Roz & the Rice Cakes "Devotion (Team Love)"
Let’s all thank Team Love Records for two things. 1) for releasing a new LP from Roz and the Rice Cakes, and 2) for making this blurb very easy to write. After all the press for Devotion, their newest art-pop gem describes their sound as succinctly as it gets when they say “a cross roads where Fleetwood Mac and Henry Cow mingle with Bettie Serveert and Gwen Stefani… equal parts experimental and catchy, energetic and bookish, daring and sugarcoated.” Sure, I could spend hours trying to describe RATRC’s sound, but someone in New Paltz did all the work for me already. Thanks! Check out the first single, the angular “Do You.”
Silver Torches "Let It Be A Dream"
If you are a fan of hazy, wistful Americana indie pop, then you can’t do better than Erik Walters and the rest of Silver Torches. If Ida did a collection of Jackson Brown covers, then it would likely resemble Let It Be A Dream, the latest from Silver Torches. Dreamy slide guitar mixed with ELO-esque acoustic strumming, Erik’s unmistakable raspy vocals, and occasionally bombastic percussion all mix together to create this nostalgic yet forward looking take on pop music. Like a sunset ride in a convertible, it’ll make you feel like the whole world is ahead of you-which, technically, I guess it always is? Unless that flat-earth FB group your weird uncle belongs to is actually right. Except they aren’t. I know at least two things to be facts. The world is round and this new Silver Torches album is a delight. Check out Springsteen-esque “If I Reach.”
Dmitry Evgrafov "Comprehension Of Light (Fat Cat)"
Moscow-based composer Dmitry Evgrafov, who is completely self-taught, has been releasing music since he was a seventeen year old putting out music by himself. Now we find him signed to Fat Cat’s wonderful modern classical imprint 130701, and poised to release his most mature, haunting collection to date. Comprehension Of Light supposes to tell a cohesive story from start to finish, “a story of a long and difficult personal journey from darkness to light.” The result is at times breathtaking in it’s beauty. If you are a fan of other modern classical composers like Hauschka, Jóhann Jóhannsson, or Max Richter, than this album is definitely for you. Working with the Iskra String Quartet here, the sound is rich and full, sophisticated and lovely. Check out the hopeful, ambient “Znanie.”
Blis. "No One Loves You (Sargent House)"
Are you as excited for the full-length debut from Blis. as NPR’s All Songs Considered host Robin Hilton is? Well you should be. After all, they are one of his “favorite new discoveries” (good taste Robin!) So here is Blis. fulfilling the rock ’n’ roll promise they made to us all on their 2015 EP. No One Loves You (Sargent House) is “an ambitious rock record about love, religion, and surviving life’s most painful hardships.” (NPR) Check out the Pixies meets A Place To Bury Strangers sounds of “Old Man.”