The Daunting Strangeness of Vince Vaughn
The foley guy on “Hacksaw Ridge” really made his money. With all of the vociferous explosions and bullet clanging in the blood specked WWII opus, this guy probably looked like a blackjack dealer at the soundboard.
Premiere: Oh, Spirit Releases New Video, 7″
With their latest 7″, the band parses styles and creates a tapestry that is marbled with both concrete bruising, Converse clapping rock and spectral, nighttime soul.
The Fresh Brunettes Drop Debut, Set Release Party
“Diverse, comedic, spirited, loud [and] raw,” is how The Fresh Brunettes’ lead singer, songwriter and guitarist Aleisha Burton describes the San Diego based band’s live shows.
Vince Staples: Gravel, Grit and Grief
In a year where hip-hop kicked up tufts of multicolored chalk while celebrating Chance the Rapper’s fluorescent fun house of swelling choruses and syrupy intonations, we almost forgot about the yellowed sidewalks and hallowed Jordans of Vince Staples.
Sharkmuffin Reveals Subscription Service: Shmoof
Sharkmuffin – Tarra Thiessen, Natalie Kirch, and Janet LaBelle – has long been my favorite band to listen to while punting empty beer cans, knocking over newspaper racks, and rolling my ankle while pretending to hike.
Niki & The Dove: Broken Hearts and 2016
“What a fool was I to think that we were safe,” Malin Dahlström sings in the opening moments of Niki & The Dove’s exquisitely lovelorn and achingly prescient Everybody’s Heart Is Broken Now. It’s a devastating preamble to a calendar year that would not only lionize dishonesty and cultural ire but make an urgent proclamation for a regression of rights.
Top 10 Films of ’16
I spent a significant portion of 2016 unspooled in a heap of tears and saline smudged hospital paperwork. I witnessed my dad’s ashes being poured into a phlegmatic sea before tossing a single flower to meet him. I stomped my eggshell colored Converse around downtown Portland, easing a kitchen’s worth of pint glasses to my lips.
Citrus’ NSTYLDY is Urgent, Resolute, Dreamlike
What is most striking about the album’s hot tempered and loving compositions – horns as hot as railroad tracks in the summer sun, drums as vicious as a lion’s incisors (I’m not even being hyperbolic) – is that there is a real sense of peril in the proceedings.
Things to Come
In a year where nuance has been thrown to the wolves, director Mia Hansen-Løve crafts a story without crashing symbols and whirling parasols. “Things to Come” is simply about the aching, sometimes acerbically humorous, moments in life.
Top 10 Songs of ’16
From Niki & The Dove’s saltwater splashed “Everybody’s Heart is Broken Now” to Vince Staple’s sardonic and saliva flecked “Prima Donna”, there was a wealth of important voices and challenging dialogue.
