Pastel Reflections is a delicate track that immediately invites listeners in to Kern’s inimitable style. With each composition building with craftsman-like precision, listeners will be touched. There needs to be nothing more than Kern’s piano to create a richness of sound that emanates through rooms. Kern’s greatest strength on Enchanted Piano is in the arrangements. Each of the album’s cuts works well as an isolated track, but they provide ample…
The Explorers Club, a band hailing from Charleston, SC, has hit #27 on the Billboard Heatseekers chart following the first week of sales of their new album, “Grand Hotel.” (The album was released on February 14, 2012 through Rock Ridge Music, with distribution via ADA.) This is the band’s biggest sales week ever by far. Mark Linett, who mixed The Beach Boys’ “SMiLE” for Capitol Records, was responsible for the…
Frank Steiner, Jr is a brave performer. On Into Forever, Steiner’s new title, things get started with a ten-minute opening track (Love’s Whisper). It is due to Steiner’s ability as a musician and as a composer that this gambit pays off. Love’s Whisper has a panoply of different elements, establishing the track as something scintillating. Different movements provide listeners with a constantly-changing experience; the one constant that Into Forever possesses…
The opening track to Stellar Connection, Portal Quest, does a tremendous job in setting up the rest of the album. The haunting melodies and urban soundscapes that issue forth provide a foreboding sense of dread. David’s ability to speak directly to his listeners is why this disc gets off of the starting blocks with such momentum. Plenty of Space builds off of Portal Quest, and it is this six-minute track…
In 2011, Swedish House Mafia sold out Madison Square Garden in 10 minutes. David Guetta headlined the Ultra Music Festival in Miami in front of 100,000 ravenous party people. This was the year when Electronic Dance Music (EDM) returned with a vengeance to make its rightful claim as a cultural force and a lifestyle. While dance clubs around the US have never been empty, the past 12 months saw the…
FIREHORSE is the captivating new project from singer/songwriter/instrumentalist Leah Siegel. In Sept 2011 the Brooklyn outfit released the eclectic debut, And so they ran faster… and the album has received praise from the LA Times, Wall Street Journal, NPR, Paste, Teen Vogue, MOKB & The L Mag, to name a few. Firehorse was recently named NPR’s “Next Big Band from NYC,” a Paste Magazine “Best of What’s Next” and one…
The sheer amount of different bands that are trying to make a name for themselves creating some variant of metal is astronomical. One would be shocked if they saw the sheer amount of flotsam that we had to wade through before picking up Psycroptic’s latest album, Inherited. I believe it is the determination of the act that makes this album so strong. Carriers of the Plague is the album’s first…
Denver sludge/grind trio CLINGING TO THE TREES OF A FOREST FIRE have just confirmed a Spring tour for the second half of March. The 7 Years Of Disillusion Tour will storm through fifteen American cities between March 13th and April 1st, including an assault on the Northeast with shows throughout three of NYC’s boroughs alongside Connecticut’s Sea Of Bones. CTTTOAFF 7 Years Of Disillusion Tour: 3/13/2012 La Casa Sam –…
The inimitable artist Tim Fite is currently premiering a brand new song from his upcoming album Ain’t Ain’t Ain’t out March 6th via ANTI- Records. The track is entitled “Joyriding” and vividly evokes the budding freedom and romantic adventure of youth. While Fite’s previous works addressed distinctly adult issues with a youthful exuberance, Ain’t Ain’t Ain’t is, in many ways, their thematic opposite. The central focus of the new record…
Ever the pragmatists, Parenthetical Girls are in the midst of releasing Privilege–the band’s new full length–as a box set of five extremely limited 12″ EPs on their own Slender Means Society label. These EPs will be sold separately in sequence every quarter over the next 15 months, each as they are completed. They will not be distributed to stores. As the cycle concludes, the fifth and final 12″ will come…
There is a sense that jazz as an art form is something that is stale and stagnant. Metta Quintet looks to challenge this conception of the genre through their Big Drum / Small World EP. This disc, which collects five distinct tracks, is the best way to familiarize oneself with the music and style of the act. Big Drum / Small World begins with From Here Onwards, an expansive effort…
Wallpaper. is ready to ignite the “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” stage on February 29, as leader Ricky Reed and band will make their late night television debut. The rambunctious triple-drumming, genre-bending, sweat-inducing Wallpaper. will perform his newest single, “F***ING BEST SONG EVERRR,” just as that track is beginning to infiltrate Rhythmic and Top 40 Radio nationwide. Z-Trip w Booth Just this past week, Wallpaper. has been added to the annual Coachella…
Thomas is a performer that has been tirelessly doing their work for over a decade. On With Love, eir newest album, Thomas is able to reinvent eirself and keep the following 10 tracks as fresh as possible. This is done by sticking one of the disc’s most memorable tracks, Where Was I, up front and center on the release. By sticking a hook into listeners, Thomas is able to take…
The nominees for the 2012 JUNO Awards were announced by The Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences in Toronto recently. Rock band Downhere was once again honored with a nomination for Contemporary Christian/Gospel Album of the Year for their current CD, On The Altar Of Love. The group has won three of their five career nominations, including for their last studio project in 2009, Ending Is Beginning. The Juno…
With the current success at the cinema of The Artist & Martin Scorsese’s Hugo (not itself a silent film but its main storyline centres on the work of the early cinematic pioneer Georges Méliès) everyone is talking about a silent film revival. Eureka’s Masters of Cinema catalogue invites the viewer to sample a vast body of work that makes use of the silent aesthetic, featuring films from Murnau (Sunrise,…
After announcing the launch party lineup earlier this week, the British Music Embassy is excited to announce its full SXSW ’12 lineup, with events commencing on Monday, March 12th and lasting until Saturday, March 17th. The UK is the only nation represented at SXSW by its own dedicated venue, Latitude 30, located at 512 San Jacinto Blvd in downtown Austin. Sixty plus bands perform across the week from all four…
Track Listing 1. Hells Needs Calvary 2. Intriguing Dilemma 3. Background 4. Invisible Ink 5. Perfect Enemy (Sushi Dinners) 6. Even 7. Inebriated Afterthoughts 8. Bad Bluff 9. Temporary Temperaments 10. Common Theme Bourbon-based modern Motown bluesman Sean Davenport is no stranger to aborted romance. The Bonita born pianist spent the better part of his young adulthood stumbling from Boston to New York to L.A. and back to San Diego,…
The Freihofer’s Saratoga Jazz Festival, one of the most celebrated and longest-running jazz events in the world, will celebrate its landmark 35th Anniversary at Saratoga Performing Arts Center, June 30 and July 1, with a dynamic lineup of more than 20 acclaimed artists and ensembles on two stages. Festival headliners include Diana Krall, Chris Botti, Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue, Esperanza Spalding “Radio Music Society,” Hiromi Trio Project, Yellowjackets, and…
Tiny Engines (Tigers Jaw, CSTVT, Look Mexico, Restorations) welcomed Santa Rosa, CA’s State Faults (formerly Brother Bear) into its fold late last year. The band has completed their debut full-length, Desolate Peaks, and the record will be released on 12″ vinyl in April 2012 with pre-orders coming soon. You can hear a brand new song, “Sleeptalker”, on Alternative Press right now! You can also stream another new song, “Arrowhead”, from…
The story of Sara Radle’s music career is one that began in San Antonio, Texas in the late 90’s but she is probably most known for being the reason The Rentals reunited in 2005. In 1996, at the age of seventeen, she began carving out a name for herself in the Texas music scene with punk-pop trio Lucy Loves Schroeder and her own solo project. Eight years later, ex-Weezer bassist…