Buried in the sound of slumber, Rest is an ample title for the latest album by Gregor Samsa (MySpace). The music finds a home among fellow soft, melodic artists like Sigur Rös, mixing minimalism with composed instrumentation. Fittingly, guitar parts have mostly been replaced by piano – recorded on Philip Glass’s old Bösendorfer! Read More »Gregor Samsa: Rest [Album Review]
Watching a movie like Darren Aronofsky’s Pi – a brilliant black and white film about a mathematician attempting to find pattern in the stock market, and further, a pattern for the universe – it’s easy to think about just how significant patterns are. More specifically, and also relating to the film, how spirals and cycles come into everyday life. The recent cycle: I am once again diving back into a hard love of indiepop and twee. And the latest album by The Lodger simply adds fuel to the fire. Read More »The Lodger: Life Is Sweet [Album Review]
Just the other day I re-published a review of The Dutchess And The Duke’s debut LP. That’s one of the first things I notice about Ain’t No Surprise by Leopold And His Fiction (MySpace) – it has a quite similar sound in the 60s-70s style folk-based rock. There are lo-fi elements here, where the volume is cranked up so loud that it gives the guitar and vocals feedback. The vocals come out more gravely and the guitars more intense. The result is astounding. Read More »Leopold And His Fiction: Ain’t No Surprise [Album Review]
Lie To Me, the new EP by Kingsbury (MySpace), is mysterious in all its splendor. Lacking a true genre, it resides somewhere in-between. Fitting; listening to it takes you elsewhere as too, a place undefinable, encased within the mind. It’s not quite hypnosis, but it’s not necessarily what the common person would call reality. Read More »Kingsbury: Lie To Me [Album Review]
My oh my, what a fun record! With more ups than downs, Portland’s Derby has created a happy go lucky classic album with Posters Fade. These guys are about a dozen RPM’s shy from being a pop punk group. A truly personal sound. It would be wise of them to keep said pace, considering they already have folks clapping wildly when they perform along the west coast. And more shall (as some have) do the same across the globe. Read More »Derby: Posters Fade [Album Review]
The Dutchess is Kimberly Morrison and the Duke is Jesse Lortz. The two have been playing together for years, but it wasn’t until they struck out on their own in The Dutchess And The Duke that their creative music abilities came full circle. She’s The Dutchess And He’s The Duke is an album mixing lo-fi folk elements (but not too much so) with 70s folk melodies.
Read More »The Dutchess And The Duke: She’s The Dutchess And He’s The Duke [Album Review] 
It’s been nearly a decade since I last sat on my favorite rocky beach on Orcas Island. I worked as a day camp counselor at a YMCA camp there; a three hour ferry ride from Anacortes, Washington. I still remember the beach well, often daydreaming of the evenings my fellow counselors and I would stroll down to the waterfront and sit watching the sun drop from the sky, turning it shades of pink and purple, and listen to the waves lap the rocky shore. “Simple Chords (Intro)†by Irene opens with a similar sound, one that hits me with a pang of sad nostalgia—sad that I am no longer at that location, but happy to reminisce on it all these years later. Read More »Irene: Apple Bay [Album Review]
One hidden treasure from 2007 was Kevin Hume‘s The Truth About Ants And Aphids. Hume’s debut album was packed with a variety of tunes that touched an array of worldly influences of primarily a folk nature. Well he is back with a new single called Velociped, and from the sound of it, his music continues to and always has pushed creative boundaries, this time breaking out of the worldly folk and into electronic folk.
Read More »Kevin Hume: Velociped [Digital Single Review] 
We Swim You Jump (MySpace) produces intricate, intimate pop jems that mix in elements of folk and are populated with detailed orchestration. Despite the powerful music pouring forth from each song on their self-titled EP, We Swim You Jump is dominated by massively forthright, in-your-face vocals. It’s not that they’re hard-hitting or edgy, they’re just ever present when it comes to being the most noticeable element in the song. Read More »We Swim You Jump: We Swim You Jump [Album Review]
Loud, aggressive, and…….melodic? Describing This Fair City is almost impossible. But, their less than self-conscious vibe grabs a hold of you and demands your full attention. It is almost like a euphoric drug spills from the speakers when you pop in Broken Surfaces. Visions of pirate ships and wintry battlefields appear with drums crashing as soldiers of normalcy fall. Or anything similar.
Read More »This Fair City: Broken Surfaces [Album Review]
