With celestial openings and dramatic arrangements, Flashbacks Part 1 creates a climate of sustained suspense by electric guitar all throughout the EP. There is so much to be said for the significance nostalgia, and Pond Diver hits that nail squarely on the head.
It’s been a hot minute since local rock fans have had a chance to catch Music Band around town. But if you’ve been missing the deceptively tight, Garfield the Cat-lovin’ trio, here’s some fantastic news. READ MORE…
Jen Starsinic is known as a prodigy fiddle player – yet she just made a badass indie rock album entitled Bad Actor, out February 7th. Her first single from the album, “Picture in a Frame,” has already garnered over 10k streams on Spotify and she played a sold-out Single Release show at The 5 Spot in Nashville. People are really excited about this release! Her backing band is Nashville pedal steel legend, Paul Niehaus (lead electric guitar, pedal steel) formerly of Calexico, Iron & Wine, currently plays with Justin Townes Earle and Iris Dement, Ben Alleman (synths, piano, organ) – currently in Jenny Lewis’s band. formerly played with Grace Potter and Dr. John, and Parker McAnnally (producer, bassist, mix engineer) of The Prescriptions who are recently signed to Single Lock Records.
The Berklee School of Music graduate has earned her stripes as a road warrior by joining the touring lineups of several bands, including the David Mayfield Parade. Starsinic wrote the majority of Bad Actor in Nashville after moving there in 2014. Nashville is also the place where she created her critically-acclaimed The Flood and Fire which featured Molly Tuttle (Compass Records, first woman to win IBMA Guitarist of the Year), Charlie Rose of Elephant Revival, Gabe Hirshfeld of Lonely Heartstring Band (Rounder Records), and Alison DeGroot (one of Canada’s finest folk musicians).
Following his 2018 debut Backpacker Blues, Bee Appleseed returns with his sophomore solo effort, Starflower’s Cosmic Soul (out 2/21/20) Though he has a decade’s worth of touring and lo-fi bootleg folk recordings under his belt, there are only rare hints of the latter on this heavy-hitting rock & roll odyssey that aims to transport listeners through a vortex of timeless space and catchy melodies. READ MORE…
It’s said that getting out of your own head allows you to look at the world from a different perspective. There’s a way to lock into the endless wonder of human existence through songs that take the wide view, tell stories that lift us up and remind us of how rich life can be. On Tai Shan’s just announced new album Traveling Show, (out April 3rd) turns the stories she’s heard into music and lyrics you can live with, like a trusted companion who knows just when to talk and when to listen. Fusing soul, jazz, and pop, she creates an intimate space for reflection. Traveling Show is soulful, surprising, and uplifting even when Shan writes about the difficulties and disappointments that everyone undergoes that, by contrast, shine a light on what makes us happy.
A major element of Traveling Show, which Shan started recording in Seattle before making the move to Nashville in 2018, is soul. Shan makes the kind of emotional connections that role models like Aretha Franklin and Marvin Gaye explored. With hints of jazz in her nuanced singing and songwriting – Shan is a serious practitioner of the slightly unexpected chord change, the beguiling harmonic shift – taking the concept of the singer-songwriter to new levels on Traveling Show. She is indeed a serious student of American songwriting, and she’s used her vast knowledge to teach the art of matching words to music to multitudes of students who have learned from her example. Traveling Show is a masterclass in the art of deceptive simplicity. It is, after all, about the stories, and the emotions within them.
Over the course of two years spent out on the road, tirelessly playing show after show, Nathan Kalish cultivated a collection of story songs grown from not only his own life experiences but also incorporating the experiences of the people he encountered along the way. His 10th album, the self-produced Songs for Nobody, shows you a secret world via Kalish’s unique outsider perspective. Through his cutting and intimate lyrics, he transports listeners to the passenger seat of his touring van, to a phone call with a loved one and behind the lens of a magnifying glass aimed at the darker shades of American culture.
Kalish has lived the life of a curious wanderer, taking his music to town after town while creating a catalog of songs that act as colorful snapshots, like polaroids in a family photo album. He’s released nine albums over the course of his career, shared the stage with Lucinda Williams, Molly Tuttle, Lucero, Steve Miller Band, and earned accolades from Rolling Stone Country, Saving Country Music among others.