Tag Archives: music

Mikko Joensuu’s Amen 1

Mikko Joensuu is a Finnish musician, singer and songwriter who’s known in his home country for his work in an indie-psychedelic-shoegaze band called Joensuu 1685. His solo debut Amen 1 is the first release in a planned trilogy of Americana-tinged … Continue reading

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Western Centuries’ Weight of the World

Western Centuries makes country & western music the way it oughta be made. Pedal steel, driving rhythms, twangy guitars, songs about loving and losing and drinking celebrating the good things in life. This group is the current vehicle for Cahalen … Continue reading

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Ten Strings and a Goat Skin’s Auprès du Poêle

The second album by this über-talented trio from Canada’s Prince Edward Island province builds on their debut Corbeau which ranked high on the international traditional music charts. Auprès du Poêle (“around the woodstove”) starts off with a run of pretty … Continue reading

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Various artists’ Hungarian Noir, A Tribute to the Gloomy Sunday

If you’re familiar with the song “Gloomy Sunday” it’s probably from Billie Holiday’s version of it, which popularized it in the U.S. in 1941. The BBC banned that record from the airwaves because its mood was deemed too somber for … Continue reading

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Sound Bites: Four new singer-songwriter CDs

Singer-songwriters in the Americana field are as plentiful as mushrooms in the spring. I  certainly can’t review all of the releases that land on my desk, but here are some recent releases that, to me, rise above the rest of … Continue reading

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Kaia Kater’s Nine Pin

Kaia Kater’s follow-up to her strong 2014 debut disc Sorrow Bound fulfills that album’s promise and more. The African-Canadian banjo player, singer and songwriter has delivered a personal and social manifesto on Nine Pin. In the tradition of Carolina Chocolate … Continue reading

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Nik Bärtsch’s Mobile’s Continuum

Swiss pianist and composer Nik Bärtsch makes what he refers to as “ritual groove music,” in at least a couple of different settings. One is his highly regarded electronic jazz ensemble Ronin or the Ronin Rhythm Clan, and the other … Continue reading

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XIXA’s Bloodline

XIXA’s dual frontmen, Brian Lopez and Gabriel Sullivan, seem to have internalized the Tucson musical ethos of collaboration and inclusivity epitomized by Giant Sand and Calexico. It’s no mystery, since the two have played with both of those bands, the … Continue reading

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Nap Eyes’ Thought Rock Fish Scale

Nap Eyes is an indie-rock quartet out of Halifax, Nova Scotia. Their new album Thought Rock Fish Scale is a tuneful, catchy trip through the kind of angst that might trouble a young biochemist obsessed with guitars, words and rock … Continue reading

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Arnold Steinhardt’s Violin Dreams

I run across a fair number of musical biographies, autobiographies, reminiscences, and the like, all the way from Berlioz as seen by his contemporaries to Ned Rorem’s somewhat scandalous diaries. The common thread, of course, is that they are about … Continue reading

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