Blindshark / Widescreen / Soundworld Listen to "Wish", the first single from Blindshark's debut CD, and you might think you were hearing a new Cure song -- at least at the beginning. When the vocals kick in, the similarities decrease. This in no sadsack Robert Smith, but a more jolly character -- perhaps someone from Lightning Seeds, perhaps a male-led version of Frente or even a jovial Christmas elf. I think "Still" is actually a better track. It's a gorgeous little love song constructed of forlorn lyrics, an acoustic guitar and pulsating drumming on a guitar case...more» FEATURED ON THE BOOMBOX!
		Jim Connolly and the Gove County Philharmonic / The Circus Doesn't Stop at Gove / pfMentum You can imagine my joy as the opening notes of "Yes, I've Been to Gove" filtered through my speakers. A soft waltz with a touch of backwoods dissonance, the track has enough moonshine and moonbeams to make it undeniably charming. This small-town, middle America feel lasts throughout the album. After a quick blast of cacophony, the band lurches into a demented polka that sounds straight out of Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, and by now I'm simply left giggling with pleasure...more» FEATURED ON THE BOOMBOX!
		The Sea and Cake / Oui / Thrill Jockey Since their last release (the meticulously beautiful The Fawn), the members of The Sea and Cake have been pretty busy. Sam and Archer each released well-received solo works, and of course every time you turn around John McEntire is either producing or playing on another album. Oui announces the triumphant return of The Sea and Cake, renewing our acquaintance with their trademark blend of grace, style and precision. And thankfully, the band has not lost a step -- not musically, anyway...more» FEATURED ON THE BOOMBOX!
		Blanket / Nice / Hush The European pop of Blanket is more new territory for Chad to explore with a gifted group of musicians (Greg, Ross, and Jez, formerly of Brigantine), but the results are simply too resplendent to waste time thinking about the artists involved in their creation. Recorded live, the band sounds as if they're playing in your room as accompaniment to all the moments you spend staring outside...more»
		'clip / Songs from the Mint Mansion / Chicken Ranch Geoff Johnston, the warped stoner mastermind behind 'clip, writes amusing songs and delivers them in an appealing one guy/one guitar style -- think They Might Be Giants giving in to their baser impulses and playing R-rated coffeehouse music. Songs from the Mint Mansion outstrips 'clip's previous effort, 1999's Lo Fi Laugh, in practically every way. Whereas Lo Fi Laugh was scattershot-funny, Songs... is consistently superior, offering not just more laughs, but better laughs...more»
		The Dormouse Choir / Tonight We Drink With Orphans / Near By Music While I certainly wasn't raised on a farm or brought up on whiskey-bred country or ass-whippin’ bluegrass, this Boston-based band definitely takes its sound from the classic artists of those genres. With fiddle, trombone, slide guitar and the lowly singing saw, the Dormouse Choir joins country-billy with the contemporary sounds of personal-demon-purging and heavy beer-swilling activities. You know, think of Southern Culture on the Skids...or even better, The Bad Livers...more»
		Exist / There I Was, Here I Am / Flamehead In "Over and Out", David Stoller's one-man music comes across like East River Pipe, albeit slowed down and peppered with feedback. On and emotional and musical level it's very strong, and so enjoyable that I hoped the remaining songs would be variations upon that theme. Instead, I discovered that David Stoller isn't just a person who stumbled upon a great sound. He's a stellar talent, not to mention an example of a great musician unable to find much label support, indie or major...more»
		Luckie Strike / The Mercury Project / Fast Music Melanie Levy has the punk rock girl sing/speak/scream thing down cold, while Liz Beidelman's drums are tight and fast. The bass and guitar boys, Andre Gallardo and Kevin "Bubba" Sur, have their amps set to extra-crunchy, just the way they should be. The eleven tracks on The Mercury Project range from straight-ahead, really fast and unintelligible chunkachunka hardcore to more tuneful sing-along pop-punk numbers, with plenty of sweat and passion to keep things energized all the way through...more»
		Roy Montgomery / The Allegory of Hearing / Drunken Fish Luckily, once in every thousand (or so) crap-intensive guitar albums there comes a Roy Montgomery record. Montgomery, you see, is sort of the MacGyver of guitars. He can take an extremely modest melody -- say, a humble two-chord alternation -- and turn it into something special and beautiful. In his hands, guitars emit gorgeous, shimmering threads of ethereally brittle noise. And he does it on a four track, using only a couple of guitars, and e-bow and some modest keyboards and effects units...more»
		Orso / Long Time By / Perishable Sure, Orso aren’t the same kind of insurgent country band as Wilco or the Old ‘97s. Long Time By isn’t about having a rip-roaring time, at least not the way those boys have a time. But it is about the same subject much new country music tackles – the transposition of rural instruments, and rural themes, to an urban environment. So there’s a banjo, and a broken-down sort of rhythm on "Logs #1". So what if there’s also electronic augmentation, and an unlikely arrangement...more»