Ember Schrag: A Cruel, Cruel Woman [Album]

Ember Schrag acts as the reinvention of the poet as an performer in the form of a beautiful Midwest born folk singer. Her voice is pretty. Her guitar gently cries out in pain, and squeals with delight. But, it’s her stanzas of triumphant poetic intentions that really make A Cruel, Cruel Woman a wonderful album. Our heroine has chosen the country twang spirit to spread her message of beauty through music. Probably a wise choicee on her part. If Patti Smith was the first lady for punk rock, that scene would crumble under the weight of Ember’s words.

The subtly unsettling track “Iowa” is one missing dog, truck, or lover away from being a stereotypical mushy country track. But, with lyrics so deep in a metaphorically sense, all tags disappear. “Dark Lion Lover” is the key track that puts A Cruel, Cruel Woman further away from stereotype hell. The twang in Schrag’s voice subsides for a few minutes, as though she is possessed by the spirit of a New York City coffee shop hidden away in an alley of darkness and artistic revolution. The obvious single, “Two Suns” is about loving just a bit too much. It’s catchiness is what proves this woman to be an all around substantial artist with so much to give.

This is an album that pulls apart reality as we once thought it to be. At times Ember is sweet and compassionate. Others, she is frank yet well spirited (for example: “I can pick a guitar/ But not like I can pick a man.”) A Cruel, Cruel Woman is for the artist in all of us. From the untalented crypt keepers of late night Denny’s dining, to the young girl sitting on rusting train tracks in a cornfield somewhere in the middle of herself and nowhere. For every ounce of pain we feel, Ember gives that much understanding back, and then some.

Find out the latest news from Ember Schrag at her Website.

Mesmer: The Ghost of a Tennis Court [Album]

Europe (more specifically, all of Europe besides the UK, Sweden, & France) have never let go of the sound shaping electronic poetics that the U.S. rarely sees done on a regular basis. Sure, we will always have our well known and credible pyschedelia artists, but we bounce around in the pop world a bit too much to ever bring a band like say, Simple Minds, back in the spotlight. But over in the land of our founding fathers’ fathers, a band like Mesmerhas room to run. And an album like The Ghost of A Tennis Court is the soundtrack to their existence.

Listening to this album is similar to hearing The Cure for the first time….first time sober that is. The energy is so pure and well groomed. Before things get too out of hand, Mesmer settles it down and brings in the hollowed vocals that sound like they are being brought to you from the end of a supernatural hallway. Except for the amped up punk rock meets Tom Jones “On Fire”. There’s no rationalization as to why it’s okay to piss yourself when this acid fused track kicks out. Just clean up the urine, and move on. Then move over to “Teenage Dreams” to dance around to a John Hughes worthy prom song.

Yes, our boys from Finland have found a way to spread their appeal to a much wider audience. Everyone wants to conquer the world at some point. Few try too hard. Some not enough. Some just rely on their ability to discuss nature and nobility in a strange manner. Hence, the power of Mesmer. No, they’re not likely to take over the world. But, they are sure to stir it up before they leave.

Mammoth Life: Kaliedoscopic Art Pop [Album]

photo by Rebecca Dreyfus

Somewhere in the Land of Make Believe in the sky, Mr. Rogers and Shari Lewis are taking a bath in warm red wine and dropping heaven acid as all their magical friends watch in confusion. Lambchops is freaking out. And playing on the dusty old CD player is Mammoth Life‘s prolific debut album Kaliedoscopic Art Pop. This album is described perfectly by it’s title. This is one of the happiest freakin’ albums of all time. This is the Disneyland of art pop. It also has the soul of an expressionless hermit. With these powers combined, something wonderful is sure to happen.

Bobby Sauder and Elizabeth Mead trade vocals better than honest teenagers traded baseball cards in the mid nineties. The harmonic “I Have Lost” pushes their capacity to 11. And “First Semester of College” will leave your head spinning in directions you never thought possible. These are songs for the light hearten and endearing spirit in all of us. Any given Mammoth Life track is a trip through a consciousness once only found in a C.S. Lewis children’s book (not those silly adult Christian books).

Yes this album is an almost traumatic display of artistic expression and possible LSD paranoia. When a group puts their entire being into something as special as this, the hard work shows. Mammoth Life can bring out the child and/or activist in all of us. And Kaliedoscopic Art Pop is one of the best pop spectacles to emerge in last decade.

Check out Kaliedoscopic Art Pop and more great work from Mammoth Life on their WEBSITE.

Bella Koshka: Slow Dancing On The Ocean Floor [Album]

If a woman’s voice has never haunted your dreams, then you have never really lived. It may take an alternative savoy band like Bella Koshka and their disturbingly efficient album Slow Dancing On The Ocean Floor to truly throw your eyes in the back of your head and make you discover the secrets of a real existence. Laura Boland’s vocals are sure to stir you into euphoria and terror with ease.

Unlike most female led alternative groups, Bella Koshka isn’t campy or indecisive in their attitude. Their tracks are consistently ery and entertaining. “Relic” brings out the tattooed head banger in all of us. While “Treasure” pushes the scary ass violin based ballad to the limit. 35 minutes in a haunted house is alot for anyone to consume. But, when put into the form of Slow Dancing On The Ocean Floor, it’s down right compelling.

Everyone should know this album. It’s the indie alternative version of The Little Mermaid. It’s a perfect soundtrack to obscurity. It’s the power of the dark side spiked with handfuls of skittles. They dementia never hinders as tremendous guitar riffs overpower tempting bass lines and the fore mentioned scary ass violin. This is an album that can be universally appreciated in all realms of music livelihood.

Visit bellakoshka.com for more details and live streaming.

The Color Turning: Good Hands, Bad Blood [Album]

It’s probably not right to say that The Color Turning’s Good Hands Bad Blood might make you want to take a nice hot bath. That might imply there’s something dirty about it. Or that you’re dirty. Maybe you are, but this intriguing collection L.A. psychedelic tunes are nothing far from clean, crisp, and relaxing. As the experimental and vibrant sounds move through your speakers, you have to be one strung out human being to not feel inexplicable calm and impressionable.

“Where The Sky Ends” is one of the most hard rocking tracks on the disc. Yet it still remains as cool and collective as Sinatra in his heyday. “Ghost Song” has some pretty heavy chords and explosions of heartache as well. “Me Versus Me” pulls from some pretty obvious influences, but still holds it’s own originality. Overall, each track brings it’s own personality to Good Hands Bad Blood. A personality that might seem a bit self conscious at times, but never lacks the creative spirit.

The Color Turning is not unlike a lot bands you occasionally stumble upon. You know them when you hear them. Their your cousin’s boyfriend’s favorite band. They have the sound that might scare off some pop rock followers. Yet, they manage to twist it up a bit and bring the hesitant listener into a world they can understand. You don’t have to be “uber-cool” to love these guys. You just have to appreciate some good tunes when you hear them. You will hear them here.

Learn more about The Color Turning, and what they are up to these days at their WEBSITE.

Jonathan Kimball: Optimisms [Album]

Folk music has inspired artists from several different spheres of music. Everyone knew that Kurt Cobain was a huge Leadbelly fan. And every musician knows what it means to strip themselves of electricity, and push around an old school feel with just their finger tips and an acoustic guitar. So when Jonathan Kimball dropped his solo debut albumOptimisims, with just this state of mind, it shouldn’t have been too much of a surprise. But for a prog rock, reggae, ska, and punk engineer of obscurity to bring it to the level he did, a bit of surprise was inevitable.

“Commentary’s bullshit anyway, severed at the skin, waiting to decay”. Lyrics to a death metal track? Nope. It’s just one clever bit of dark satire from Optimism’s star track, “Box of Empty Thoughts”. With an Art Garfunkel meets Hank III sort of country feel, Kimball pushes us from ships to flights of stories that tell us what exactly he believes it takes to be alive. He says it best on “Choice to Choose” with high pitched guitar picking and darkness versus light emotional battlefields put right out for the rest of us to digest.

The rebellious spirit is clear throughout Optimisms. But, this is an album that would could be heard with the same measure of delight in a hookah lounge in Antioch California, as it would in a tavern in Box Elder, South Dakota. Jonathan Kimball is an artist with an almost inconceivable range of talent. He seems to know what style will have the most impact at exactly the right moment. The yearning to hear what he is going to do next is a part of his appeal. Not just clever marketing. But, a brilliant way to breathe in the world of wordplay and musical development.

Find out what Jonathan Kimball has been up to lately by friending him on Facebook.

Elaine Greer: Making Plans and Going Places [Album]

Elaine Greer has something unexplainably awesome about her. At first listen, it’s hard to comprehend what really makes her special or sets her apart from so many other folk songstresses of our current times. There’s not a lot. But, there’s something there that keeps you tuned into what she has to say. Her debut EP Making Plans and Going Places has so many youth like attachments that are so bloody attractive you might just be surprised by how much you will enjoy a nice dose of pure unadulterated innocence.

The opening track, “Making Plans”, kicks of a with what sounds like a merry go round friendly tune immediately followed by Elaine’s sweet and sensitive vocals. Though the tunes change throughout the rest of the album, this constantly twirling about in an organization sense of chaos sets the tone and spirit of the entire album. But, the standout track has to be the stripped down and flower powered cut “When The Colors Leave”. You will clap, lean, rock, love to this uplifting low powered ballad.

Still, Greer seems like nothing new really. But, isn’t that okay? It’s not essential for every artist to break through the scene with completely original ideas and musical doctrine. Some just want to join in, make music, and live the life of a creative expressionalist.  Mastering a well respected field is definitely impressive enough for me.  Nothing is taken from the beauty of Making Plans and Going Places just because it might be similar to something else you have heard. May Elaine have a long and withstanding career that proves her to by one of the many women of folk strumming their way through life the way they see fit.

Discover more Greer goodness at her WEBSITE.

Ben Glover: Through The Noise, Through The Night [Album]

It’s actually been a couple of years since Ben Glover dropped this beautiful album, Through The Noise, Through The Night, an album that any fan of besieged and nicely wrapped singer/songwriter treatments should not forget when they begin to name their favorites. Hanging just around the edge of a new aged classic rock sound, Glover shows us that the power of a pretty little song about something pretty and little is something we will never grow tired of.

With a voice like Petty, Glover sings of love and loss as expected. But, he also spins a bit of sappy storytelling into a modern display of artistic ingenuity. Just check out tracks like “Full Moon Child” and “First Chance For A Second Try” and see for yourself if Ben isn’t everything you are looking for in the new age version of singer/songwriter holding a guitar and pouring is soul into a cup half filled with Jameson, and the other half with institutive hope. And the borderline country/folk opus “Too Late To Leave Her Alone” is one of the most genuinely intimate songs you may ever hear, so much so that you might feel as though you are actually intruding, hearing something that was only meant for two.

Ben Glover is just plain great. No, he’s not spewing out obscurities and obscenities to demand attention, and he’s not quoting little known Peruvian philosophers or turning the latest Mac Book applications into some sort of art form. He’s simply showing us how wonderful a pretty little song, laced with violins and fluttering magic, can make us feel something we should be feeling all the time. And if Ben Glover can’t make you feel like you are floating on a cloud of overtly explosive love, then the sorrow is all yours.

Discover more about the amazing talent that is Ben Glover from his WEBSITE.

Circlebirds: Complexities [Album]

It only seems rational that a town in Texas called College Station would be the home to new age folk (which is basically College Rock from the 80′s) group such as Circlebirds. This vocally driven four piece band of troubadours have a created a shining example of well developed experimental folk with their debut album Complexities. There is tenderness to the lyrics, and delightful feeling of almost codeine induced tranquility to be heard on just a dozen tracks. This is beauty at its beastly best.

Complexities has some excellent stripped down, singer-songwriter moments brought to courtesy of the band’s founder Matt Jackson. But, it might be best to note the lo-fi indie pop inspired tracks that highlight the album such as “Howling at the Moon” and “Catfish Whiskers”. But, for fans of the down home feelings that a simple acoustic guitar and a just a slight amount of ambience, it would be behoove you to look into “Finally Feeling” or “The Fever Has Passed”. No matter what suits your fancy, Circlebirds is eager to please, and most definitely will be a treat for fans of lyrically driven and inspiring folk music.

According to the band’s Facebook page, Circlebirds were born “from fires of hardcore music and failed relationships”. As narcissistic as it may seem, this is awesome! It is attitudes like this that brought us the best work of Leonard Cohen, Nick Drake, and latter day Johnny Cash. Sure, these guys don’t sound at all aged and weathered as these fore mentioned legends of rock and roll, but they have the spirit of the legends that preceded them. Want proof? Look no further than their own words: “I’ve seen fire and I’ve touched water, but no I’m feeling something new”. There may just be a new dawn for the living artist, and Jackson and crew are right there to sulk in the pleasant sorrow of being talented and free from the mundane.

Learn more about what Circlebirds has been up to by Liking them on Facebook.

National Pastime: Coma EP [Album Review]

Natinal Pastime’s frontman Andy Botterill may very well be one of the hardest working cats in all of the United Kingdom.  He’s in a thousand bands, and releases most of their material on a label he runs himself.  Not to mention an immense consistency of gigging around Exeter and wherever he can manage to drop his feet.  And with such a chaotic work schedule and a plethora of material piling up on his resume, sometimes an album or two might get sadly under rug swept.  But, it’s when you finally take the opportunity to check out each release from the awesome and talented Pastime Records, you will find you were missing a gem.  And with that, we have the Coma EP.  A translusive piece of art that should for no reason whatsoever, be looked over.

At the tail end of 2010, National Pastime released the amazing lo-fi pop masterpiece Bookmarks.  It was a beautiful display of total beauty in simplicity.  It felt like a total display of everything Andy B and company had to offer.  That is until Coma EP landed Por Avion in my mail box a couple of months ago.  And I fell in love all again.  Here we find these lovable pop masterminds advancing beyond anything we have heard before.  The singularly amazing track “Goldsworthy Gurney”  is actually sort of a stretch from their generalized lo-fi sound, and it is a real treat to say the least.  And even when they move to more familiar territory on a track like “Read Your Mind”, there is a delightful sense of advancement that simply leaves you with a great sense of the jollies, and a yearning to cheer for the happy crew.  And don’t be surprised if you hear these cuts again on a full length album sometime soon.  Or damn, you may already be able to considering Pastime Records works like a manic poet on benzederine trip.

National Pastime is an amazing group that just never fails.  They do more than bring a full-bodied sound to Andy Botterill’s solo work.  They incorporate a wonderful electric feel to tingle the ear drums while listening beautiful stories of love, life, and the eternal search for a cure to the cancerous spirit of non-creativety that bites each and every one of us at some point.  This is beautiful stuff.  It just can’t be said enough.

Find more about National Pastime on Facebook.