Bo White - Millennial Tombs (2014)

Bo White is a hell of a songwriter.

He writes piano driven pop rock music, and like "Pop Rock" candy, his music is so sugary sweet that if you drank a soda while listening to it, your head would likely explode right of it's damn stem, covering your walls with syrupy, red goo. Luckily, the end results eschew the candy-corniness that infects most of the mellow cream pop universe... resembling more of a glittering 70's glam pop sound, than the "let me show you how cute and clever I can be" Ben Folds brand of piano pop.

If you're familiar with the Pennsylvania-born glam icon Jobriath, you'll find an immediate reference to Mr. White's sound. The tunes are catchy, the lyrics are a little loud in the mix for me, but it's difficult to not get hooked by all these... hooks. You only need listen to the fantastic first track here, "Golden Ops", to know if Bo White is your bag. His voice may remind you of Tobin Sprout (of Guided By Voices), maybe even Roger Daltry in his more tender moments ...two singers whose work I enjoy quite a bit myself, so again, difficult to not enjoy the fuck out of this release.

5 songs.

Bo White - Millennial Tombs

Liam Singer – Arc Iris (2013)

Liam Singer has become one of my favorite artists putting out larger than life pop records over the last few years. This is the fourth release form the Queens local, and in my estimation, the record that breaks him into a larger audience than the music blogs and indie radio stations that have been championing him. 

Singer has always taken parts of the 60s and 70s layered pop approach and spun his own voice into those genres. I figure most that listen to Arc Iris will immediately make a comparison to Pet Sounds and Sufjan Stevens, but those influences are only part of this record’s approach. Liam’s melancholy tone and lyrics are a far cry from the sunny summer psychedlia of Brian Wilson, and Singer’s elegant use of instrumentation puts him on a different path than the odd chord and timing arrangements studied in the classic Beach Boy records. “Stranger I Know,” my favorite track off the album, captures a man trying to find elation and release in the darkness of the city and the copious strangers that inhabit it. 

This is a record to be heard with the highest quality audio equipment you have (your dinky laptop speakers will not do it justice). So bust out the Hi-fi headphones, check out the free to download songs, and then kick Hidden Shoal Records a few bucks for putting out this wonderful record. 

Buy it here:

Liam Singer – Arc Iris (2013)

Download some of it here:

Tim Cohen

This is pretty much what I have spent all my waking time at my computer listening to for the past 2 days. Tin Cohen is some sort of magic user, who is the lead singer of the Fresh & Onlys and involved in any number of other projects. Still he find the time and creativity to make solo albums that are radically different than most of his group work. Unlike the garage rock of the Fresh & Onlys or the metal of AmocomA that he makes, this is lo-fi chamber pop/bedroom pop tunes. It changes it up enough that finding references to similar music is a bit of a mental work out for my sleepy brain. Best I can summon is James Ausfahrt's less electronic songs, the recently posted Spook House's less guitar laden songs, and so on. Basically the albums are simple and then out of nowhere they feel complex, but I don't know what that means so maybe it isn't good to write down. Basically, trust me on this one: Cohen is a genie in man's skin and beard.

To be had here:




Two Sides of Tim Cohen (2009) [224 VBR kbps]













Laugh Tracks (2010) [224 VBR kbps]

Arthur Russell - World of Echo (1986)

An amazing unique album by the late Athur Russell that I've really warmed up to lately. The majority of the songs are relatively bare, but full of emotion. The first time I listed to this I was really struck by Russell's fragile effected vocals and sporadic bursts of cello, but I began to love it's haunted atmosphere. His songs aren't like anything I've heard before. Stands in hard contrast to Arthur Russells' past catalogue of work of bizarre disco-influenced dance music. Some highlights: "Place I Know / Kid Like You", "Answers Me", "Wax The Van", "Soon To Be".

DOWNLOAD: Arthur Russell - World of Echo

Half-Handed Cloud - Thy Is a Word & Feet Need Lamps (2005)

This is my favorite album by Half-Handed Cloud, for the songwriting is spectacular. The songs have something that is rather unique, their theme is Biblical and technically I think that makes Half-Handed Cloud a Christian band. However, the music is completely un-preachy and doesn't have that sickening praising-the-lord repetition that is contemporary Christian music. Jason Ringhofer is the man responsible for the "band" (normally just him with a ton of instruments and one other guy he managed to get to tour with him). As this is the case, Ringhofers previous work in Wookieback should be taken into account. Wookieback was more or less the same concept of short, focused pop ditties but the subject was sci-fi stories instead of Biblical ones. When thought of like this Half-Handed Cloud loses its distasteful Christian stigma and becomes more of a musical illustrations of some far-out tales (which the Bible is compared to modern life, and if it wasn't there wouldn't be a need for ministers to explain it). If you can think of it like this then listening to Thy Is a Word & Feet Need Lamps is an amazingly pioneering type of album, and is entirely inspired lyrically by the old testament (absolutely no Jesus references). Ringhofer's musical abilities have increased since Wookieback and even beginning this project, thus giving the album a more polished and composed feeling than previous works and in fact the songs are longer than the usual fare (over a minute, sometimes two). One thing I strongly encourage is to see him play live. I did once and he had no less than four instruments at his disposal at any given time and the man who toured with him the same. To see them successfully manage that much and make such beautiful pop songs was truly exciting. With any luck you can get to see him at a small venue (I saw him in a University of Michigan dormitory cafeteria), where you speak to him and buy some of his wares for he's a genuinely delightful fellow.

To be had here:
Half-Handed Cloud - Thy Is a Word & Feet Need Lamps [256 kbps]