music commentary

Franz Ferdinand came from nowhere, or so it seemed. Most of the band had been around Glasgow in bands for an age, or worked in venues doing sound...

Let’s get this out of the way: I don’t know how to review music. I could say “I love it!” or “It sounds angry like a blender!” But is that helpful...

Some folks like to take a little time each day to remind themselves what they’re grateful for. As for me, I am grateful for the electric guitar...

A couple of weeks ago on a hot, sunny day in Oslo — a modest, modern city of 600,000 souls and, on that particular day, myself — I woke up feeling...

The most striking part of Versions, the new album from Nika Roza Danilova, aka Zola Jesus, isn’t the presence of a string quartet or the...

It seems to me that, each in their own way, musicians strive to create something beautiful – but for me, the truly beautiful songs are, for want of...

I was recently in Portland performing at a festival at Pendarvis Farm in Happy Valley, which, to digress for a moment, was fantastic — the vibes...

I was curious if a new Medicine record would be any good. Their debut Shot Forth Self Living was released in 1992 by Creation Records...

Opinions are fickle things. What appeals to the pleasure centers at first blush doesn’t always maintain stamina. Likewise, the longer it takes for...

The first time music made me cry, it was because of the sheer melodic and soulful beauty of what I was listening to, not because the lyrics were...

The third album for any artist seems to send them on a soul-searching adventure that eventually leads most of them to the age-old question...

I grew up in northwest Indiana, which is basically an endless and extended suburb of Chicago. As it was the suburbs, there was no geographic...