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You KNOW that voice murmuring out at you from You Tube! You've been hearing that voice over and over again since...way back in June, when Bill Callahan's first album in (too many) years, Shepherd in A Sheepskin Vest, finally happened! At 20 songs, it's hip-deep in gentle spacey numbers that take on folk and roots music like no other. Man, it was good to hear from him! Well, it's four months later, and now, here's one of the many highlights from that now classic release -... (read more)

America is having an extended String-Keys Incident moment - and like the weather these days, there's no telling how long these swells will last. However, this week, like autumn's hunter's moon or winter's bursting pipes of the Midwest, we are able to confirm that Joanna Newsom will arrive in Austin, TX on January 15th and 16th, 2020, where she'll play two nights at the Bates Recital Hall. This follows her September extended stay in Philadelphia & New York City, this month's near-week in Chicago & Milwaukee,... (read more)

"I wrote this tune inspired by Yuzo Iwata's album "Daylight Moon". I was getting back into sounds like this, loose and noisy...and it seemed like a strange gift to have a modern record sound so good in this way. I was looking forward to meeting him at a show we were playing together in Philly but he was too sick to play it and soon after news came that he had died. RIP Yuzo. The video is based on "Always On Sunday" a short dramatization... (read more)

And you ask yourself: Is this a dream my bones are dreaming? No, it's really happening! Eiko Ishibashi is set to tour Europe for a second time this year, so you better wake dem bones up! With everyone's ears still gleaming from all the fine music from The Dreams My Bones Dream (her latest LP, you under-rock-dweller, you!), it's no wonder a return engagement was requested - who could resist hearing Eiko's dense harmonies and sensuous melodies rumble through the room in personal audience, with... (read more)

Sean O'Hagan is just about out! The longtime High Llamas front man is going solo with the album Radum Calls, Radum Calls on October 25th. Sean's alchemist ability to wed sonic sounds from diverse genres into deceptively simply sing-along constructions feels fresh and new in the context of a solo record - and these new songs have an absurdist quality and elasticity while simultaneously delivering thought-provoking social panoramas. If your initial listens to tracks like "On a Lonely Day (Ding Dong)" and "Candy... (read more)

Russ Waterhouse's forward thinking, radical conceptions of sound, space and composition have uniquely marked his work, as one half of the shape-shifting duo Blues Control and, more recently, as a solo artist. With the imminent release of 1 Minute 2 Midnight, Russ will be taking his primary instrument, the mixer, to select east coast cities. Russ's performances modulate and extend his 1M2M material, drawing field records, synthesizer, guitar and effects into new proportions. As powerful of a recital of experimental practices as the album is, it's a... (read more)

"In good faith" is a term of candor, abstract but comprehensive. It means 'we trust you', but what does it mean today, when our current events are sung to us by actors who insist we can't trust nothing? The second single heralding the first new Bonnie 'Prince' Billy album in years is called just that "In Good Faith." Here, the foundational principles of abiding belief and pursuit of righteousness are considered as part of the eternal miracle of our life on earth. Joan Shelley sings... (read more)

Fripp and Eno. Simon and Garfunkel. Belle and Sebastian. All imprecisely perfect duos pitting creative force against steadfast chemistry, with cohesion radiating from every sound. Bill MacKay and Katinka Kleijn operate in this rarefied air, with a goal in mind - taking the music, elevating the changes through levels of controlled chaos, letting it spread out and breathe through them with a clear, path beyond: to symmetry, and the peak! 

One of the most stunning examples of this process can be found on Bill... (read more)

It's been three weeks since Alasdair Roberts released The Fiery Margin - if you haven't taken the time to listen to this "profoundly moving" album (The Guardian's words, not ours!), what's with you? Locate your inner moth and and succumb to the flame, matey! Ali's music is soulful and deep, steeped in tradition, literature and scripture, even - with words immemorial dating back from this world all the way to the olde one. How better to help us understand the new-world weirdness in which we're... (read more)

Face it, the last ten years or so have been a BLUR - so much shit going down, good and bad - and a lot of music too. It doesn't look like its gonna get any easier for ANYBODY to get their bearing, so Ty Segall and Sea Note have gotten together a special box to help you reorient your head, no matter where you are!
 
This one's for the freak, the fan, the head. Pig Man Lives is a stack of... (read more)