Having backed up Nick Lowe on his “Quality Holiday Revue” tour, masked instrumental rockers Los Straitjackets understand the virtues of The Greatest Living Englishman’s songbook better than the average person. And while most people discussing Lowe’s work focus on the wit and wisdom of his lyrics, the man can write a superior melody, and Los Straitjackets offer eloquent proof on their 2017 album, What’s So Funny About Peace, Love and Los Straitjackets. This set offers a baker’s dozen tunes from Lowe’s catalog, ranging from early rockers like “Shake & Pop” and “Heart of the City” to smoother, more contemplative recent numbers like “I Read a Lot” and “Checkout Time,” all interpreted in Los Straitjackets’ trademark twangy style, borrowing from decades of instrumental rock styles…
Tag Archive: Yep Roc
Eponymous albums usually herald a debut or a stylistic sea change. Robyn Hitchcock‘s 22nd studio LP is neither, but it embraces elements of both. Recorded in Nashville with pop sorcerer Brendan Benson, it’s a distillation of the 64-year-old surrealist’s entire career, and easily his most vibrant collection of new music since the early 1990s — his last outing, 2014’s Man Upstairs, saw Hitchcock delivering an enjoyable, yet relatively amorphous set of half-covers/half-originals under the tutelage of the great Joe Boyd.
The obvious reference points here are Underwater Moonlight-era Soft Boys and early solo outings like Element of Light and Black Snake Diamond Role, but there are more than a few tips of the hat to his time on A&M in the late ’80s — lead single…
…This concert, and the loose stage banter it included, is now the subject of Aoife O’Donovan’s first live album, titled The Man in the Neon Coat: Live in Cambridge. It includes tracks from O’Donovan’s two studio LPs, plus a couple of covers, including Joni Mitchell’s “You Turn Me On I’m a Radio” and Emmylou Harris’ “Boulder to Birmingham.” The 16 tracks are performed by O’Donovan on acoustic guitar, Anthony Da Costa on electric guitar and Steve Nistor on drums.
The trio format replaces the fiddle, steel, keys, bass and other instruments heard on 2013’s Fossils and 2016’s In the Magic Hour. And while it might be tempting to call the live versions stripped-down, that would be a mistake – for this combo makes a lot of noise and fills the gaps in a way that…
Even though it’s been more than four years since Tift Merritt‘s last solo album, 2012’s Traveling Alone, she’s hardly been idle. In fact, between releasing a collaborative album with classical pianist Simone Dinnerstein, working with Andrew Bird’s Hands of Glory and singing on country-soul band Hiss Golden Messenger’s latest album Heart Like a Levee (not to mention getting a cut on Don Henley’s most recent album, Cass County), she’s actually been more visible than ever.
Stitch of the World, Merritt’s sixth studio album, was written on a friend’s farm in Marfa, Texas, at Merritt’s California cabin and in New York City in the wake of several major changes in her life. Merritt workshopped the songs on Stitch of the World with longtime friend Sam Beam of…
It’s probably impossible to figure out how many folks ended up starting bands after the Monkees made their TV debut in 1966, showing America’s youth that wacky adventures were in store once you picked up a guitar and moved into a band house. Scott McCaughey of the Minus 5 was one of those kids who had their heads turned around by regular exposure to the Prefab Four, and he clearly has a place in his heart for the Monkees and their legacy.
In 2015, McCaughey released a vinyl box set that included an album devoted to honoring his heroes. Four of those tunes concerned the members of the Monkees, and now Of Monkees & Men has been given a stand-alone release that allows a wider audience to appreciate his tributes. As it happens, the usually witty McCaughey takes this…
The Fleshtones played their first gig in 1976, and decades after taking the stage one night at CBGB, the band is not only still together, but has released its 21st album, The Band Drinks for Free.
There are groups that have held together longer, but most of them have had a hit record or some moment of serious fame that has allowed them to stay in the spotlight. The Fleshtones have their loyal supporters, but they play to a cult following, not a mass audience, and they’ve never had anything close to a hit record. It might sound hokey, but the Fleshtones are one band that still does it out of love, and The Band Drinks for Free is a joyous confirmation that these guys still dig the Super Rock sound they’ve made their own over the past few decades. This band’s patented blend of…
On their fifth album, 2016’s Blindfaller, Mandolin Orange once again show they have a true gift for keeping one foot in the past and the other in the present day. Group founders Andrew Marlin and Emily Frantz can harmonize with a casual but emphatic touch that sounds Appalachian at one moment, and like modern-day Big City folkies at the next. Marlin’s mandolin and Frantz’s fiddle work a similar magic, clearly inspired by vintage bluegrass and mountain music but also with a touch of the smoky drift of psychedelia when the music floats along a cloud of twang and reverb.
Marlin and Frantz expanded Mandolin Orange into a full band for Blindfaller, with the duo joined in the studio by Josh Oliver on keyboards and guitar, Allyn Love on pedal steel, Clint Mullican on bass,…
Look Park is a solo debut of sorts for Fountains of Wayne lead singer and co-songwriter Chris Collingwood, his first project outside of the seasoned power pop group. The musician has spurned the solo label, however, insisting that Look Park is “band music,” and he is joined on the album by a notable backing crew. Davey Faragher and Michael Urbano, both former members of Cracker with impressive sidemen credits, play bass and drums, respectively; acclaimed producer Mitchell Froom (Elvis Costello, Bonnie Raitt) handles keys in addition to studio duties, and Mike Viola and members of Winterpills contribute backing vocals.
Collingwood also challenges expectations by embracing a more psychedelic palette here that includes Mellotron and synths, as well as a more…
A staple of the Yep Roc roster since 2005, North Carolina’s Chatham County Line often get labeled as a bluegrass act, though that’s only a small part of what they do. More than anything, they’re an Americana string band focused around the subtle songwriting talents of singer/guitarist Dave Wilson, who also acts as producer on Autumn, the group’s eighth LP. In the album’s press release, Wilson compares his band to both an old bowling alley and a hardware store in that they reliably deliver a familiar experience that keeps customers coming back year after year. It’s self-deprecating, for sure, but Chatham County Line are anything but flashy, and they are certainly reliable in terms of quality and tone. For a string band album titled Autumn, they deliver exactly what you’d want: a nuanced…
Comprised of Lancaster’s own Maya de Vitry, Oliver Craven, and Charles Muench, the Stray Birds first hit the scene at the turn of a new decade in 2010, immediately making an impression with their sweet harmonies lain over an acoustic instrumentation complete between guitar, violin, and upright bass on their debut release, Borderlands.
So, from the beginning, it has been evident that these three would more or less be in the running to become Americana’s next darlings, an inimitable trio with their feet sown deeply into the organic, earthen roots of American folk music. Yet, they have continued to innovate their sound throughout the years in ways that some may not have come to expect from the doe-eyed, intimately sincere performance which launched them into…
New Jersey native Jonah Tolchin returns with Thousand Mile Night, the understated follow-up to his 2014 Yep Roc debut, Clover Lane. On this outing, the young blues traveler finds himself in Muscle Shoals, Alabama working at legendary FAME Studios with a crack team of players assembled by producer Marvin Etzioni. Musically, it’s a logical progression from his last LP, though at times, it feels more reflective and meditative, relying less on outright blues and roots explorations and more on a classic singer/songwriter type of approach.
In that respect, Tolchin’s growth seems more evident, especially on some of the gentler tracks like opener “Beauty in the Ugliest of Days” or the wistful “Completely.” Here, his debt to American roots traditions takes a backseat to his own…
Major labels proved not to be a welcome fit for retro -soul-blues revivalist Eli “Paperboy” Reed. Neither Come and Get It!, his 2010 album for Capitol, nor 2014’s gussied-up wannabe crossover Nights Like This brought in the wider audience they so desperately worked to attain, leaving the guitarist to pursue an indie direction for 2016’s My Way Home.
The title makes it plain that Reed believes he’s the prodigal son returning to his roots and, fittingly, My Way Home has a considerable gospel bent in its 11 songs. Since 2013, Reed has been teaching an after-school program called Gospel for Teens in Harlem and that sensibility infuses My Way Home, turning the record into a testament to reconnecting to R&B roots of all kinds. As pure sonics, this comes closest to the sharp, nervy retro-jump of 2008’s…
Peter Guralnick, author of a definitive two-part biography on Elvis Presley, published the equally definitive The Man Who Invented Rock & Roll in 2015. At 784 pages, the book is appropriately weighty. This is a man who not only discovered Elvis Presley, but Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, Ike Turner, Carl Perkins, Howlin’ Wolf and B.B. King, he deserves an epic but, as he was the quintessential recordman of the 20th century, he also deserves a soundtrack, so Guralnick gave him one, compiling a double-disc set to accompany the book.
The recordings Phillips made at his Sun Studios are well-documented, so what gives The Man Who Invented Rock & Roll an edge is the curator’s touch. Guralnick doesn’t neglect Sun standards — “Whole Lot of Shakin’ Going On,” “Moanin’ at Midnight,”…
After taking a long break from making albums and touring, Dressy Bessy returned in 2016 with Kingsized, an album for Yep Roc that sounded revitalized and on par with their best work from years before. During their sabbatical, the core group of singer/guitarist Tammy Ealom, guitarist John Hill, and drummer Craig Gilbert didn’t really do much to alter their punk-pop-crunch-meets-bubblegum- snap template; they seem to have tightened it up a bit and scruffed it around the edges, and they deliver it with an angry power that previous albums have only hinted at. The lyrics alternate between pissed-off politics and hard-edged love songs, with Ealom’s vocals alternately snarling and sweet as punch. This tough/tender dichotomy has existed in their music for a while, but it sounds fully…
The twin powers of the road and memory are powerful, beguiling forces for singer/songwriters.
Aoife O’Donovan is no exception. In the Magic Hour is her sophomore album. Written mostly during a solitary respite from traveling, its intimate songs are haunted by the emotional resonance of memory.
The life and passage of her 93-year-old grandfather and her childhood visits to his Clonakilty seaside village in Ireland loom large over these recordings.
Re-teaming with producer Tucker Martine, the pair built these tunes from the barest of essentials — usually just her voice and a guitar — before a studio band and carefully woven contributions of collaborators (including Sara Watkins, Sarah Jarosz, Chris Thile, Brooklyn Rider, Rob Burger, Eyvind Kang, and Tony Furtado) were added.
Eleni Mandell released her sixth album, Miracle of Five, back in 2007. The fact that the L.A.-based singer-songwriter’s new album, Dark Lights Up, is her 10th could perhaps be considered a minor miracle, given that the critical respect Mandell has long received has never come close to translating to significant commercial success.
The sound of Dark Lights Up was inspired by the sparse simplicity of famed country singer-songwriter Roger Miller, an epiphany that followed her visit to Nashville’s Country Music Hall of Fame.
“Miller’s music is so amazing,” she explains. “It doesn’t sound dated and there is so much space. That really inspired me to go for the acoustic instruments and a more open-face production.”
Mandell chose to make the album quickly.
It’s been five long years since singer/songwriter Jackie Greene released a solo record. In the interim, he’s been active, playing guitar on the Black Crowes’ last tour and working with Phil Lesh & Friends. He also co-leads Trigger Hippy with Joan Osborne and plays in WRG with Bob Weir and Chris Robinson.
Back to Birth is Greene’s debut for Yep Roc; it was produced by old friend and collaborator Steve Berlin of Los Lobos, who helmed the sessions for American Myth. While the title suggests a return of sorts, this certainly is not a return to Greene’s raw acoustic beginnings, but it does feel more like an extension of American Myth than it does Til the Light Comes. It’s leaner, for one thing. It feels like a band record because you can hear them playing around the singer, not behind him. “Silver Lining,” with its…
The three years between the Old Ceremony‘s fifth and sixth albums included bandleader Django Haskins‘ participation in the Big Star live tribute Big Star’s Third in 2014. The project included organizer Chris Stamey of the dB’s, Mike Mills of R.E.M., Jon Auer of the Posies, Big Star’s Jody Stephens, and many more, and led to some high-profile collaborators on 2015’s Sprinter.
With guest performances by Mills, some arrangements by Stamey, and production by jangle pop luminary Mitch Easter at his Fidelitorium in Kernersville, North Carolina, the resulting ten tracks forge a robust and adventurous chamber pop outing. With Mills on bass and backup vocals, Haskins evokes slinky, valse musette-infused noir on “Magic Hour,” a music-themed cautionary tale…
Chris Stamey spent much of Lovesick Blues luxuriating in a hazily romantic twilight, but he eases himself into the bright light of a new day on its 2015 successor, Euphoria. That so much of this new day is quite deliberately reliant on yesterday doesn’t signal a creeping nostalgia as much as Stamey’s comfort with building upon his power pop past. Certainly, he’s spent much of the new millennium revisiting his roots, whether it was staging tribute concerts to Big Star 3rd or reuniting the dB’s, but Euphoria is where he consolidates these dalliances with yesteryear and marries them to modern sensibilities. Often, Euphoria plays like a quick history of every kind of music Stamey has ever played or loved, rooted deeply in the thick chime of Big Star — “Where Does the Time Go?”…
Mandolin Orange seems to have settled, perhaps prematurely, into a cozy Americana rocking chair for two. While this is their second album since signing with Yep Roc, it’s actually the fourth recording by the North Carolina duo, Emily Frantz (guitar, fiddle) and Andrew Marlin (guitar, mandolin, banjo). There’s a seductively casual, easygoing feel to Mandolin Orange’s music, and though Such Jubilee is in keeping with their soft, folk-country sound, it might be time to ramp it up a notch.
New listeners will find Mandolin Orange reminiscent of other male-female folk duos, like Gillian Welch and David Rawlings or Pharis and Jason Romero, but the pair have their own variation on that theme, with Marlin’s gravel-yard vocals always front and centre and mandolin, but also fiddle,…
