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Lambchop – Mr. M (2012)

Mr. M is Lambchop’s first album since OH (Ohio), which is now four years old. They are one of the most consistently extraordinary bands currently producing music, so it comes as no surprise that their new record is entire...
 
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Explorers Club – Grand Hotel (2012)

It feels like decades since The Explorers Club released their stunning debut, Freedom Wind. Truth is, it only came out in 2008, but its timeless sound and remarkable consistency made the wait seem much longer than that. Until l...
 
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Silver Swans – Forever (2012)

Silver Swans are a duo from San Fran that excel in tightly constructed, electro-leaning pop gems. Despite the West Coast leanings, they sound like natives of the Swedish electro-pop scene, a highly versatile breeding ground for...
 
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Field Music – Plumb (2012)

Plumb, the fourth full-length from brotherly duo Field Music, sounds like one of their liveliest releases for two reasons. One is its clear and playful homage to traditional British rock greats like XTC, Pink Floyd, and even Qu...
 
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Karen Dalton – 1966

The selling point and historical significance of Karen Dalton has rested entirely on the uniquely haunting timbre of her voice and the restrained brilliance with which she employed it, bending melody and finding hidden meanings...
 
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Common – The Dreamer/The Believer (2011)

On his tenth studio album, nearly 20 years after he first hit the scene, Common is back with his best work since 2005’s Be. Some weak acting gigs and the abysmal Universal Mind Control in 2008 put Common out of most people’s mu...
 
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Human Switchboard – Who’s Landing in My Hangar? (2011)

Human Switchboard’s Who’s Landing in My Hangar? is one of the few tenuously Cleveland connected punk/new wave classics to lack a proper reissues. Bar/None Records thankfully rescues this great album from a future of...
 
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Wax Idols – No Future (2011)

Haven’t we all gotten tired of that generic tinny lo-fi garage guitar sound? Upward and onward to newer and more glorious fuzz, I say. Down with the old! Appreciate the garage records of yore only for what made them good,...
 
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Jules and the Polar Bears – Got No Breeding (1978)

New Wave before New Wave had really solidified. Sort of like Springsteen, but sort of not. Perhaps it’s most accurately described as an offering to bridge the Billy Joel-ers and the Rundgren-ites, a union which sounds fai...
 
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Drive-By Proposals – Fall Into Shadow (2005)

Ish Marquez is the hidden light at the end of the otherwise tedious anti-folk tunnel. He has the melodic gifts of Arthur Lee, but without any of the failed lyrical obtuseness. Someday there will be a compilation to sand over th...
 
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Best Indie Albums












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  • @capnmarble_music is an indie pop duo comprised of John Dasilva and Ryan Arshonsky, both from Southern California — though meeting and starting this project in Boston, at Berklee College of Music. Cap’n Marble show a knack for hooky songwriting and crisp production on their first singles “Loneliest Friend” and “Let You Down.” The latter reminds fondly of Dent May, with playful synths and punchy vocals leading a catchy display. A bossa nova feel at 01:24 plays wonderfully. “Loneliest Friend” is another success. Retrospective, melodic vocals work around acoustic strums and lush woodwinds. The song’s melody resonates after the track concludes, becoming stuck in my head. Look for an EP from Cap’n Marble in March, which I’m certainly looking forward to, based on the quality of these two. {Link to listen in bio}
  • From the impressive new album of the same name, “Under the Veneer” is a great showcase of @jeadsmusic’s alluring, atmospheric electronic production. Based out of Bellingham, Washington, the project is fond of vibrant synth sounds that cohesively pair with escalating sample-based percussive instruments. In fact, when the album’s creation began in March of 2019 during a big snow storm, Jeads collected the basis for many sounds: “The snow storm inspired many field recording sessions which ended in the construction of a set of sample-based percussive instruments,” Jeads says. “I went on many hikes in the snow-covered forests around my house, capturing environmental sounds with my field recorder: fresh snow falling off ferns, snow balls pounding on frozen steel doors, footsteps crunching, fallen tree limbs snapping in the ice cold air, icicles breaking. This set the backdrop for the album; all of the samples have a kind of frozen crispness to them, frozen soundscapes from the forest.” “Under the Veneer” touts a wintry, icicle-like key tone to begin with, so the escalation of crisp rhythmic samples adds even further to the track’s engrossing atmospheric qualities. Each swelling moment, where buzzing synths enter the fold with extra prominence, also succeeds. “Under the Veneer” and this album as a whole are definitely worth checking out for any fan of atmospheric electronic music. {Link to listen in bio}
  • From Brooklyn-based artist @bwesmusic, the strongly melodic “Luv Ya” showcases soulful vocals and guitar licks. Vocals assume a higher-pitched swagger as the one-minute point arrives, “gotta tell yourself I luv ya.” This section reprises around 02:30, followed by an enjoyably swanky guitar lead. “Luv Ya” is a wholly enjoyable listening experience, one that oozes with suave charm and a catchy melody. I’m definitely looking forward to hearing more from Bobby Wesley. “This is a funky tune about self care and self love,” the artist writes. “In an age where everyone freely expresses their ideas on the internet, it can be scary to put your true self out there to be rated. We tend to reject and criticize what we don’t understand because it doesn’t fit into stale social norms. But, loving the quirky unconventional parts of yourself is what makes you an individual and this act can encourage others to embrace their uniqueness too.” {Link to listen in bio}
  • A melodic gem from @janrather, “Dorothy” is about being a romantic in a culture that recently invented the term “ghosting.” The Brooklyn-based artist impressed with November via the track “Opening,” and dazzles again here. The initial sample features Dorothy Parker reading from her poem “One Perfect Rose.” Anrather’s gripping vocals emerge shortly thereafter with hazy keys complementing. The track builds to the strikingly infectious chorus at the one-minute mark, with suave vocals, lively synths, and mellow guitar twangs leading the melodic pull. “Dorothy” is a surefire success from Julia Anrather. “I was listening to a lot of ‘Masseducation’ and ‘Anti’ when we were working on this tune, so while both I and my co-producer Ryan Dieringer thought we were making an indie rock record, the sound I was looking for wound up being new territory for the both of us,” Anrather says. “”Dorothy” represents a really full and specific collaboration between the two of us, which I’m grateful for.” “Dorothy Parker got involved when we heard a recording of her reading her poem “One Perfect Rose” and decided that her voice with that eerie 1950s affect and that poem–about tired romantic tropes–made her the perfect hype woman for this song. (A sidebar is that I had to license the recording from the NAACP because she left her estate to Martin Luther King Jr. and, when he was assassinated, it went to the NAACP. I didn’t think anything could make me like Dorothy Parker more but this info definitely did.)” Look for more material from Julia Anrather soon. {Link to listen in bio}

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