Max Jury Max Jury www.maxjury.com A series of strong singles in 2014 established West Des Moines native Max Jury as able to craft instantly-classic songs influenced by laid back seventies West Coast singer-songwriters. These singles, which included the tongue-in-cheek “Black Metal,” started the snowball of acclaim and fueled expectation of his self-titled debut album, out […]
Album reviews
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Album Review: FireSale – Furry Noises
FireSale Furry Noises firesale.bandcamp.com/album/furry-noises FireSale is a band made up of players currently finishing bachelor’s degrees at the University of Iowa College of Music. They share that musical pedigree with alumni Euforquestra, whose frontman Matt Grundstad joins with them on their song “Don’t Ya,” on their 2015 album, Furry Noises. Their music is an amalgam […]
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Album review: Christopher the Conquered – I’m Giving Up on Rock & Roll
Listening to Christopher the Conquered’s new album I’m Giving Up On Rock & Roll, I can’t help but compare the epic, theatrical sound of the album to Springsteen’s Born to Run and Meat Loaf’s Bat Out of Hell. The pilgrimage that Christopher and producer Patrick Tape Fleming (of Poison Control Center) took to Memphis, to divine some of the magic that comes from the legendary Ardent Studios (where many of the hot Stax Records came from) brought forth a well of R&B gold.
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Album Review: Suspect – Faux Empath
Suspect Faux Empath www.raccoo-oo-oon.org/np Suspect (AKA Ryan Beck, Iowa City to Chicago transplant) is part of the ever-growing group of artists — many with recordings released on former Iowa Citian Shawn Reed’s Night People label — who are seeking to find a new musical path based on techno music, but outside the club/dancefloor/rave world from […]
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Album Review: Hello Clyde – Rewind
Hello Clyde is the side project of Chris Rohr of The White Elephant, though Rohr tells me that he actually considers Hello Clyde his “main squeeze” while the other band is on extended hiatus. “[Hello Clyde] is a revolving door of people that help color the songs I’ve made,” he says…
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Album Review: The LonelyHearts – Age of Man
Full disclosure: I am incredibly jealous of Andre Perry, Executive Director of the Englert Theater, musician, author and past contributor to Little Village. No one should be this good at that many things. I’ll try to rise above that deadly sin as I consider the new album he’s made with his musical partner John Lindenbaum, Age of Man…
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Album Review: A432 – Broken
A432 (Iowa City’s Logan Stimmel) calls himself a sound artist, rather than a musician — which means that I have high confidence many Little Village readers will not like Broken. A432’s music sits in the general vicinity of the music of Autechre and Richard Devine. It is deliberately abstract, without being arbitrary. Any sounds that originated as acoustic vibrations in air (i.e., “normal” music or location recordings) have been digitally altered and treated to render them unrecognizable.
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Album Review: Trevor Sensor – Texas Girls and Jesus Christ
Trevor Sensor Texas Girls and Jesus Christ www.trevorsensor.com Illinois-born Trevor Sensor, recently seen opening for the Halfloves at the Englert Theatre in Iowa City, has spun his songwriting skill — honed and perfected while studying English at Central College in Pella, IA — into an EP, Texas Girls and Jesus Christ. It dropped Mar. 25 […]
Posted inAlbum Reviews, Arts & Entertainment
Album Review: Bob Bucko Jr – I Did What I Could With What I Had
Unless you are a devotee of uninterrupted streaming, or 5-disc CD changers, you know that there’s an eerie silence that lingers after an album is over. It can shock you out of your reverie, demolish whatever translated worldview your music of choice has created for you. It’s how you realize that the world around you is lacking…
Posted inAlbum Reviews, Arts & Entertainment
Album Review: Halfloves – Self-titled
It’s a ballsy move to rename your band after you’ve had some notoriety. The Olympics decided to go back into the studio after their 2012 album with renewed commitment…
Posted inAlbum Reviews, Arts & Entertainment
Album Review: Pigs and Clover – Self-titled
Pigs and Clover are Matt and Jamie Kearney, reliable participants at political protests and labor rallies around Johnson County. If you hear someone blowing a conch shell at a demonstration, that’s Matt. Jamie’s the snare drummer. They recently released their eponymous third record…
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Album Review: Sweet Cacophony – Wind, Sand & Stars
The members of Iowa City-based folk quartet Sweet Cacophony have been playing music collectively for many decades. However, these lifelong musicians didn’t meet each other until recently. Life threw them together at the Hilltop Tavern’s Friends of Old Time Music jam sessions, which harmonica/accordion player Dennis Roseman has long organized. Peter Rolnick (guitars/mandolin), Jim Delaney (guitars/percussion) and Dave Parsons (bass/whistle) were the first to come together, in 2013. Roseman joined them soon after.
