They say good things come in threes-and the new Mike Donovan album is back to remind us! Exurbian Quonset is his third solo outing, less than a year after his second solo, How To Get Your Records Played In Shops (which proved that good things came in twos last year). The opener, "Digital Dan", peels out like a dragster doing donuts behind the Dunkin Donuts - a bit meta, sure, and a bit just plain FUCKED too. Thankfully that's as far as the ol'... (read more)

Roots of Confusion Seeds of Joy is here, and just in time for everyone! As one of the practitioners of an increasingly rare form of musical alchemy, Major Stars have proven to be an antidote to all sorts of real-world trauma. Put on an album of theirs, and you're bound to be catapulted into a world of rock-based abstraction, diffraction, and finally, sweet distraction.

Playing material arranged for a sextet fronted by a trio of guitars, Major Stars have developed a habit of rehearsing... (read more)

There's breakup records. There's apocalypse records. Then there's the Purple Mountains  record! This new musical expression from David Berman is his most to-the-bone yet, very frankly confessing to a near-total collapse from the word go, before delving into the sorry subtext with twin lasers of personal laceration and the saving grace of a professional songwriter's natural remove. Our unofficial Gen X poet laureate has written a collection of songs that cries to be understood in the misbegotten country that made everything great about... (read more)

It's no wonder Soho Theater booked a long string of gigs for Neil Hamburger this month - laughter is always the best medicine, and given the will-they-won't-they state of things in Great Britain, London-types must be in need of a salve! But let's get serious - all jokes have some semblance of truth to them, and in case you missed it in the previous sentence, the important thing to notice is that Neil Hamburger is playing two back-to-back residencies at Soho Theater in London this... (read more)