Music In Review

"I have a strange relationship to variety," singer/songwriter Stephin Merritt said in a 2008 NY Times interview. "I like variety." Merritt’s prolific work accurately reflects his statement — from leading his band, The Magnetic Fields, to working on numerous side projects, including a recent scoring of an Off Broadway musical adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s tale […]

Virginia Niekrasz-Laurent has been training ballet dancers here in the vast expanse that lies behind the Redwood Curtain, as far away from the dance Mecca of New York City as one can get, since 1972. Going further back into Humboldt dance history, she began her studies at the Betty Merriweather Studio, the very first in […]

The new offering from Denmark’s Efterklang, Moving Chairs, joins the slew of top-notch recordings released this year. On this, the quartet’s first studio recording since their stunning 2007 offering, Parades, Efterklang uses contemporary pop influences as starting points, creating an engaging spectrum of songs while providing the band’s most accessible record to date. Led by […]

It seems that three is a lucky number for the gifted singer/songwriter Freedy Johnston. His new record of originals, Rain on the City, his first in eight years, is his third attempt at finishing the release. The result is Johnston’s finest recording since the overlooked masterpiece co-produced by T-Bone Burnett and Roger Moutenot, Blue Days […]

So much was right about Thursday night’s Devil Makes Three show at the Eureka Theater. The fact that the show sold out — 850 tickets! That it was all ages. The appropriateness of the venue — restoration underway, but not complete — for a band that delivers a new twist on old-timey. Most of all, the […]

Formed in 1993 in Austin, Texas, Spoon, fronted by songwriter, guitarist and vocalist Britt Daniel, has offered an impressive catalogue of pop songs influenced in equal measure by early Gang of Four, Wire, The Velvet Underground and Can (the band’s name is derived from a Can song). Instrumentally, the rhythms are angular, jagged and choppy, […]

Estil Cortez Ball and his wife, Orna, performed original gospel and country folksongs throughout Virginia, Tennessee and North Carolina, as well as performing for a local radio gospel show from their hometown of Rugby, Va., for over 40 years. E.C. and Orna created a huge catalogue of songs, mostly gospel-based, with E.C. providing lead vocals […]

Athens, Georgia-based singer/songwriter Vic Chesnutt died on Christmas Day after ingesting an overdose of muscle relaxants. He and his touring band had just completed a brief West Coast tour less than a month earlier in support of his powerful new release, At the Cut. Chesnutt was 45 years old. He had been involved in a […]

Singer/songwriter/bandleader Mark Harrison has swung back and forth between Memphis and Nashville without breaking ties with the musical influences that come from both sides of Tennessee. Starting in 1993, Harrison led his Memphis-based band, Snakehips, with their debut full-length, Lit, a solid recording that wore its T.Rex/Replacements/Big Star/Stones influences proudly, accompanied with that Memphis soul-based […]

Continuation — Alex Cline (Cryptogramophone) Percussionist and composer Alex Cline, guitarist Nels’ twin brother, performs with a dynamic quintet including pianist Myra Melford, to execute a challenging and dazzling sum, often unpredictable and wonderfully surprising. The Sun Came Out — 7 Worlds Collide (Sony) This collaborative effort led by singer/songwriter Neil Finn includes members of […]

Spirit Moves — Dave Douglas (Greenleaf Music) A sublime homage to the all-embracing, pop-inspired spirit of Lester Bowie. This is brass band jazz that inherits and ennobles several different traditions at once. Infernal Machines — Darcy James Argue (New Amsterdam) With his "steampunk" big band Secret Society, Darcy James Argue seamlessly blends post-rock guitar, electronica-inspired […]

S/T — Frank Fairfield (Tompkins Square) First release from our favorite 24-year-old purveyor of old time feelings. Startling arrangements of classic songs, sometimes haunting, sometimes jolly. River Boat Soul — Pokey Lafarge and The South City Three (Big Muddy Records) Ragtime meets Appalachia meets Delta cotton country blues, but entirely new and all its own. […]