Mimesis of Girlhood in Three Acts featuring Bright Eyes
In those days, it was not uncommon for me to dream about having sex with Matt Damon and wake from those dreams convinced it was possible.
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Posts Tagged: folk
Songs of Our Lives: Paul Simon’s “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard”
There’s you and him, and you and me. You seem to want each of us all to yourself, and that’s fine; you’re the one we both care about.
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Elegy with Records on the Doorstep
The old music still filled pits in him like sawdust and wood glue do a nail hole. The songs didn’t say anything new over the years, but they provided home when he missed it.
...moreAlbum of the Week: Jay Som’s Everybody Works
Jay Som is the musical project of San Francisco singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Melina Duterte. The moniker was found via an online baby name generator and means “Victory Moon.” Everybody Works is her sophomore release, out via Polyvinyl Record. Writing, recording, playing on, and producing almost every bit of her new album, Duterte keeps her signature […]
...moreSong of the Day: “When the Tequila Runs Out”
Dawes is one of a handful of groups, including peers like Wilco and Broken Social Scene, who have undergone personnel changes without losing the essential heart and soul that make them who they are. Their first manifestation in 2006 as the post-punk group Simon Dawes included the multi-talented guitarist and producer Blake Mills. Though Mills left the band shortly after, […]
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Albums of Our Lives: Rosanne Cash’s Black Cadillac
In her voice, I am held, cradled even. I am equal parts longing and hope. I am home.
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Sound Takes: Good Advice
Look at the hand on the cover: it is an older hand, an experienced one. It is an empathetic hand.
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Swinging Modern Sounds #72: Urban Pastoral
It’s like a landscape that you can’t know until you’ve seen it through four seasons, until you’ve seen it on days gray and bright.
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Sound Takes: Here the Blue River & Rumpus Video Premiere
She takes a simple story and turns it into something the listener can hold in the palm of their hand.
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Sound Takes: Until I Live & Rumpus Video Premiere
Featuring an exclusive video premiere from The National Parks and a review of their latest album Until I Die.
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Sound Takes: Don’t Weigh Down the Light
Her lyrics tend to blend together, but it isn’t a turn-off. Instead, it feels intentional; Don’t Weigh Down the Light is more about the feeling than the words.
...moreJoanna Newsom Tour and Film Screenings
Joanna Newsom’s US tour dates have been announced for her new album Divers, which is coming out October 23rd via Drag City. But before the record hits stores and the tour begins, the video for the album’s titular track will be screening in theaters across the country. Like the video for “Sapokanikan,” released this past August, […]
...moreSong of the Day: “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes”
The heady freedom of the 1960s touched almost every aspect of society, from civil rights activism to gender equity to mass media. The ambitious “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes,” by Crosby, Stills, and Nash, is a telling example of that liberal attitude. Written by Steven Stills for his former girlfriend, musician Judy Collins, the song’s sprightly guitar and vocal harmonies convey a […]
...moreFolk Poets and Scrambled Eggs
I think that’s avant-garde—the meeting of need and language. Over at Lit Hub, contemporary poetic hero Ben Lerner sits down with contemporary poetic heroine Eileen Myles to talk about vernacular, supercilious labels, the trials and tribulations of a young poet after fame, and a mutual confusion over what a “folk poet” is.
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Sound Takes: Deep Below Heaven & Rumpus Video Premiere
Featuring an exclusive video premiere for Melaena Cadiz’s “Deep Below Heaven,” and an in-depth look at the new album.
...moreTour Update: Jessica Pratt
Jessica Pratt has been touring nearly nonstop since the release of her second album, On Your Own Love Again (Drag City); earlier this month the label announced her tour would be extending, sending Pratt back to Europe after she completes her North America dates in August. Basically, think of this as a wake-up call: if […]
...moreAll We Want for Joni Mitchell
After months of worry and rumors about Joni Mitchell’s condition after her late-March hospitalization, it has been revealed that the singer is being treated for a brain aneurism. Although Joni Mitchell is being released to a rehab facility, she is still in serious condition, sources say. Watch a young Joni perform and a more experienced (and […]
...moreSong of the Day: “Micheline”
A standout record in Mark Kozelek’s long career is the critically-lauded 2014 release, Benji. The presence of everyday tragedies permeates the record and propels the keening voice of Kozelek, aka Sun Kil Moon. On “Micheline,” he offers us three stories whose sad endings are complicated by a rich, guitar-driven melody in a major key. In […]
...moreSong of the Day: “The Singing Tree”
According to the experimental folk artist Mike Cooper, there is a tree in Almuñécar, in Southern Spain, that used to attract hundreds of birds. It inspired him to write the “avante folk” song “The Singing Tree,” off his recently reissued double album Places I Know/The Machine Gun Co. The funky organ that permeates the song alludes to a […]
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