THE SPRING ISSUE
Posts Tagged ‘J. Poet’
Metal Mother
“I don’t like fluffy music,” says Tara Tati, the woman who records as Metal Mother. “I like music with a dark, elemental core. That’s why I chose Metal Mother as the name for my project. It’s not a reference to heavy metal, although I love that kind of music; it’s about the mother that lives […]
Magnetic Man
The press in England is currently hyping dubstep, a mix of dub reggae, grime, garage, classic rave, techno and soul, as the most innovative sound to come out of British dance clubs in a decade. Magnetic Man, a trio of producers and songwriters from Croydon—ground zero for the dubstep movement—are currently the face of dubstep, […]
RYAT
All bands dream of creating sounds that can’t be pigeonholed. Philadelphia’s RYAT (pronounced riot) has done it with an innovative blend of electronica, jazz, pop and modern experimental music. Their dense asymmetric rhythmic textures, swirling multi-layered vocals, unexpected shifts in tempo and cryptic lyrics, produce music that inhabits an intoxicating twilight zone between sweet dreams […]
I’m From Barcelona
Emanuel Lundgren’s Wall of Sunshine Emanuel Lundgren had no intention of starting a 29 member group when he began recording his upbeat pop tunes in 2005. The band came together as the result of a series of unlikely events. “A few years ago, I’d accumulated five weeks of vacation time,” Lundgren recalls from his home […]
Bill Carter
The U2 Connection Bill Carter has had a long and varied career as an assistant director, bartender, adobe mason, firefighter, commercial fisherman, photographer, journalist and filmmaker. In 1993, he landed in Sarajevo during the Bosnian War and joined The Serious Road Trip, an unofficial aid organization that delivered food to children affected by the war. […]
Echo Lake: Drowning in Reverb
On their debut EP, Young Silence, Echo Lake’s expansive, hypnotic music is quietly overwhelming and completely irresistible. Bandleader and producer Thom Hill has created a sound that moves smoothly between icy, hissing guitar fuzz, keyboard textures denser than the atmosphere of Jupiter and tidal waves of psychedelic noise. When the delicately indecipherable vocals of Linda […]
Fred Schneider & The Superions
“I never thought I’d have a career as a disco singer,” says Fred Schneider, chuckling softly. Schneider’s backstage at Chateau Ste. Michelle Winery, a few miles north of Seattle. He’s getting ready to go on stage with the B-52s, the band he co-founded back on Valentine’s Day in 1977, but he’s doing phone interviews to […]
Blood Red Shoes
Blood Red Shoes may be England’s best looking band. The photogenic duo is guitarist Laura-Mary Carter, possessor of a dark, evocative beauty and blonde drummer Steven Ansell, a young man with a classic just-got-out-of- bed-at-four-in-the-afternoon rock and roll aura. Their appearance hasn’t hurt their meteoric rise to the top of Britain’s alt. rock scene, but […]
The Black Keys
The Black Keys recorded their latest album, Brothers, at the legendary Muscle Shoals Sound Studios in Alabama. Aretha Franklin, The Rolling Stones, Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan all made records there, but the band wasn’t specifically drawn to the building because of its history. “Muscle Shoals isn’t the holy grail,” says Black Keys guitarist and […]
VV Brown
VV Brown causes ripples of excitement when she walks into a room. She’s beautiful, an inch shy of six feet tall and has a unique fashion sense some call “thrift store meets high couture.” The first single from her debut album, Travelling Like the Light, was iTunes’ Single of the Week in February, and she’s […]
Hurts
Elegant Look, Poignant Tunes, Heartfelt Emotion Theo wears :Grey suit Richard James, Roll neck Hugo Boss Adam wears : Roll neck Hugo Boss Hurts were being hailed as Britain’s next big thing before they’d played a single gig. The Manchester based duo—singer Theo Hutchcraft and guitarist/synthesizer wiz Adam Anderson—captured the public’s imagination last summer with […]
Gogol Bordello
Gogol Bordello doesn’t take the stage; they take over the stage. They dominate crowds with their blistering mix of punk, roots reggae, dub, metal, rap, flamenco, klezmer, salsa and Italian spaghetti western twang, anchoring it all in a muscular Gypsy rhythm that sounds like an Eastern European cousin of ska. “My inspiration comes from Ukrainian […]
Judgement Day
Early Queen albums announced, “No synthesizers.” Judgement Day, the San Francisco Bay Area-based string metal band, echoes that adage with an inscription on Peacocks/Pink Monsters: “There are no guitars on this record.” When the Patzner brothers—Anton plays violin, Lewis, cello—play a shredding metallic solo, it’s hard to believe the shrieking flurries of 32nd notes aren’t […]
