i hate the sound of guitars

You’ve got just about a month left to place an order from Asaurus Records, the micro-indie label that releases beautiful hand-packaged CDRs from the likes of Pants Yell!, Colin Cleary, The Mathletes, and many more. There’s a very generous selection of free tracks to download, too. Among the “I Hate the Sound of Guitars”-endorsed discs […]

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The first time I saw The Magnetic Fields was such a profoundly moving experience that even after several years, I have trouble distilling a coherent description of what was so magical about it. It was very warm and human, almost disquietingly intimate — perhaps a bit like eavesdropping on the quiet evening gathering of a […]

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Here are some things that Dean Edward Wells, a.k.a. The Capstan Shafts, doesn’t have:

Fancy recording equipment
A rock-solid sense of timing
Rabid perfectionism about the recording process
Long songs

Here are some things that Dean Edward Wells does have:

A prodigious bounty of catchy melodies and riffs
A bevvy of quirky lyrics set to the former
A pretty good singing voice
A modicum […]

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I love this band so much that I’m untrustworthy on the subject. Usually I cringe when backing vocals stray out of tune or when tempos drift between instruments. When B for Brontosaurus exhibits these flaws (which they do sometimes, especially live) I make excuses to find it charming, rather than grating. “Their enthusiasm outpaces their […]

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