Music | Thursday, September 7,2006

Depth charge

Cashing in on the current craze for all things piratical

People love pirates. They prove it by stampeding to see the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, by chomping down on their R’s (arrrrrghs!) on Talk Like a Pirate Day. Piratemania is so widespread, i

Music | Wednesday, August 30,2006

When kiwis take flight

Phoenix Foundation’s latest definitely worth the wait

By René Spencer Saller

New Zealand, a country that’s delivered more than its share of great guitar pop in the last 20-odd years — the Chills, the Clean, the Verlaines, the Bats, Split Enz, and Crowded House, to

Music | Wednesday, August 23,2006

Get your Goat

What Get Lonely lacks in drama, it makes up for in quiet artistry

By René Spencer Saller

Last year the Mountain Goats released The Sunset Tree, an aural exorcism inspired by the abusive childhood of the band’s frontman and only permanent member, John Darnielle. Like its predecessor,

Music | Thursday, August 17,2006

A little goes a long way

The Archie Bronson Outfit’s second full-length most definitely rocks

By René Spencer Saller

Is it dirty art rock or arty dirt rock? Rock music you can dance to or dance music you can rock to? Whatever you want to call Derdang Derdang, the Archie Bronson Outfit’s second full-length, the

Music | Thursday, August 10,2006

Enlightened thumping

What does Logic have to do with Zen?

By René Spencer Saller

The title of DJ Logic’s new album is a stumper: What does logic, the science of abstract reasoning, have to do with Zen, a Buddhist philosophy that honors direct intuition through meditation? De

Music | Wednesday, August 2,2006

Not good enough to be awful

Midlake goes for the quaint, agrarian, and the obtuse

By René Spencer Saller

Midlake is from Denton, Texas, the same smallish town that spawned Centro-matic, but you’d never guess it by listening to The Trials of Van Occupanther. With its soft and inviting beds of acoust

Music | Wednesday, July 26,2006

Focused on the essentials

Jazzman Liberty Ellman is no obnoxious hot dog

By René Spencer Saller

Ophiuchus Butterfly is guitarist/composer Liberty Ellman’s second full-length for Pi Recordings, which is fast becoming one of the most interesting labels on the independent jazz scene. (Though

Music | Wednesday, July 19,2006

Self-loathing as art

Lisa Germano excels at singing about being fat, trashed, and duped

By René Spencer Saller

Lisa Germano’s publishing company is called Emotional Wench, a name that is, to quote Homer Simpson, funny because it’s true. In the annals of indie dysfunction, few singer/songwriters hav

Music | Wednesday, July 12,2006

Delighting in happy accidents

Shapes and Sizes may be terminally adorable, but that’s OK

By René Spencer Saller

When the terminally adorable Canadian quartet Shapes and Sizes signed to indie-rock über-cutie Sufjan Stevens’s record label, Asthmatic Kitty, the sudden surfeit of sweetness must

Music | Thursday, July 6,2006

Testing an illusory world

Lady & Bird’s children’s story for adults

By René Spencer Saller

Lady & Bird is the intriguing, if slight, side project of Keren Ann Zeidel and Bardi Johannsson. Zeidel, an Israel-born Frenchwoman who now shuttles between Paris and New York, has