Read More
There’s something comforting about the sound of familiar music. No matter how dark the outside world may seem, we can huddle in our rooms by ourselves and play our favorite songs for consolation and reassurance. Nashville’s Molly Tuttle has taken… Read More
The cover of Freeze, Melt, the latest album from Australian electropop group Cut Copy, depicts a glimmering ocean wave rolling towards the camera and a snow-capped mountain looming in the backdrop against a soft blue sky. A row of treetops… Read More
People are strange. This is the lesson we learn from strangers. The English “strange” derives from the Old French estrange, which in turn derives from the Latin extraneus. Thus, that which is “strange” is extraneous to our usual understanding of… Read More
“Down here in the bottom, there ain’t no room for me. I don’t wanna make no babies, I don’t need a man to save me,” begins “SULA (Paperback)”, the latest single from Chicago singer, songwriter, rapper, poet, educator, and activist… Read More
Danny Kirwan – Second Chapter (1975) This album is the second chapter in Kirwan’s professional life, following his firing from Fleetwood Mac in 1972. He is a gifted guitarist and songwriter who seemed to have a dual persona: reportedly volatile and argumentative,… Read More
Drummer Jeff Cosgrove lives in the rural environs west of Washington, DC, making reasonably frequent appearances at DC clubs or in nearer-by Frederick, Maryland. But the musicians he often records and plays with are New York heavyweights such as pianist… Read More
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, UK-born, Berlin-based artist Planningtorock – otherwise known as Jam Rostron – was on the remote Estonian island of Hiiumaa, visiting their girlfriend’s parents. Suddenly the island shut down – and there they were stuck for… Read More
It’s tempting to compare the shebeens of apartheid-era South Africa to speakeasies elsewhere. Legal now, shebeens offered specific freedoms in a time of horrific oppression, both in terms of libation — Black South Africans were not allowed to drink at… Read More