Category Archives: Music

Zoe Muth’s World of Strangers

It’s been three years since I saw Seattle’s Zoe Muth and her band the Lost High Rollers at a little festival on the northern Puget Sound. I liked her sound and thought she had a lot of potential. In the … Continue reading

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Last Train Home’s Last Good Kiss

Last Train Home has taken several major steps forward with its eighth release Last Good Kiss. Not least among the positive changes are a relocation from Washington, D.C., to Nashville, and some lineup adjustments. And for the first time, all … Continue reading

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Hook & Anchor’s Hook & Anchor

The song “Concerning Spectral Pinching” off of the debut self-titled album from Portland’s Hook & Anchor became one of my favorite songs of the summer. It neatly shows off the band’s chops at both country and rock, and showcases Kati … Continue reading

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Joe Harvey-Whyte & Geir Sundstøl’s Langeleik

An instrument that had its genesis in Hawaii a century and a half ago, the pedal steel guitar has reached into many corners of the world’s music scene. Two of the leading players of alternative pedal steel from Norway and … Continue reading

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Martin Wind’s Stars, Dave Pietro’s The Butterfly Effect, and John McNeil & Tom Harrell’s Look To The Sky

What an absolute treasure this album is! If Martin Wind’s Stars is not on my jazz top 10 for 2026 I’ll eat my hat. With my favorite clarinetist Anat Cohen on the front line and the legendary pianist Kenny Barron … Continue reading

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Tuuletar’s Maammo

“Ancient heritage meets global influences, contemporary expression and modern production.” That’s a pretty good description for a lot of the music we review here at GMR, but it applies particularly well to the Finnish vocal quartet Tuuletar. Maamo (Mother Earth) … Continue reading

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Eric Brace & Thomm Jutz’s Circle and Square

Eric Brace and I go back a ways — I think to about 2001 when I reviewed an Americana compilation that included a track by his Washington, D.C. band Last Train Home. I helped bring him and his longtime musical … Continue reading

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Monastery Of Gyütö’s Tibet: The Voice Of The Tantra

A certain number of films have brought the tantric chanting of Tibetan Buddhist monks to the attention of American and European movie goers. I’m think especially of Martin Scorsese’s 1997 film Kundun about the Dalai Lama, 2001’s narrative film Samsara … Continue reading

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Jennifer and Hazel Wrigley’s Mither o’the Sea

Richard wrote this for Folk Tales. I have been interested in the traditional music of the British Isles for more than 35 years and have grown older listening to the work of musicians who were already well known to the … Continue reading

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Ceili Rain’s Say ‘KAY-Lee’

Rebecca Swain wrote this review. I like this Christian Celtic album very much (it is also available under the name Ceili Rain.) It is cheerful, enthusiastic, and well-crafted. Those people who are more comfortable with a bleak, cynical view of … Continue reading

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