Music | Wednesday, December 6,2006

On her own, untethered

Isobel Campbell may sound a bit fey, but that’s OK

Hot on the heels of Ballad of the Broken Seas, Isobel Campbell’s album of duets with Mark Lanegan, Milkwhite Sheets finds the Glaswegian cellist/chanteuse all by her lonesome again, with mixed r

Music | Tuesday, November 21,2006

Duo breathes life into death

Gob Iron, Farrar and Parker’s new side project, explores the great beyond

By René Spencer Saller

Death, unlike taxes, is the great equalizer. From the mewling preemie in the neonate ward to former President Gerald Ford, from the lowly fruit fly to the august giant tortoise, from the pope to the D

Music | Wednesday, November 15,2006

Sweetness and coherence

Sample Trolleyvox’s power pop and The Memory Band’s eclectic folk

By René Spencer Saller

Untitled Document If you like your power pop sweet and shiny and more than a little bit silly, the Trolleyvox is the band for you. The Philadelphia-based quartet, whose ranks hav

Music | Wednesday, November 8,2006

A vagabond's scrapbook

Amy Annelle and the Places sing of escape

By René Spencer Saller

Amy Annelle, the singer, songwriter, and sole permanent member of the Places, traffics in narcotic dream-folk cut with aleatoric noise. Sometimes alone, sometimes accompanied by a revolving cast of mu

Music | Wednesday, October 25,2006

The storm before the calm

Akron/Family is back with more of the same.

By René Spencer Saller

On its second full-length, Akron/Family delivers more of the transcendentalist free folk that’s made the band famous, or at least famous among all of the right people. Ex-Swan Michael Gira loved

Music | Wednesday, October 18,2006

The bridesmaid turns bride

Kid Congo Powers comes out of the shadows to celebrate the grit that was

By René Spencer Saller

For most of his career, Kid Congo Powers (né Brian Tristan) was a sideman, performing with some of the most influential bands of the past two decades. He began playing guitar in 1979, when a ch

Music | Wednesday, October 11,2006

Hollow boulders

By all rights, Two Ton Boa ought to be heavy

By René Spencer Saller

One of the many excruciating aspects of Rock Star: Supernova was watching the female contestants as they wailed and writhed and whipped their hair around in a doomed attempt to prove that hott chixx c

Music | Wednesday, September 27,2006

Riddle me this

It’s No. 8 for Richard Buckner, and he sounds like, um, himself

By René Spencer Saller

One part George Jones, one part John Ashbery, Richard Buckner brings the MFA poetry workshop to the honky-tonk, or vice versa. He’s the kind of lyricist who is typically described as “elli

Music | Wednesday, September 20,2006

Make way for the M word

Longtime St. Louis fixture Joe Thebeau scores first national release

By René Spencer Saller

Joe Thebeau, the mastermind of Finn’s Motel, describes himself as a “40-year-old married-with-children rock guy” — an unglamorous profile for an indie-rock aspirant, maybe, but

Music | Wednesday, September 13,2006

She's special, not 'cause she's a she

Guitarist Kaki King goes for the full-band sound

By René Spencer Saller

Guitar dorks are guys mostly, weird guys with ickily long fingernails who stink of cannabis and complicated tablatures. If they’re not droning on about the awesome tuning that they just discover