Category: Video

Coming Soon: Greater Pacific – “Rainfall” EP

Greater Pacific began when Kyle Kersten and John Phinney, members of Travel By Sea, decided to take their love of pedal steel and country folk into a new realm.  On the Rainfall EP, out 1/25 as a six-track, digital release on Yer Bird Records, the pair are joined by fellow Travel By Sea member Mike Cusick on drums, as well as L.A. favorite Angela Correa.  The result is a gentle, rolling cascade of expansive, haunting songs that draw us to those places of quiet solitude that mark a Winter’s night, a walk in the Spring rain, or where we go inside when no one else is looking.

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Recommended: Telekinesis

In a month of blizzards that blanket my house in snow and ice, it’s hard to feel like the Spring is ever going to come back – let alone the Summer.  Yet, two minutes into Telekinesis! – the 2009 release by the band Telekinesis – and it’s all sunshine, road trips, and slush puppies.  The band – whose only permanent member is Michael Benjamin Lerner – writes smart, hook-filled pop that Michael describes as “heart on my sleeve” type songs.  The result for the listener is pure joy… it is, I feel, fundamentally impossible not to feel good while listening to Telekinesis.

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Happy New Year! — A 2010 “Retropackle.”

Hey, everyone!  Happy New Year!  I hope that you have a good one, and that you’re surrounded by good food, friends, and music.  It’s been a long year over here (the epic dissertation struggle continues), and I haven’t always been the most attentive (you’re top of the list of New Year’s Resolutions!)… but I wanted to thank everyone for all their love and support.  I’ve been positively blown away by the amount of excellent music that has been sent my way, and the… well, legitimacy, I seem to have stumbled into.

So, in 2011, I’ll be stepping up to keep things rolling around here.  And I hope that you’ll be there, too!  And since it’s customary, follow me for some things I’ve loved this year, as well as some things I’m looking forward to in the New Year!

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Music for a Rainy Day: The Wilderness of Manitoba

One of the hazards, as well as the great joys, of running a site like this is that you quickly accumulate more things that you “just have to mention!” than you can possibly mention.  And so it is that many truly excellent bands and musicians end up resting beneath the vast expanses of “new” that fall everywhere like snow.  And thus it is that this section – “Music for a Rainy Day” – is born.

Unlike the “Things I Should’ve Mentioned,” the “Mailbag,” the “Now Playing,” or the “New Music/Out Now,” this section is a home for all that wonderful stuff whose only crime is that it came along when I was busy making other plans… conversely, all of this accumulated music now makes for many excellent surprises on rainy days!  As is the case with a band that I’ve been literally intending to talk about all year (thanks, again, Slowcoustic for the excellent recommendation!): The Wilderness of Manitoba.

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Out Now: Seapony – Dreaming 7″

From Seattle, Seapony is surf pop for the sentimental.  Their first release – Dreaming – a 7″ on Double Denim records is a record full of breathy vocals and jangly guitars.  The sort of sounds that, combined, are perhaps more of the late Summer evenings than they are of sweltering afternoons at the height of season.  Simply put, it’s a Summer record that makes you reach for a long-sleeved shirt…

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