Recent GRAMMY ® nominated female vocalist and dove award forerunner Natalie Grant was honored with five nominations for this year’s 43rd Annual GMA Dove Awards, including the prestigious “Female Vocalist of the Year,” a title Grant has been honored with four consecutive years in a row. Her husband, Bernie Herms, named “Producer of the Year” in 2009, garnered four nods and is again nominated for the same title. Herms and…
Everything is coming up Mishka Shubaly. The busted songwriter turned writer had a huge 2011– his Kindle Single “Shipwrecked” went to number one over Jonathan Krakauer and David Baldacci and won him the opportunity to tell his story live for The Moth Radio Hour, which was broadcast around the country by NPR and included on The Moth’s most recent two CD collection. In October, his Kindle Single “The Long Run”…
Our Version of Events — the debut album from Capitol Records’ artist Emeli Sandé — debuted on the UK Album Chart at No. 1 this week. Due for release in the U.S. on June 5th, Our Version of Events is a powerful platform for Sandé’s rich, soulful voice and sophisticated songwriting. As Q magazine put it: “She’s made an album that deserves to linger in the limelight — passionate, powerful,…
Few games have taken full advantage of the Nintendo 3DS console. There seems to be a desire for companies to cut corners and use only the lowest amounts of the console’s power; Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympics, on the other hand, pushes the console to its limits. I believe that the 3DS version of Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympics is also special because it…
Pond’s US tour kicks off in two weeks, with the band playing their very first US show on their album release day in DC. Pond will also be at SXSW, stay tuned for showcase and party announcements in the coming weeks. Mixed by Kevin Parker (Tame Impala) and Rob Grant at Poon’s Head Studio in Perth, Beard, Wives, Denim is an audio diary of ten friends’ strange, terrible and blissful…
There are so many different supplements currently on the market that look to take the herbs and mixtures of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), but it seems as if verifiable medical reports have proven only the effect that caffeine has in providing energy and weight loss to those that take it. Prolab has created this product and has taken caffeine from a wide variety of sources – Cocoa Extract, White Tea,…
Just weeks before the Passion World Tour hits Vancouver, and alongside the March 13 release of the Passion: White Flag live album, Passion founder and recent GRAMMY ® nominee Louie Giglio will debut the latest in the 900,ooo+ selling Passion Talk Series, SYMPHONY, I LIFT MY HANDS. As seen by over 200,000 people on the 50-city Chris Tomlin “And If Our God Is For Us… Tour,” SYMPHONY, I LIFT MY…
I believe that it has taken The Duke Spirit a few years to get a proper amount of traction. This is not to say that their previous albums have been weak, but that Bruiser represents a coherent effort that exemplifies what the band is and what they want to do on their releases. Cherry Tree is the opening effort on Bruiser, and its blend of Blues and rock will appease…
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…