Discount Sacrifice At The Altar Of Bargains by BBJR + SLW I can’t stop thinking about this album. When it dropped in December of last year, I’d kind of resigned myself to not writing about it, just given the way […]
Outer Space, Iowa by Dean Gorman If we are truly living through the Great Resignation, I’m expecting that the coming months will hold a heavy release of “Future Endeavors” albums and straight-up “I Quit” albums. Early to the party is […]
Music has done a number on Luke Tweedy. He was a record store guy with a uniquely acerbic bedside manner. He taught himself electronics and audio engineering and built his recording studio, Flat Black, from scratch. He’s documented (in first-rate […]
The Parts I Dread by Pictoria Vark Nobody sounds like Pictoria Vark. She’s a classic punk balladeer and veritable witch of the North. Her melodies are cool and ethereal. It’s the lyrics that are warm, and when she sings, her […]
Iowa does such a great job at spewing out iconic, idealist and illuminous inspiration. Ahzia, a Quad Cities native, established his tone for the year with the release of his latest project, 2021’s Welcome to Nowhere, released in December. He’s […]
Stoopgoblin Suite – Live at Trumpet Blossom Cafe by Death Bag In Death Bag, Chris Wiersema (half of the ambient doom duo Lwa) plays electronics gizmos and Gabi Vanek, a veteran performer in the experimental live music scene who has […]
It can be a dicey affair when an artist who operates in traditional songcraft decides to experiment. They risk alienating some of their audience, while the new audience segment they attract may not appreciate the existing back catalog of their […]
Adaptasia by Zap Tura With every surge of the pandemic, a soundtrack emerges. Cyclical soundtracks, in fact. First, warm, optimistic fear foists celebrity covers of “Imagine” onto us all. Then, months of winter mark dour observations as people spend time […]
James Tutson did not get any chairs to turn with his blind audition performance on The Voice in March of this year. But those who have heard the Iowa City musician — live or on record — know that his […]
Justin K Comer & the Unblessed Rest of Us by Justin K Comer & the Unblessed Rest of Us When Gabi Vanek announced on Facebook that the catch-all Ox Cart project would be formalized into a new Iowa City experimental […]
How Could We Lose When We're So Sincere? by Anthony Worden and the Illiterati In 1968, the Turtles released the album The Turtles Present the Battle Of The Bands, a cartoonish concept album that yielded the hit “Caroline.” Every song […]
Q: What Else Is There To Do? by DEAD ENSIGN The first five seconds of Dead Ensign’s Q: What Else Is There To Do? give me a powerful sense of foreboding I haven’t felt from a piece of music since […]
