Alt folk Americana French Indie
February 3, 2022

Pomme Est Ma Nouvelle Musique Préférée

I freely admit that I used Bing’s Translate function for the title. The French I have left from high school is not good enough for me to write a good title in French. I attribute my lack of language skills to one of the failures of American culture – our parochialism. American culture has become so dominant in entertainment that you rarely need to understand […]

80s-music 90s Dance Music Electronic retro soul
February 1, 2022

Bits of Bonobos

Electronic music artist Simon Green’s, Bonobos project is modern twist on classic electronica. Bonobos is retro dance in some ways. For example, it uses classic sequencers and samples more than is typical in modern electronic music. This gives an overall analog sound to the music that is often lacking in modern electronica, especially EDM. In addition to the use of retro techniques, the structure of […]

Dance Music Euro Indie New Music Prog rock
January 21, 2022

AURORA Is Back With a Vengeance

I have to admit that I approached the new AURORA album, The Gods We Can Touch, with deep trepidation. AURORA is one of my favorite modern artists. She’s quirky and dramatic. This makes her exciting to listen to unlike much of the formulaic pop on the market. After hearing some of her more recent singles, especially some of the acoustic remixes, I was worried that […]

80s-music Alt folk Dance Music Indie New Music Roots soul
January 4, 2022

Who Knows Where the Time Goes?

In 1967, Sandy Denny, then with the band The Strawbs, asked the question “Who Knows Where the Time Goes? ” Certainly not me. Just in the last year, I recovered from brain surgery and retired from the computer tech world. I then started the podcast “Tunes Past to Present”, with the working title of “New Music for Old Farts.” That project was abandoned a few […]

Country New Music Punk
December 13, 2021

Sarah Shook Goes All WTF

I’ve made no secret of how much I love Sarah Shook and the Disarmers. Sidelong was one of my favorite albums of the late 2010s, Years was an excellent follow up (no sophomore slump here), and her set at the Great Blue Heron Festival was one of the highlights of my entire 2019 summer. So, when she recently started dropping some new tunes I was […]

70s Lana Del Rey New Music soul Trip Hop
November 22, 2021

Adele Bares Her Soul while Lana Puts Us to Sleep

It will probably surprise some of my audience that I like Adele. While I’ve shared a variety of musical styles with you all, British soul has not been one of them. I had, however, acquired my taste for it back in the 1980s with the likes of Allison Moyet and, to some degree, Kirsty McColl. Both women wove soul into the pop and dance music […]

90s Dream Pop New Music podcast
November 19, 2021

Back to the Beach

I’ve been traveling for the past two weeks. Part of that time was spent in a beach house. By that I mean a real house near the beach but also with the new Beach House EP, Once Twice Melody. If this EP is a harbinger of the next Beach House album, then I am happy beyond belief. I’ve never hidden my fondness for Dream Pop. […]

70s New Music retro
October 29, 2021

New My Morning Jacket is Retro Lazy

If you have been reading this blog for any length of time, you know that I often say that some music is “retro but fresh”. What I mean by that is that while it hearkens back to earlier styles, the artists have found something new to say, or incorporated elements of modern style into the album. The latest album by My Morning Jacket, lazily labeled […]

80s-music 90s Alternative Dream Pop Goth
October 26, 2021

Kaelan Mikla Under the Cold Icelandic Northern Lights

How does one describe Kaelan Mikla? 80s inspired synth pop? Yep, there’s that. Atmospheric dance music? Certainly. Goth? Very much so. Proving once again that weird but great music comes out of Iceland (remember The Sugarcubes?), Kaelan Mikla, produces an amazing mix of dark, strange, and mysterious music that can best be likened to the most goth elements of Siouxsie and Banshees, Bauhaus, and Nine […]