Surprise, surprise: Funky Donny Fred shows up to add his two cents about a band named Coke Weed. FDF: Hey man, you know me. LN: Go ahead and say it… FDF: COKE WEED! Heh heh… but really, I go way back with this band. LN: That’s right, FD, we saw Coke Weed a couple of […]
Julia Holter has recorded some of the most impressive albums of melodic art music of the past five years, although their erudition and abstraction haven’t always pulled in listeners right away. This issue is remedied by her fourth album, Have You In My Wilderness, which comes out today. The new album finds Holter focusing on […]
I’ll admit it: there was a point where I thought I’m too old for this stuff. Not that Basilica Soundscape is the cult of half-dressed youth you may associate the term “music festival” these days with. Presenting art(y) music in an upstate NY cathedral of 19th century industrialism, Basilica Soundscape offers little to dance or […]
The fourth annual Basilica Soundscape music and arts festival is almost upon us, bringing joy and anticipation to independent music connoisseurs and exiled bohos in upstate New York alike. Tickets are going fast, but Sound It Out got a press pass, and we’re gonna use it! Here’s what audiences at this two-day event can look […]
For the review of the new single from psychedelic southern California band Wand, I’m joined once again by fellow traveler Funky Donny Fred. FDF: Duuu-uu-uu-ude… new album from WAND! Wait a minute — didn’t you write about a new album earlier this year? LN: That’s right, Funky Donny Fred. Sound It Out also covered their […]
“Dad, I don’t feel so good.” I am a bad father. I took the kids on a leisurely summer drive and played the advance of Drinks‘ debut album, Holiday for Hermits, on the car stereo. The weather was rather fair for this time of the year, and I hit the curves of the road under […]
Oh August… the sun is merciless, the nights enticing, and the diffuse melancholy of another summer passing (“NO, DON’T SAY THAT!”) wraps itself around all the fun you can wring out of the weeks before September. Sounds like perfect weather for La Luz, a Seattle quartet who mines a tasty vein of surf rock with girl-group […]
The crashing intro here states the issue plainly: The Dears are back, m—-rf–kers! No one ever created such a blend of mid-period Roxy Music, 90s Britpop razzle-dazzle, and French pop flair with as much skill and panache as these two-decade veterans of Montreal’s indie-rock scene. As the group filled ever longer gaps between album with […]
Some mystical, mind-altering music arrives via the enchanting voice and groove of Deradoorian. Former bassist and vocalist for Dirty Projectors, the Brooklyn group who concocts a similarly heady brew, Alice Deradoorian previews her forthcoming debut solo album with “Beautiful Woman,” an absolutely stunner. I’ll confess, I really can’t distinguish your East Indian drone from your […]
A shiny blurt of electronic noise bounces through the new Empress Of track “Water Water,” evoking and distorting the steady drip of the titular element. Like a giant, wobbly beach ball filled with mercury, the sound understandably draws the listener’s attention away from the fact that what we really have here is an understated, irresistable […]