Seeking refuge from the assailing world deep within their music, bassist Joshua Abrams and drummer Chad Taylor wield, respectively, the guimbri and mbira, instruments from diverse African states, and find a pairing that advances their reigning vision, brilliantly exposited as something new. As in: a new age of music, fusing meditation, sound and dance in convergence with listening – truly a 21st century space for Mind Maintenance!
 

"The Ladder" makes evident the inventive and symphonic reach of... (read more)

Matt Sweeney and Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy present “Resist the Urge” off of Superwolves. The video was made by legendary skateboarder Kevin “Spanky” Long and photographer/skateboarder Atiba Jefferson, and features Spanky skating through a Bonny-Sweeneyscape in his inimitable style.

“Resist the Urge” was recorded at the Butcher Shoppe in Nashville by Sean Sullivan and  David "Fergie" Ferguson. Sez Bonny: “We got David Ferguson out from behind the board to play double-bass on this one. It needed the lift that only a Ferg could deliver."  It should be... (read more)

Who is E.R. Jurken? The mysterious figure looming behind dazzling layers of vocals, his own voice the instrument at center stage, stands ready at last to issue his debut full length, I Stand Corrected later this week. Meanwhile, "John Doe" is the latest single to drop from the roll, airy and fertile, its neo-saccharine sound evoking a bygone daze on its own terms.

 

It's pure pop of the lightest order, with... (read more)

A long era of dull ringing and nothing else in our ears is over. Once again, winds of warm guitar and humid thunderheads of bass and toms rumble all around. With Valdez, Birds of Maya are back in flight. And like the first song title explicitly states, this latest is a soaring blast of riffers, rife with punk rock abandon, sludge, treble, distortion, neck-throttling rock n roll solos, pummeling drums and bass and half-shouted/half-gargled vocals, all of it half on and half off the... (read more)

Standing tall against an open sky, E.R. Jurken and his spectral tenor (refracted via multiple overdubs) move across an oft-deserted soundscape, leaving behind them the footfalls of incandescent orchestral pop music (with the orchestra mostly erased). On his lonesome, Jurken's formidable energy populates the landscape with choruses of vocal color on I Stand Corrected.
 

"Right Through" is an exemplary E.R. Jurken miniature in full band rock mode: a slice of bedroom... (read more)