Category Archives: Music

Väsen’s Keyed Up, and live at Portland, Maine, September 23, 2004

Reviewing a group more than once always presents the danger of repeating oneself, especially if the group isn’t known for taking extreme left turns with each release. With Väsen, it seems that each recording reveals music that just gets deeper … Continue reading

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Alamaailman Vasarat’s Käärmelautakunta

Alamaailman Vasarat is, according to their website, “a Finnish group playing horny and punky secret agent brass music.” While I don’t think that description does the band sufficient justice, coming up with a better one isn’t necessarily easy. Jarno Sarkula … Continue reading

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A Nordic fiddle omni: Alicia Björnsdotter Abrams’ Live at Stallet, Marianne Maans’ Marianne Maans, Majorstuen’s Jorun Jogga, Jan Beitohaugen Granli’s Lite Nemmar, and Kristine Heebøll’s Trio Mio

There is probably no culture on the planet that is without some kind of bowed instrument in its traditional practices. From a simple spike fiddle to the violin family, humans have been fascinated by the sound of dragging a bow … Continue reading

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Robyn Hitchcock’s Spooked

Here’s one that nobody saw coming. English psychedelic folkie Robyn Hitchcock’s latest album is a collaboration with American alt-oldtime darlings Gillian Welch and David Rawlings. Hitchcock, who has been making his own idiosyncratic brand of music since 1977, when he … Continue reading

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Nels Andrews’ Sunday Shoes

The state of New Mexico is in the U.S. desert southwest, but it also straddles the Continental Divide. It has an entirely different landscape (and lifestyle) than you find in Texas to the east or Arizona to the west; it’s … Continue reading

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The Avett Brothers’ Mignonette

The Avett Brothers join acts like Gillian Welch, Old Crow Medicine Show and the Legendary Shack Shakers to bring a rock ‘n’ roll sensibility to Southern stringband music. The Avetts draw on the Piedmont blues, bluegrass and country of their … Continue reading

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John King’s Royal Hawaiian Music, and Langley Ukulele Ensemble’s The Pacific Ukulele Connection & Strings Attached

Aah, Hawaiian music. It’s one of my guilty pleasures. In fact, I don’t feel that guilty about it at all. At Green Man Review we’ve looked at quite a bit of Hawaiian music in the past. Steel guitar, slack key … Continue reading

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Zabe i Babe’s Drumovi

Zabe i Babe (pronounced something like ZHA-bay ee BAH-bay) is a bi-national folk-pop ensemble. The Bosnian-American group is a side project for members of the American folk-punk group Cordelia’s Dad, whose frontman, Tim Eriksen, sings and plays on this disc, … Continue reading

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Dave Zimmer’s 4 Way Street: The Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young Reader

Synergy. It’s a word that could have been invented with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young in mind. It can be  loosely defined as “the whole being greater than the sum of its parts,” and that definition fits CSNY to a … Continue reading

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The Silos’ When the Telephone Rings and Jonathan Rundman’s Public Library

The Silos have been making roots rock since before it was even called that. It was 1985 when Walter Salas-Humara formed the Silos shortly after moving to New York from Florida. Their debut album, 1987’s Cuba, influenced many bands in … Continue reading

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