Writers of the Depths Anthology Erin Casey & Alex Penland, ed. — The Writers’ Rooms Like a river flowing into the sea, Writers of the Depths, the anthology from the Iowa City–Cedar Rapids workshop collective the Writers’ Rooms, injects a fresh perspective into ocean tales. One traditional story and six fantasy tales are studded with […]
Dark Family’s second album of 2019 is a fucking groove. Released on Oct. 30, Holiness essentially takes the psychedelic supergroup’s first album, The Reverberation Cult, and retrofits it with all the inky, druidic, pot rock energy the band’s full lineup commands. […]
Iowa Dream by Arthur Russell It was awfully sweet what Kevin Costner’s Ray Kinsella said about Iowa — but nobody has made this place sound so good as Arthur Russell. Iowa is always polite, always wild, not the convenient setting of some canonical work of literature read in high school classrooms. The lines are all […]
James Tutson and the Rollback will perform an album release show on Friday, Nov. 15, at 9 p.m. at Big Grove Brewery in Iowa City. There is no cover.
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There’s a classic axiom about judging a man by the company he keeps. Despite my years in this job, I am not IC-scene enough to have met Jeff Nehring (known for Los Marauders, the Rough Housers and the Day Glow Bomber Boys). But I feel like I know him, judging by the amazing array of people who have rallied around him. His support […]
Dan Padley (a member of Laranja and Elizabeth Moen’s band) is releasing a new EP of ambient guitar improvisations Nov. 1 to benefit the Emma Goldman Clinic. Padley is not wedded to a specific style of music. With Elizabeth Moen, he meshes with her rootsy singer-songwriter style; with Laranja, he explores modern jazz. On Druthers he probes the […]
The brightly illustrated Peter Max-influenced pop-art cover of Time Beach Universe, the debut album from Grinnell band Pink Neighbor, gives us a pretty good idea of what lies within. But, it’s not all tangerine trees and marmalade skies — it’s a perfect pastiche of the full variety of 1960s party pop. The neighborly tone of the record is set at the […]
It’s impossible to consider Al Naylor’s album Friends without addressing the underlying fact behind its creation. Naylor — nothing short of a legend in the region’s jazz community as both an educator and a player — has been diagnosed with a health condition that will soon force his early retirement from performing. In the face of the news, […]
Dan Padley, a graduate of the University of Iowa College of Music, has been a versatile asset to Iowa City’s music scene. From touring with singer/songwriter Elizabeth Moen to performing with his band Laranja, he’s a player’s player, meshing seamlessly with the music at hand. Perfectly Whelmed seems more personal and reflective than his […]
When a band takes the time to create an album as a single work and does it well, as Iowa City band Halfloves has done with their second album Dazer, the investment of experiencing the whole work pays off. Overall, Dazer explores a theme of human connection or, in some cases, the lack thereof. […]
The press material for Pieta Brown’s new album, Freeway, quotes guitarist Jeremy Ylvisaker asking, “what kind of music IS this? Prairie gaze?!” The question, while humorous, touches on the sonic explorations of the sessions that make up her eighth album. For her first album on Ani DiFranco’s Righteous Babe label, Brown returned to Justin […]
At first listen, Pollinators’ new album, Return Home (out Oct. 4) seems to be from an era that never existed, but should have. It’s a version of the 1990s where Jer Bear got healthy and the swing revival never happened. Energizing guitar riffs make you want to lace up your Docs and jam. It sounds like Weezer before and after their pop makeover […]
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