This album tells a day in the life of Ben and Darwin the Cat in a farmhouse (“The Hermitage”), a proper little house on the prairie (Illinois). Some of the tracks are short — opener Morning Rise is only 1:20), and he gulps Morning Coffee in the same time. Some are instrumental, such as The […]
Danny Schmidt: Standard Deviation
We thought Standard Deviation was a song about two girls falling in love over a shared fondness for physics but the release notes say it is a “romance set in the multi-dimensional realm of theoretical physics”. Schmidt goes on to say that it “touches on the pushback” that smart women face in traditionally male-dominated arenas, […]
Johnny Lloyd: Next Episode Starts In 15 Seconds
Lloyd is the former Tribes frontman: Tribes were an indie band, formed in 2010 and splitting in 2013. They might not have bothered your pop radar much, but it’s all part of a learning curve for a musician. Lloyd next appeared (to us anyway) with the Eden EP in 2017, which was a flawless pop EP, showing […]
Ward and Parker: One
Ward, or it could be Parker, was in Nizlopi, who had a massive hit with the JCB Song (don’t play it, you’ll never get it out of your head). The general tenor of that was a wise but homely narrator who knows what life’s about, doing the right thing. There’s the same kind of air […]
Dave Fidler: Songs From Aurora
This fine new album from Dave Fidler — he plays the guitar — highlights the difference between professional musicians and the more amateur. Fidler, who has toured with John Bramwell from I Am Kloot, wrote and recorded this album while touring the festival circuit with his family in his caravan, Aurora — hence the […]
Damien Jurado: In The Shape of a Storm
“There’s nothing left to hide” Jurado sings (sings? more like mutters or whispers) during Lincoln, the opener of this new album, and it could be a comment on this stripped down offering. All that’s here is the guitar, Jurado’s voice and the songs. It was recorded in two hours one afternoon; preceded, one assumes, by […]
