Expiration Compositions – the sophomore outing by composer Taylor Jordan, a.k.a. The Greatest Hoax – is a perfectly okay record. The synth work is nuanced and studied and, for the most part, admirable, though I’m unsure if it lives up to its High Art premise about scoring the art of dying. And cellist Mark Bridges,…
REVIEW: Dispatch – “America, Location 12”
Precisely what city or small town or hidden, leafy enclave is mapped in America, Location 12, the recently released sixth LP from indie darlings Dispatch? It’s hard to say for sure, but the album – out now on Bomber/Universal and the group’s first since 2012’s Circles Around The Sun – is an eclectic and wonderful…
REVIEW: Peter Searcy – “Leave It All Out There”
Sometimes, you want to listen to a straight-forward rock record about broken relationships. And, with Leave It All Out There, singer/songwriter Peter Searcy delivers. The album, out now on Louisville imprint Eastwood Records, presents the listener with seven tried-and-true musical vignettes about the mechanics of ending a romance. It’s not a song cycle, per se,…
PROFILE: Christian Frederickson (2017)
It is May 25, 2006. You are sitting in a capacity crowd at Kaufman Center’s intimate Merkin Concert Hall in New York City, listening to Rachel’s perform their last show as an ensemble – though nobody knows that just yet. WNYC 90.3 FM, an NPR affiliate, is broadcasting and Greg King’s scene-setting film is being…
CONCERT REVIEW: Soda Club
The ascending Pittsburgh quartet Soda Club treated a hometown crowd to its lazy Sunday brand of guitar-driven indie-pop on a Saturday this month, peppering a highly danceable, hour-long set of originals with covers of 80s classics by The Violent Femmes, The Cure and, yes, Cyndi Lauper. Dueling fronts Shay Park (on guitar and ukelele) and…
REVIEW: Aaron Myers-Brooks – “Orthrelm Covers”
Orthrelm, may God save it soul, shreds to burst an eardrum or 10. And Aaron Myers-Brooks, guitarist for Pittsburgh post-punkers Night Vapor, is no novice in the practice, either. But, while Myers-Brooks has always hinted or nodded toward his Orthrelm love on stage and online, he now has a proper collection of riffage to show…
REVIEW: Do Make Say Think – “Stubborn Persistent Illusions”
I’m now two weeks late in delivering my opening statements on Do Make Say Think’s Stubborn Persistent Illusions, out since May on Constellation Records and the instrumental giant’s first record proper in some eight years. Why? The thing will leave you that perplexed. Is it the group’s greatest offering, a worthy addition to the canon…
REVIEW: Various Artists – “The Co-Op Communique Vol. 3”
Music writers are lucky bastards. As a form of payment for their poetry, they get a stream, an everlasting stream, of free music. It’s a pretty good deal if you can score it. Well, to be blunt, the epic compilation series The Co-Op Communique makes YOU the music writer. The third installment in the annual…
REVIEW: Edmondson – “Strange Durations”
The Gainesville, Florida-based brothers behind the duo Edmondson make an engaging sort of vaguely orchestral piano pop on the record Strange Durations, out now via Bandcamp and on Elestial Sound. But, while their intimate vocals have a dreamy but carefully syncopated, Pet Sounds-on-methadone sort of quality to them, efforts for their lyrics to imbue any…
REVIEW: Chicken & The Chick Flicks – “Too Bad About The Sun”
Chicken and The Chick Flicks’ Too Bad About The Sun, out now on Shinkoyo, is exhilarating for reasons that most records simply aren’t. A microtonal-poetry reading for a demented albeit low-key dream, the record pairs Thax Douglas – he of the live concert reading; check the resume here – with Skeletons b(r)and leader Matt Mehlan,…