Portland's Radiation City plys the kind of gauzy, girl-group-but-not-really alchemy that wanders into the empty ballrooms of lost torch songs and overheard radios playing out of moonlight convertibles. On the single "Find It Of Use", leading off their new EP Cool Nightmare, Lizzy Ellison's voice strikes a curious posture between melancholia and menace, and the low-fi arrangements manage to keep the reverb-drenched production from drowning the song's tender urgency. You can check out the band, at home, working through an arrangement of "Babies" (from last year's debut CD The Hands That Take You ) here. They come to Denver's Hi-Dive on 3/6.
Ambient artist Phillip Wilkerson has a new CD, The Stars and Afterward, combining a little Berlin School sequencer with his trademark drone work. Beautiful stuff, from an artist with a deep and growing catalog. Look out, Drone Zone.
Italian Horn is the solo project of New York writer Anthony Pappalardo, and his Red Affair 12" comes across a little like a Sonic Youth rehearsal recorded from down the hall - grey washes of electric guitar chords, supporting simple vocal melodies, kind of summoning the spectre of smoky Manchester clubs circa 1991. Check out the
"Red Affair" title track here.
The Lumineers were started in New Jersey by Wesley Schultz and Jeremiah Fraites after Fraites' older brother, and close friend of Schultz died of a drug overdose. The two played shows around NY, but it wasn't until they moved to Denver where they teamed up with Neyla Pekarek that things began to happen for them. They have a new CD coming out on April 3 on Dualtone Records, produced by Ryan Hadlock (Foo Fighters, Ra Ra Riot, Metric). We're enjoying the bouncy, popgrass grin of the thing. "Classy Girls" our fave off this one so far, "classy girls don't kiss in bars", and mostly true if we recall. April 7th at Shug's, we're going to try to get a piece in the paper on them.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment