There’s just something about a noise-rock record from Minneapolis, like a bowl of gumbo from Baton Rouge. Forged among the pillars of the almighty Amphetamine Reptile imprint—and no doubt guided by a trail of dismembered Big Muff pedals—Buildings churn through noise rock loyal to their Twin Cities and North Dakota forefathers (Hammerhead, Godheadsilo, etc). The […]
Category: Concert Preview
Posted inMusic
Shambling San Francisco garage rockers experiment with different modes on their new cassette, Gord’s Horse
Since forming in 2011, San Francisco quartet Cool Ghouls have made a virtue of no-frills consistency, doing little to disguise their devotion to 60s garage pop. Loose, chiming guitars ring out over chugging rhythms, but it’s their singing—which borrows from the early Beach Boys without sweating shortcomings in pitch or precise harmony—that makes each album […]
Posted inMusic
Chicago rapper-producer Valee has a strange, seductive way of showing his swagger
Chicago rapper-producer Valee Taylor, who records and performs under his first name, talks a big game. If you believe the claims in his breakthrough single, “Shell,” he’s the kind of guy who walks through luxury-brand stores like a master gamer let loose in an arcade with a backpack weighed down by quarters—he’s effortless and in […]
Posted inMusic
Jambinai builds postrock’s future with instruments from Korea’s past
Last year Ilwoo Lee, guitarist and principal songwriter for Seoul postrock group Jambinai, told Noisey that “many Korean people don’t listen to traditional Korean music and they don’t respect Korean traditional culture.” Having studied music at the country’s National University of Arts, he’d been exposed to historically important forms in which few people his age […]
Posted inMusic
Spires That in the Sunset Rise and Michael Zerang blend primitive folk and spacey improvisation
Since forming 16 years ago, Spires That in the Sunset Rise have been blazing their own trippy path, with the group’s two core members, Kathleen Baird and Taralie Peterson, increasingly embracing a more improvisational ethos while retaining homemade folk roots. That shift has never been more pronounced than in their ongoing collaboration with percussionist Michael […]
Posted inMusic
Chicago Fringe Opera’s Lucrezia is a sly, seductive comic romp
Chicago Fringe Opera shows off its cast in a warm-up cabaret act of William Bolcom songs in the Chopin Theatre’s cozy underground lounge, then moves into the adjacent black box theater for a deliciously droll production of this one-hour romp of an opera, scored for two pianos and five singers. Composed by Bolcom in 2007—and […]
Posted inMusic
Mastodon’s metal universe expands even further on Emperor of Sand
As Mastodon worked their way from the underground into the realm of radio metal over the past decade or so, the evolution of their expansive, florid sound never felt painfully labored—rather it’s been more gradual and predictable. Since their record of record Leviathan, the Atlanta band’s forceful, heavy dual-guitar sludge riffing has been a bit […]
Posted inMusic
Gary, Indiana, producer Jlin toys with footwork’s conventions
The best footwork producers show how the fast-and-furious Chicago-born sound can seemingly push an MPC drum machine to the limit as much as it can dancers sweating it out during battles. Footwork’s chest-rattling assault of clustered rhythms is at times hard to fathom—how can two human hands keep a piece of hardware on the brink […]
Posted inMusic
Dallas alt-country mainstays the Old 97s don’t mess with the formula on Graveyard Whistling
This veteran Dallas quartet was instrumental in defining the sound of alt-country in the mid-90s, layering hard-hitting shuffles, twang-drenched guitar, and the shiny melodies of singer Rhett Miller. The Old 97s return to that nearly 25-year-old formula like a favorite shirt on their 11th album, Graveyard Whistling (ATO), dutifully toggling between cliche and wit while […]
Posted inMusic
Doug Tuttle reaches a new level of tuneful sophistication with his latest serving of homemade psych-pop
New England psych-pop merchant Doug Tuttle has reached another peak with his gorgeous third solo album, Peace Potato (Trouble in Mind), a collection of summery guitar-borne hooks he crafted by himself in his home studio. And though he plays everything—drums, guitar, woozy Mellotron, and even some horns—it’s the record’s infectious vocal melodies that command the […]
Posted inMusic
Seattle violist Eyvind Kang and transatlantic trio Hear in Now are highlights of this year’s Jazz String Summit
There are few musicians at work with the curiosity, rigor, and range of Seattle-area violist Eyvind Kang, who has gradually expanded his arsenal to include string instruments like the Persian setar and the Indonesian plucked zither called the kecapi. Those additions weren’t without study—Kang is fluent in Arabic, Persian, and Indonesian traditions as well as […]
Posted inMusic
Ty Segall ties together the threads of his voluminous output to create his best record yet
Unless you place a premium on melding disparate approaches within a single song, the ever-prolific Ty Segall doesn’t pull any genuinely new tricks on his most recent self-titled Drag City album, but he still sounds better than ever. Working with the most efficient band of his career—featuring fellow guitarist Emmett Kelly, bassist Mikal Cronin, drummer […]
Posted inMusic
Pianist Gerald Clayton shows how his music is opening up on the new Tributary Tales
With his dense new album Tributary Tales (Motema), pianist and composer Gerald Clayton acknowledges the influence of new people and new sounds on his music and life, tracing his course from straight-ahead player who grew up on the west coast in a family of jazz heavies to New York musician charting his own path. That […]
Posted inMusic
Hall & Oates and Tears for Fears influenced by 1970s British prog rock? Yeah, you can go for that.
Whoever dreamed up the double bill of Hall & Oates and Tears for Fears deserves a DeLorean as a reward. Though they play different styles of pop music—Hall & Oates are experts at soft rock and blue-eyed soul, Tears for Fears deliver ambitious synth-heavy sophisti-goth—the two acts share a few similarities. Both are duos with […]
Posted inMusic
With Death Song the anger that fuels the Black Angels has boiled over
With their new album Death Song this heady psychedelic Texas band finally acknowledge in full their inspiration—“The Black Angel’s Death Song” from The Velvet Underground & Nico—which feels like they’re either out of ideas or returning to their roots. Death Song is darker than either of their two previous releases, 2010’s Phosphene Dream and 2013’s […]