Category Archives: Music

I’m With Her’s See You Around

Having tested the waters with a single and a couple of EPs since 2015, the Americana super-group trio I’m With Her now releases its debut full-length See You Around. I don’t think I’m going too far out on a limb … Continue reading

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Ruby Boots’s Don’t Talk About It

Don’t Talk About It is the second album released by Ruby Boots, her first since the Australian landed in Nashville and signed with the Chicago label Bloodshot. It’s a self-assured, swaggering sophomore release, hardly surprising for this musician who’s been … Continue reading

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Richmond Fontaine’s Don’t Skip Out On Me

I didn’t see this one coming! One more album from Portland’s beloved Americana rockers Richmond Fontaine. Frontman Willy Vlautin has turned mostly to the life of an author and away from life on the road with one or the other … Continue reading

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Sunny War’s With the Sun

Blues music, Appalachian music with roots in the British Isles, punk rock and more go into the potent music made by Sunny War. A young African-American woman who grew up in Nashville and Los Angeles and is now based in … Continue reading

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Live from Here, the show formerly known as APHC, hosted by Chris Thile

Having sort of followed A Prairie Home Companion and the dreadful and frankly disgusting behaviour of Garrison Keillor, the very long time host and creator of APHC before Chris Thile, Americana musician par excellence, took over. I listened to him … Continue reading

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Väsen‘s Brewed

Väsen, from Sweden, has been creating new tunes and re-imagining old ones for 28 years now. As Rob Simonds (founder/producer at Northside Records) states in the liner notes of this 2017 release, Brewed, “… they have done so continuously at … Continue reading

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King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard’s Polygondwanaland

King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard is a large Australian ensemble that is wildly prolific and insanely creative. In something like 13 albums since the band got together in 2010, they’ve plowed through styles that range from jazz fusion and … Continue reading

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Octavia E. Butler’s The Parable of the Sower; The Parable of the Talents

The late Octavia E. Butler is one of those science fiction writers whose work can — and does — stand easily in the company of the very best “mainstream” literature being produced today. She is, I regret to say, another … Continue reading

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Nona Hendryx and Gary Lucas’s The World of Captain Beefheart

It’s pretty audacious to record an album of Captain Beefheart’s music, but apparently guitarist Gary Lucas is that kind of guy. He comes by it honestly, though. He played in a late incarnation of Beefheart’s Magic Band in the 1980s, … Continue reading

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Ralph Lee Smith’s Appalachian Dulcimer Traditions

The Appalachian dulcimer is an instrument whose origin is shrouded in the mists of the 19th century, when the descendants of German immigrants began modifying the scheitholt, a simple stringed instrument brought over from the old country. Not to be … Continue reading

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