Music Review: Jen Wood, Wilderness

By Melissa Bratcher

How does writing an album on piano differ from writing an album with a guitar? For an answer, listen to indie/neo-folk singer Jen Wood’s new album, Wilderness. While her previous releases had been written on guitar, Wilderness is piano based and as a result, even at its quietest and most intimate, has a massive, almost filmic quality. The songs are deep and moving and meaningful, chronicling the last several years of her life.

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Music Review: Angela Moyra, Fickle Island

By Melissa Bratcher

Dutch singer-songwriter Angela Moyra’s stateside debut album is bound to the ocean. A charming, sweet, throwback record, Fickle Island is full of tropical vibes and lyrical imagery, and the accompanying laid back rhythms. It’s a sometimes-delightful debut.

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Music Review: Madeleine Peyroux, Keep Me In Your Heart For A While: The Best Of

By Noreen Sobczyk

When the first Madeleine Peyroux album was released, I was managing a corporate store and gave her non-offensive easy jazz debut a lot of play. I remember thinking, “she’s got a nice voice, even if it is Billie Holiday’s.” She had the chops, but lacked emotional conviction. Since it was her debut I thought perhaps she would find her own artistic voice on her sophomore release.

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Music Review: Sons Of Bill, Love & Logic

By Melissa Bratcher

On their fourth album, Charlottesville, Virginia outfit Sons of Bill (brothers Abe, James and Sam Wilson are literally, sons of Bill) return with glorious harmonies, thoughtful, literate lyrics, and some excellent musicianship. Produced by former Wilco drummer (and Grammy-nominated producer), Ken Cooner, Love & Logic is the sonic equivalent to wispy clouds scudding across a full moon. It’s arresting and loaded with hooks, but also at times deeply lonesome.

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Music Review: The Rural Alberta Advantage, Mended With Gold

By Melissa Bratcher

On their third album, Mended With Gold, The Rural Alberta Advantage continue to make hooky, emotion-heavy, often gorgeous, folk-ish music. There’s an epic quality to Mended With Gold that exists in the quiet moments of introspection in frontman Nils Edenloff’s songs: a feeling of space and loneliness, and a feeling of hope. It’s a really good record. I wish Friday Night Lights was still on, because these songs would be perfect soundtrack fodder.

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Music Review: Luke Winslow-King, Everlasting Arms

By Melissa Bratcher

New Orleans transplant Luke Winslow-King is spreading his ever so creative wings and trying a new musical direction. Sort of. Not every song on his new album Everlasting Arms hews to his faithful reproductions of pre-war, deep South music (though those are the best tracks), and he tries on some rockabilly pants and samba beats for size. The results are mixed.

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Music Review: Monty Python’s Total Rubbish: The Complete Collection

By Melissa Bratcher

Full disclosure: I have no idea how to review the new, incredibly comprehensive, fully-remastered, nine-disc Monty Python box set, Monty Python’s Total Rubbish: The Complete Collection. I, like any good misfit worth her salt, went through a rather serious Monty Python phase while in high school, and spent every weekend watching Monty Python’s Flying Circus with my best pal Lori (and arguing over who was cuter, Michael Palin or Eric Idle. The answer was yes), imitating the sketches, knotting handkerchiefs for our heads, and being fully immersed in Pythonalia. I have no objectivity when it comes to Monty Python. I love them. Full on. I learned more about world history from Monty Python than I did in high school (of course, if it had been taught in funny voices, I might’ve paid more attention).

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Indiegogo Campaign: Ink Is A Body Horror/Creature Short Film That Needs Your Help

By Less Lee Moore

Although horror is often considered a masculine domain, there are many female horror fans who can quickly disprove that stereotype. One is photographer Ashlea Wessel, who is currently working on her short film debut, Ink. As a huge fan of monster movies, Ashlea always wanted to make her own movie; such cinematic ideals have frequently seeped into her photographs over the years.

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Concert Review: Thank You Scientist/Coheed And Cambria at Kool Haus

By Tyler Hodg

Toronto, ON
October 1, 2014

On October 1, New York prog-rockers Coheed and Cambria treated their fans in Toronto to a night they won’t soon forget. Eleven years after its initial release, the album In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3 breathes fresh air with the band playing it in its entirety on a 25-date North American tour. Bringing along their friends Thank You Scientist, Coheed and Cambria tore the roof off of the Kool Haus and celebrated not only the album that brought them success, but also their fans for their endless support.

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Music Review: Zola Jesus, TAIGA

By Ben van D

If Frozen were a greasepaint opera, a Brechtian musical set in a hinterland abyss, and directed by Robert Wilson, it would bear a passable resemblance to TAIGA. “Let It Go” would fit in surprisingly well with the themes of self-reinvention and severance from the tethers of the past running through Zola Jesus’s (Nika Danilova) latest offering. Even the winter woodland setting from which the album draws its name is a parallel. None of these are to TAIGA‘s detriment, however. This is markedly a pop album, more so by far than any of Danilova’s offerings to date, and any passing likeness to Disney’s ubiquitous pop monster hit is a feather in its cap.

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