Noele Flower’s Debut EP “Wait For Me” is a Stunning Retrospective
image: Luca Pearl Khosrova Noele Flowers’s debut EP, “Wait For Me” is a journey, a diary, a biopic – a testament to letting go of regrets and holding onto hope, and ultimately? A damn good listen. Ranging from optimistic, bright surf pop, to heavy-hit ballads and soft forest-folk, Flowers has taken inspiration from the path […]
Shana Cleveland’s “Walking Through Morning Dew” Buzzes with Love
Anyone who has spent time with beetles knows that weird things can have a deep and fascinating beauty. Shana Cleveland’s “Walking Through Morning Dew” is weird in that way. One may wonder, “What is that, and why is it buzzing?” Or one may just sit tight in incredulous delight. Cleveland populates the song with sounds […]
Jacob Humber wants you to “Stick Around”
I’m in the town where I went to college. It’s spring break, but I’m not going anywhere. Students and certain migratory birds are on the move. I hear spring makes people restless. Jacob Humber may have had this restlessness in mind when he wrote “I like it better when it’s colder / seems everything has […]
Imagist Poetry & “Tik Tik Tik” by Airin Daniella
Sometimes all a song needs is a beautiful voice, simple lyrics, & an easy arrangement on acoustic guitar. In fact: if songwriters and singers are the gardeners of the musical land, I’d say sometimes we get over-involved in the way we nurture the seed of a melody – we talk to each other about what […]
New Year’s Blues & HANRORO’s “The last stop of our pain”
HANRORO’s (한로로) “The last stop of our pain” is a love letter with many lovers. It’s a love letter to herself, to someone lost, to the New Year, the many who are just struggling to make it to the next, and even to Time itself. I know – it’s a big claim. But this is […]
Gabrielle Grace’s “I Wish That I Could Tell You” Is A Song For What We Don’t Say
Nashville singer-songwriter Gabrielle Grace is a master of paradox. “I Wish That I Could Tell You” is a song about the pain of leaving things unsaid – but the song itself is a confession, a declaration, eventually an explosion of articulate desire. The musical arrangement makes the song feel like a journey, even though the story […]
Sayonora Ponytail’s “Morning Sun” & Transformative Self-Expression
Sayonora Ponytail’s (さよならポニーテール) ninth album All Night Thing (夜の出来事) is funky citypop with a drop of melancholy, solemnity, and slowness. Which is saying a lot about the maturity of their sound considering the band has been nearly nonstop pop for over a decade now. In particular, the finale song, “Morning Sun” (朝日のように君は) has significant depth […]
“Wake Up” by Mad Season: Layne Staley’s Final Battle Cry
For ten long yearsThe leaves to rake upSlow suicide’s no way to go In early 1995, just as the crest of the Seattle wave is beginning to lose shape, preparing to dissipate into a sea of calm, predictable, tepid ripples, a work of quiet genius and generosity is forming. Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready, fresh from […]
Miru Song’s “You’re Doing Great” Has a Message We All Need to Hear
If any song could recreate the feeling of a gold star sticker on your kindergarten homework, Miru Song’s song (yea, a bit of a tongue-twister) “You’re Doing Great” might just be it. With his home in South Korea, but his heart in the UK, Miru Song’s travel between the two inspires his English discography. This […]
Max García Conover Hears the Crows Calling on “caw”
Max García Conover says his upcoming album, everything in winter, is “somewhat inspired by a suitcase full of letters my grandfather wrote” in the 1940s, to the woman who would become Conover’s grandmother. Conover’s writing is grounded in close attention to the way people tell their stories. “May this be the kind of night / […]
