i hate the sound of guitars

You may have heard the story by now: Sick of Sarah leak their own album onto peer-to-peer sharing service; claim “platinum” status on basis of download counts; lotsa folks say, more or less, “Sick of who?“. More evidence, if you ask me, that it’s ridiculous to assert that each pirate download of a track is [...]

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R.E.M.’s recent return-to-form albums led me to an epiphany: I had always assumed it was Warner Brothers who pushed me away from R.E.M. — pressure toward big dollar production, famous guest stars, etc.. I still think there’s some truth to that (I don’t think most of those cameos were great artistic choices), but I realized [...]

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A fascinating album that evokes the breadth of Harvey’s catalogue — she makes some use of the fragile, high register she first explored on 2007’s White Chalk and there are vestiges of the percussive guitar attack that drove her earliest albums — but ultimately sounds like nothing else in it. In “On Battleship Hill” her [...]

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I had just enough leftover affection for Kay Hanley’s 90’s act Letters to Cleo to check out the previews for her new record, even though the only thing I remember about her solo debut Cherry Marmalade is that I felt like I didn’t need to hear anything on it twice. I’m really glad I gave [...]

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last.fm recently played me Zsammy’s “Your Chest Is Not Moving,” and I liked it a lot. It’s about as creepy as the title suggests, but much prettier. It’s a little shoegazer-y and a little bit Britpop in a loved-The Bends way without being overly derivative; some of Zsammy’s other songs have a slowcore vibe. It [...]

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