I want to call Luke Temple a disciple of Hank Williams and Roger Miller. I want to call him an avant-garde traditionalist. I want to say he’s got an unmatched intuition for the askew. I want to say his only real contemporary peer is another master songsmith named Cass McCombs. I could make a pretty infallible case for any of these statements. But at the end of the day, it’d be adding too many bells and whistles to what his new album is. At its core, it’s one of the year’s most stunning folk records. You should just let Temple’s high-and-lonesome salve of a voice raise your goose-pimples from their dormancy. You should let his insightful, devastating lyrics make tiny, tender tears in your soul.
I want to call Luke Temple a disciple of Hank Williams and Roger Miller. I want to call him an avant-garde traditionalist. I want to say he’s got an unmatched intuition for the askew. I want to say his only real contemporary peer is another master songsmith named Cass McCombs. I could make a pretty infallible case for any of these statements. But at the end of the day, it’d be adding too many bells and whistles to what his new album is. At its core, it’s one of the year’s most stunning folk records. You should just let Temple’s high-and-lonesome salve of a voice raise your goose-pimples from their dormancy. You should let his insightful, devastating lyrics make tiny, tender tears in your soul.
Quinn is an Athabaskan and Inupiaq songwriter who was born and raised in Anchorage, Alaska. Quinn addresses his childhood and his role as a transgender individual navigating Alaska’s social landscape through his music….
Early one morning in May of 2016, Jesse Marchant came to on a street in Bedford-Stuyvesant, entangled with himself and his bicycle, after a crash on his way to work. He had been attacked by an irate school bus driver who knocked him speeding off his bicycle into a parked car. After flying over the hood and colliding with the back of another, Marchant landed on his head and was knocked out, splayed in the middle of the road….
Very rarely these days does a band enter our lives with the ability to speak to every corner of the heart. Brooklyn trio Big Bliss to navigate the beauties and pains of the human experience on their new LP, At Middle Distance. Having come together in late 2015, Big Bliss is the beautifully ruminating post-punk brainchild of brothers Tim and Cory Race. The brothers, having been split early on, each with a separate parent, had never played together over a cumulative 25 years of music, until both moved to New York from the Midwest. Years into living blocks from each other, they formed the band with friend and collaborator Wallace May, initially as a casual recording project. However, after the 2016 release of their debut EP Keep Near, motives and motivations shifted, and it became pretty difficult not to see the name Big Bliss on a show bill, especially at the remaining DIY spaces in NYC. Tireless efforts and undeniable passion on and off the stage landed the band on FIVE tours, and earned them the title of Oh My Rockness’ Hardest Working Band of 2017.
At Middle Distance speaks in urgent tongues, desperate to convey unknowable longing, like every great post-punk artist who came before. Moments of joy, moments of unspeakable sadness, moments of rage, all rub shoulders through these songs, and by the record’s end, you’ve undoubtedly run the gauntlet.
“Hypnotized with angelic shoegaze vibes that touch on the bigger questions in life.” ~ The Wild Honey Pie
“Light Goes is a fully realized album experience set to accompany and enhance whatever mood you may want to indulge and lose yourself in.” ~ New Noise Magazine
“Beneath the dreamy contours of their music lies heavy thematic content that seeks to better understand relationships, time and place, purpose, and so forth.” ~ Atwood Magazine
The dazzling, sprawling sonic atmospheres conjured by Brooklyn-based band Parrot Dream envelop and spur the dreamer in all of us. Formed by Christina Hansen Appel (vocals, keys) and Gonzalo Guerrero (guitar) in Santiago, Chile in 2013, the duo relocated to Brooklyn, NY and quickly began making strides amassing more than half a million streams on Spotify.
Aug. 15, 2018 | Felix Contreras — Some folks around the NPR Music office said they felt an almost spiritual connection to Erykah Badu during her visit to the Tiny Desk. And that was before she and her band even played a single note. It came from the waft of earthly scents that followed in her wake, to the flowing dreads and clothes that hung on her like robes . . . SO MUCH MORE.
The Chills are a band from Dunedin, New Zealand fronted by the rare talent of Martin Phillipps. Martin has a single-minded determination to take quality, original NZ-sounding, melodic rock music global. His requirement of band members has been to meet a standard of musicianship, which is necessary to deliver The Chills songs with essential consistent energy. This determination stems from the punk rock ethics of Martin’s musical awakening and from the subsequent proximity to people like Chris Knox who drove home how crucial it was to deliver music always with intensity and conviction. This live energy is the central reason why The Chills are remembered fondly in all of the thirty-nine countries that they have thus far visited. It’s the combination of this AND the consistent quality of their songs which have established The Chills as one of the most well-known New Zealand groups to date – particularly in the US, UK and Europe. The band have many faithful friends around the world and a new generation (Peter Bjorn and John, Songs, The Go Find, Panda Bear, The Shins et al) are now covering or attempting to emulate The Chills unique sound. A new album is due for release Sept 2018 and a feature film on Martin’s life is now in post-production, due for release 2019.
Color Palette – comprised of Jay Nemeyer, Joshua Hunter, Matt Hartenau, Rogerio Naressi, and Maryjo Mattea – is an Indie/Electro/Rock band from Washington, DC. Since their first release, Color Palette has garnered hundreds of press hits worldwide. Press highlights include features in NME Magazine, USA Today, and NPR. Color Palette released their debut full-length album, Vaporwave, in 2016. Color Palette has shared bills with the following notable artists: Charli XCX, The Naked and Famous, Soccer Mommy, Mother Mother, Day Wave, Yumi Zouma, Mr Little Jeans, The Kickback, and Spirit Animal. They will release their second full-length album in 2019.
Sometime around the turn of the century a small gang of boys grouped together in the noble pursuit of transcending suburban boredom through the traditional performance of punk rock songs. 3 of these young products of white America never moved on from this adolescent rebellion phase, and some 16 years later The Max Levine Ensemble continue to rock basements, bombed out buildings and other holes in the fabric of the status quo, with lofty aspirations of creating moments of pop catharsis for angsty teenagers and maybe shaking punk rock from the mediocrity of its ritualistic lulls. Which is to say, here’s another punk rock band. You’ve definitely seen this before.