2019 has been an exceptionally good year for independent musicians, and not very many in the bunch know this as well as AV Super Sunshine does. It wasn’t enough for AV to drop the remix LP Candyland on us over the summer; in his new single, which is also titled “Candyland,” the artist and his eponymous band prove to be the most diverse act in their scene with two mixes of a…
The five-song EP release New Language from the band TLA is a meeting of the minds with long term potential. TLA has a core of Jon Sortland from The Shins, The Pleased’s Jason Clark, and paper cut artist Tahiti Pehrson and their songwriting talents come together in a tight wound guitar-driven pop confection held together by sharp musicianship and superior songwriting. The material has to the point punch that makes this a…
Gold Light’s fourth album release Zephyr and frames Joe Chang’s songwriting talents in sharper relief than any previous collection. There’s nine songs included spanning a wide variety of thematic concerns and imagery but are anchored by an assortment of character types familiar to anyone who has followed Chang’s career to date. Chang has developed his songwriting talents by leaps and bounds with each successive release. His opening track “Cannon Street” is a…
A rollicking beat is adorned with crushing riffage the size of a skyscraper as we listen in on the first couple of bars in Lesibu Grand’s “Miranda,” but as the track presses on, what starts off as a Seattle-style grinder evolves into something that can only be described as pure, unadulterated Pixies worship. In Lesibu Grand’s debut record, The Legend of Miranda, this kind of string-powered thunder is par for the…
“When it was over it was mighty bad it was mighty bad / It was a heart attack / It was the worst damn time I ever had” croons the voice from beyond our speakers in the first three lines of Streaking in Tongues’ “Inside out and on My Ass,” one of the more seductive songs on the new album Oh My Darlin’. There’s a sense of apathy in this vocal,…
Culture Fix: How to Create a Great Place to Work from Liverpool, UK born author Colin Ellis is the latest entry in an ever growing library of books addressing the subject of organizational / corporate culture. It is difficult to conceive of a work more comprehensive and well-rounded on this subject; Ellis leaves no stone unturned in his appraisal of what it takes to implement and nurture a business culture that…
2019 has been offering up some of the most intriguing new hip-hop in a generation-plus, and among the more emotionally-charged efforts that I’ve heard out of the genre’s storied underground circuit on the west coast comes from none other than Hollywood’s Swigga Geovanni. Geovanni is a New York-born newcomer on the scene, but his first single, “DMLY (Daddy Mi Love You),” is a provocative, chicly-mixed power ballad seemingly tailor-made for…
Sonja Béets has devoted the better part of her life to creativity, and in her most recent work – the gilded “De Stad” – we get an up close and personal look at the fruits of her labor in high definition stereo sound. “De Stad,” a cut from Muzikale Stadswandeling, asks us to sit at attention amidst the unfurling of melodies that are at once cunning and simple, cruel and comforting,…
Like a wild wolf howling at the moon, the electric guitar that blasts a hole through the first ten seconds of Jeremy Rice’s “Arriianne” is intimidating, familiar and rife with intensity. The drums click into place and leave just enough space for the bassline to fill the background with warm tonality, and even before Rice starts serenading us with a punkish might, there’s a seditiousness to the undercurrent of percussion…
Few indie R&B singers are getting the sort of buzz that James Cole has been attracting as late, and it’s pretty obvious why when we take a look at his brand new single “Type of Guy,” which is out this August 23rd everywhere that highbrow urban pop is sold and streamed. Cole doesn’t pull any punches with us in this lyrical gem; contrarily, he wears his heart on his sleeve and gets right down to business…
