by Josh Kohan With Sun Kil Moon’s spoken word epic Benji and War on Drugs’ hypnotic Lost in a Dream recorded in 2014, that year will go down as one of the most musically inspiring. It was a year for rock veterans to produce career-solidifying classics as well as a few new (relatively) guys on […]
Read more "Best Albums of 2015 (thus far)"Solid Gold Heart Jad Fair & Danielson Sounds Familyre, 2014 By Matt Meade When I was nine, I used a Panasonic portable tape recorder to record a rock and roll song that I wrote entitled “Power Rock.” There were no instruments. There was no band. It was just me singing the words of this song […]
Read more "Solid Gold Weirdos"Ten years ago, we thought Sufjan Stevens belonged to all of us. When he produced two state-themed albums, Michigan and Illinois, and announced a career plan to make an album for each of the remaining forty-eight states, we thought he would be our Walt Whitman. He would turn his unique musical and literary gifts over […]
Read more "Darkness and Light and Oregon"I fell hard for the music of Sufjan Stevens back in 2005,[i] when I was passing out burned CDs of Illinois to unsuspecting friends with labels featuring my grand, Sharpie-scrawled pronouncements: “the great pop composer of our generation,” or “the white hipster Stevie Wonder.” He sang in a falsetto whisper, on subjects of therapy-session emotionality, […]
Read more "Sufjan Stevens With Cold Specks @ The Palace Theater, Albany, NY – Wednesday, April 15, 2015"Youngest Son by Matt Meade I have been trying to write this review for weeks now. It’s been difficult because the Christian imagery of this week’s artist forces me to overthink every reaction I have to every part of the music. Someday I’ll write about my complex relationship with Christianity and how I am simultaneously […]
Read more "Never Heard of ‘Em? #10 – Youngest Son"
OLD SCHOOL RECORD REVIEW 