Category: Indie

Alternative Indie New Music
May 22, 2023

Velveteen PONY Not Rabbit

PONY is one of those bands that seem unappreciated. They are not the indie darlings that Japanese Breakfast or Phoebe Bridgers are. PONY doesn’t often show up in Indie Essentials type playlists on Spotify. I suspect that is because they are just so damn easy to listen to. It’s hard for indie hipsters to get into a band that isn’t obtuse, angsty, exclusive, or “deep” […]

Alt folk Indie
April 7, 2023

New Zealands Latest Gift, The Beths

I was watching the NPR All Music Considered channel on YouTube the other day, NPR Music. If you’ve never watched the channel, the bulk of it is what are known as Tiny Desk Concerts (TDC). Bands play a short set in front of literally a small desk while NPR staffers watch from a few feet away. As you can imagine, it forces bands to perform […]

70s 80s-music Dream Pop Indie New Music Pop retro
December 2, 2022

Weyes Blood Makes My Heart Glow

Weyes Blood (a.k.a. Natalie Mering) is hard to categorize. The closest I can come is 70s soft rock, like Bread, but without the schlock. Perhaps, she can be compared to 70s and 80s singer-songwriters. She certainly structures her songs like Aimee Man or Jenny Lewis might; Or is she more like Sandy Denny? I sit here listening to her latest album, And in The Darkness, […]

Dance Music Dream Pop garage Indie New Music Punk shoegaze Trip Hop
November 25, 2022

The Yeah Yeah Yeahs Makes Some Cool Music

If you had asked me a month ago “What kind of music do the Yeah Yeah Yeahs make?” I would have answered “Garage punk or retro post-punk.” And I would have been right. One listen to their most famous song, “Maps”, and you would agree that it is typical early 2000s retro post-punk. Their sound combined minimalist synths with loud guitar solos and simple, tuneful […]

90s Alternative Dream Pop Indie Jangle Pop New Music Shoegazer
October 10, 2022

Revved Up with Alvvays

Back in the 1980s, two musical genres emerged at about the same time called dream pop and shoegazer. Both were built on a foundation of the pop song – tuneful and with harmonies – but drenched in jangly waves of guitar noise. They were similar enough that it was easy to confuse bands from one genre as belonging to the other. The main difference between […]

Euro French Indie New Music
September 15, 2022

Pomme Consoles Me

To begin with, an apology. It is not always easy to write a mix of English and other languages in the same document. I will try and get it right but if I miss a diacritical mark or two, please forgive me. Trying to mix French and American components in writing is, itself, a metaphor for Pomme’s latest album consolation. In consolation, Pomme bridges the […]

Indie
August 15, 2022

Sorry King Princess You’re Just Whining

Known best for her queer love anthem “1950”, King Princess writes intense songs about love, and pain. She is akin to the singer songwriters of the 1990s such as Shawn Colvin, Suzanne Vega, and Tori Amos mixed with girl-power folk of Ani DiFanco. King Princess fits this crowd well, with confessional songs about relationships – both partner and friendship relationships – and the difficulties we […]

Alternative Indie New Music
July 6, 2022

Soccer Mommy Throws a Muse

Sophie Allison, a.k.a. Soccer Mommy has become one of the darlings of the indie music scene. That’s well deserved because of the quality of her music. It’s also strange because she’s not all that “indie”. While the themes of her music often revolve around mental health issues and addiction, so did Lynyrd Skynrd (“That Smell” for example) who was anything but indie. A much better […]

70s 80s-music 90s Dance Music Indie Modern Rock New Music
May 16, 2022

White, Lizard, Fire, and the Bastille

The idea behind Tunes Past to Present is to talk about new music that might appeal to us, well, older folks. After you reach a certain age, it’s easy to exist in a music echo chamber. You listen to the tunes that you are most familiar with as do your friends. After a while it becomes easy to miss great bands that you would certainly […]

Indie New Music Power pop Punk
May 4, 2022

Wet Leg Leaves Me Dry

The band Wet Leg seems to be the latest installment in the “up and coming” category. Honestly, I don’t know why. What can I say – I don’t like them. They are repetitive, sing (if you can call it that) badly and are completely lacking in depth. They could be classified as punk or maybe pop (though not pop punk) and some reviewers are saying […]