Entrance - Honeymoon EP
Entrance, AKA Guy Blakeslee (formerly of The Convocation of…), plays acoustic blues with a raw, rhythmic style born of the East Coast anti-folk movement... read more
Hamell on Trial - Tough Love
Ed Hamell has lost none of his edge in the three years since he released Choochtown. His latest, Tough Love, has all the hallmarks that made Hamell on Trial a cult favorite... read more
Alicia Keys - The Diary of Alicia Keys
At the top of the pop world these days, it’s hard enough to find an artist who can sing well without the aid of ProTools. Never mind one that also arranges, plays an instrument (besides duct-taped tambourine)... read more
Camera Obscura - Underachievers Please Try Harder
Camera Obscura’s second LP (and first US release), Underachievers Please Try Harder, is an album best suited for the jilted and freshly brokenhearted... read more
The Flatlanders - Wheels of Fortune
When grey summer thunderheads rise out of the impossibly flat horizon that encircles Lubbock, Texas, they have a habit of throwing up an advance wall of dust that descends on the town with an auburn haze, briefly creating a haunted, even transcendent aura... read more
Isobel Campbell - Amorino
Before her amicable split with Belle & Sebastian in 2002, cellist-vocalist Isobel Campbell recorded two albums with her side project, The Gentle Waves. Amorino, her first true solo album, is the kind of record you fall hard and fast for... read more
Joe Firstman - The War of Women
It’s easy to see why Joe Firstman won the record deal with the big label. It’s the stereotypical rags to riches story—unknown comes to Hollywood with talent and conviction and little else, tirelessly promotes himself in the local clubs... read more
Johnny Cash - Unearthed
Everything about Johnny Cash was larger than life, from his deep bass rumblings to his well-publicized sin and redemption high-wire act. He was as iconic a figure as American music ever produced and, given his recent death, it’s probably impossible to view him in a less than mythic light... read more
Jolie Holland - Catalpa
The sound conjures up images of dusty Delta roads and cotton fields, Alan Lomax out in front of a tarpaper shack with a field microphone and a primitive tape recorder capturing for posterity the songs of an obscure blues master... read more
Travis - 12 Memories
I’m still trying to figure out how many listens it’ll take for Travis’ fourth LP to kick in. The elements that made 1999’s The Man Who thoroughly engaging and 2002’s The Invisible Band intermittently enjoyable... read more
Air - Talkie Walkie
Air’s 1998 Moon Safari is the kind of debut that’s almost impossible to live down, or live up to. Like Portishead’s Dummy, released four years earlier, the album not only created a recognizably new, albeit highly derivative aesthetic, it was also the most complete articulation of that aesthetic imaginable... read more
Beth Gibbons & Rustin Man - Out of Season
As the vocal instrument of Portishead, Beth Gibbons was the centerpiece of 1994’s Dummy, a trip-hop landmark and one of the great albums of the 1990s... read more
Lisa Gerrard & Patrick Cassidy - Immortal Memory
Listening to Lisa Gerrard sing is a lot like watching actress Cate Blanchett sweep through the film Elizabeth—it’s a stunning, flawless performance, alive with the trappings of royalty and tinged with the aura of bygone times... read more
The Mood Elevator - Married Alive
The Mood Elevator is essentially Brendan Benson’s Well Fed Boys with Benson taking on sideman duties and handing the mic to bandmate Chris Plum. The two Detroit natives have been collaborating since high school... read more
Summer Hymns - Value Series Vol 1: Fool's Gold
When I spoke with Summer Hymns last July, the ever-evolving Athens, Ga. band had just released the countryish, Clemency. But frontman Zachary Gresham was already thinking of the next project... read more
Edie Carey - When I Was Made
Edie Carey is gifted with one of those voices that could sound great singing anything. So the mystery and beauty on her second studio full-length is how she maintains an intimate, delicate approach... read more
Paula Frazer - A Place Where I Know
Startling for its direct, cutting imagery and starkly ominous arrangements wrapped around troubled, sighing melodies, Paula Frazer strips her music down to its constituent elements... read more
Damien Jurado - Holding His Breath
Damien Jurado recently expressed a profound distaste for autobiographical songwriting. He’s got a happy marriage, enjoys fatherhood... read more
Matt Nathanson - Beneath These Fireworks
Making the leap to a major label—after years of earning his audience one listener at a time through exhaustive touring and a series of five independent releases—Matt Nathanson translates his tuneful, heartfelt singer/songwriter pop into a more imminently palatable format... read more
Sea Ray - Stars at Noon
Chamber pop don’t stop. With its latest full-length, Stars at Noon, the Brooklyn-based Sea Ray has created a record that shimmers, sparkles and downright revels in its own glorious shoegazing wash of sound... read more
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