An interview with Luis Accorsi and Lane Steinberg of Cracked Latin. The band’s debut album, The World Is Cracked Latin, was one of the most challenging and far-reaching of 2009’s releases. They are a band so good, that they simultaneously threaten renown and obscurity. At present, they have at least my love, and plans to tour within the year.
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A collection of songs as good as Peter and the Wolf’s Golden Stars is an endlessly giving defense of the album form. The UK-based band’s fourth label-released album, Stars is a celebration of songwriting, a carnival of melody, of pre-choruses, bridges, post-choruses, choruses. Read full work »
Horse Stories, whose fifth LP, November, November saw release January 19th, was a quiet electric ballad Thursday the 21st at Pete’s Candy Store in Brooklyn. Writer, singer and rhythm guitarist Toby Burke stood while Luther Russell assumed a stool and played a bluesy, poppy lead guitar, melodies and some wonderful tremolo assuming prominence.
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Two electric guitars. Or three? It is something I wonder throughout Surfer Blood’s debut LP, Astrocoast. Opener ‘Floating Vibes’ is a fine introduction: Electric guitar following the vocal melody, a guitar climax. This is garage rock, and at times it is grand.
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Being an American, I don’t understand a word of Rauelsson’s debut LP, La Siembra La Espera Y La Cosecha. This is no harm, for it is music after all, and Cosecha is a lovely and powerful piece of it. Acoustic guitar picking through arpeggios are a staple, joined by vocals (often harmonies) with various percussive noises dangling around the back like snowflakes already fallen.
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Butane Variations: Love Five Songs (EP) The second and final release from Butane Variations – the leftovers from their debut self-titled LP – Love Five Songs is the EP as mini-album; as an extremely strong collection of songs. While some of us still value the LP, the widespread availability of [free] digital music leaves some attention spans at thirty seconds. This makes the EP’s length impressive, but not indomitable.
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Album: Cracked Latin: The World Is Cracked Latin. Holland’s Mother (EP) was my favorite release of the year – and Ike Reilly’s Junkie Faithful my favorite in my eternal play of catch-up – but Cracked Latin’s debut LP, The World Is Cracked Latin, was the most surprising and pleasing album of the year.
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Pre-recorded music was the theme of the evening at Mercury Lounge. Coming from the garage as many of us 80s/90s kids do, the idea of pre-recorded music comingling with a live band is anathema to what is going on. Perhaps now it is what is going on.
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There are brief decisions on Come Dig Me Up, The Tailors second release, – a bent note on the vocal, a particular chord change, the first ten seconds of the LP – that irritate like a handshake & smile that is too sincere. Happily, this makes the rest of the album surprisingly inventive and substantial, and I’m not smirking. The nine songs presented are thoughtful, crafted. Perhaps similar to Teenage Fanclub in the not sweet but hardly sour pop form; in the dexterity of the form. Particularly the sweet earnestness of ‘Bow Road.’
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The Glasslands, in the boonies of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, boasts a lovely decor of corrugated tin ceiling and some sort of bridge support keeping the building up. This atmosphere suited Tuesday night’s opening band, Dynasties, just fine. The two-man effort distorted and drummed its way through half-a-dozen numbers, with alternating two-chord riffs and brief lead-guitar virtuosos. The songs, though not drastically different from each other, seemed born of the two fellows in the band having spent reams of time futzing around with how best the propulsive and fill-ecstatic rhythm could match the voraciously distorted guitar. What is emitted is a loud, often intriguing sound. Aside from a few brief outbursts, the vocals were largely absent. I wondered what a few melodies might do for the sound.
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