I am wildly fascinated by the melding of sounds, forms, & instruments across geographic & cultural borders. Mike Gangloff has paired the well known sounds of Appalachian folk with the less known (at least in American music) shruti box, an Indian drone instrument. The match, while unlikely, is sublime. What results is something at once familiar and hauntingly, beautifully unknown. This listening experience is not to be missed.
This supremely important collection serves up a small slice of the effervescent rock scene in Cambodia, before it was decimated by the Khmer Rouge. Let's not be led to think that rock and roll is the exclusive purview of white men; it's worth seeking out what everyone else has been up to.
I remember meeting Ben for the first time at a show in Boston and hitching a ride with him to Maine the next day. I remember sitting in a basement in Portland, eyes closed, as waves of sound took me further from corporeality than I'd ever been. This album rests on my wall as a watchful icon. The song is etched lovingly on the back of my skull:
You will be stronger tomorrow; you will be wiser tonight. You will find new love without warning; you will find new joy with every breath.
Freak folk in the best way, full of roiling emotions and tumultuous melodies that force you to fall in deep. These are modern-day shanties for the rambling West Philadelphian in all of us.
Vio/Miré has been one of my favorite bands for years, almost entirely by accident. They have yet to make a release that was lacking in some way. Theirs is a hallowed and harrowing sound, gentle and transformative. And it's impossible to complain when new music keeps coming out on my birthday.
I recommend listening through the entire discography.
Equal parts sludgy and clean, funky and pop; this is an album that unfolds track by track into something compelling, sometimes silly, and overall very enjoyable. Mark Mills has a lot on offer here, and I'm digging it.
I went too long without tuning in to the sort of miserable, masochistic anti-folk that was so formative in those early aughts. From the first few bars of Crywank, I knew this album was going to hurt. Just as surely I relished every ache.
Something about this song -- and I can't quite say what -- grabs me full-on by the consciousness and sucks me in. The whole album is this way. lo-fi in sound yet hi-fi in emotional poignancy.
These guys are good friends and great musicians. They've got a bright future if they keep it up. (I like to describe this stuff as "country for acid fiends")
If there was a sound where I had to be like "THIS IS THE BOSTON SOUND," it would be ABADABAD. Not sure if that's justified, but whatever. Please don't miss their newest stuff, especially "All The Bros Say" from The Wild EP.
"Tahiti" is a default mix-tape track. "Over Your Heart" comes in second. This album has the sort of casual earnestness to be expected from young people who care a lot but feel uncomfortable about that fact in spite of themselves.
Boston-native beautiful person Dan Blakeslee fulfills all your musical Halloween needs and then some in this gem of an album, well worth an year-round listen.
