Hi Lo Ha’s intriguing new offering Ain’t Gone Tonight opens in the gentle daze of its leading track “Cold Weather Clothes,” a slow churning journey through a sonic oasis delicately pieced together in an ethereal patchwork woven by its four equally talented players. Its essential harmony isn’t buried in feedback but instead presented to us in an extremely vulnerable clarity that creates a unique feeling of intimacy between the listener and Hi Lo…
“I’m so proud of my dogs, I don’t care if I’m not what you thought” Mike Ra announces in his single “Dogs,” out now courtesy of the masterminds behind DXB Studios. In a slowly unfolding chapter play of verses that swing and slide along the lines of Desiigner without the glaze of neo-G overproduction. I hear a lot of Future and early Young Thug when I listen to Mike Ra,…
Although I just recently became familiar with her work, I must say that singer/songwriter Cat Dail’s discography has been becoming a bit of a regular in my playlist lately. Her sixth studio album Fight For Love grabbed my attention immediately the first time that I gave it a spin as an indie pop/rock record easily in contention for album of the summer, and for good reason. Its excellent fusion of…
It’s not the easiest task in the world to balance soft lyrics with loud, unruly guitar driven music, regardless of the general manner in which an artist chooses to deliver their craft. Rock music, country, punk rock, heavy metal, whatever you want to call yourself; the tantalizing equilibrium of music that can move us emotionally as much as it can physically is one that every artist seeks out from the…
Disobey is the third album from the Seattle band The Refusers and solidifies their position as one of the more politically active rock bands in recent history. They’ve garnered considerable renown as a band opposed to vaccinations, distrustful of virtual any organized institution in American life, and clearly of the opinion that we are getting the collective shaft as a nation. They bring us into their world from the first…
In his first single “My One & Only Love,” ShaQ:Muzik gave us an incredibly intimate and wildly sonic love song that got R&B and electronica fans very intrigued with his unique blend of slick, stylish grooves. The track shimmered with what seemed like a million different colors colliding into one another like a reckless but loving embrace. It was a feast for our ears, and he made sure to keep…
Conor Gains has earned a well deserved reputation as a singer/songwriter on the rise thanks to his work with the Conor Gains Band, but his first solo release Compass is a ten song collection representing how his expanding ability for realizing his musical and lyrical vision has taken a quantum leap forward. The process of assembling Compass has been a lengthy one and Gains pared down nearly a hundred songs…
Forget the Super Bowl, if you can figure out a way to predict who is going to dominate Top 40 radio in the next decade, you’re going to be one incredibly rich individual. It’s true, there is perhaps no other facet of pop culture as totally and unreliably volatile as popular music. Society’s taste in music changes a lot faster than its taste in politicians or trite sitcoms, and when…
New York’s Greg Jacquin has released the full-length album, Hudson River. According to his biography, Jacquin traces his roots and inspiration to the Hudson Valley. He was born in Sleepy Hollow, New York, in 1970. Jacquin’s release is one of the more impressive Americana albums to come along in 2018 – his pulse putting to music feelings of being alone, depression and even people watching make Hudson River a two-thumbs…
If you thought the Pacific Northwest was the only place that grungy music could be cultivated, The Twindows are here to tell you to think again, with their debut album Valkyrie 2.0, out now on CD and digital download. Perhaps just as grimy as the I-5 corridor that links Seattle and Portland is the gritty industrial graveyard that is central Pennsylvania. Once the center of the western world’s steel industry,…
