Paleface is a presence woven so deeply into the fabric of the indie-folk/anti-folk/pop-folk/whatever-you-want-to-call-it-folk scene that it’s difficult to find a related artist whom he’s not associated with in some way. Taught to write songs by Daniel Johnston, managed by the godfather of American punk Danny Fields, and one-time roommates with Beck, he has been diligently building up an arsenal of songs since 1989. If he’s not contributing to the next Avett Brothers’ album or making friends with Regina Spektor, then he’s probably hard at work on his next project. Since 1989, he’s released over fifteen albums and has been an associated act on several others. As he states in the intro video of his website, “I’m never satisfied. There’s always a better song to write.” read more

Rarely can an artist boast such an impressive list of accomplishments at the gestation of their career. Cheyenne Marie Mize reminds me of the girl from school who everyone liked and always seemed interesting but never flaunted herself enough to make all the boys’ hearts flutter. Only after you leave behind the superficial stimuli that used to draw your eyes’ double-take do you learn to appreciate the subtle brilliance and beauty that’s been right next to you for so long. That comparison is not to dismiss Cheyenne’s alluring visual aesthetics – check out her recent spread in Louisville Magazine – she’s just been too good at flying under the radar, until now. read more

Despite having thirty years of music behind them, along with two Grammy awards, They Might Be Giants seem to have about as much pretension as a man running naked through a mall. They still sing unabashedly about odd things like astronauts playing golf on the moon, the urge to flip off do-gooders, and the ancient art of cloisonné making. That’s their niche, though; walking that fine line between strange and relatable. They walk it so well, in fact, that they can go back and forth between making music for children and making music for the children stuck in adult bodies without appearing to undermine their aesthetic. Their fans know that they’re just out to have a good time playing fun, upbeat music. read more

If you’ve read a few of my past Laundromatinee posts, you should realize by now I’m not entirely interested in the of-the-moment trends, total reinvention of the popular music scene or coolness for coolness’ sake. That’s not to say I’m a Luddite or complacent for only what has come before. What I mean to say is everything I’ve read in the past year about Yuck (plenty of acclaim and “Best of” recognition courtesy of tastemaker giants in the likes of Pitchfork, NPR, Spin, Rolling Stone, The AV Club, Paste, Stereogum, NME, MAGNET, Spinner, Consequence of Sound, etc) seems to distinctly focus on how their feet are firmly rooted in the 1990’s (check out my very own My Old Kentucky Blog post for Yuck’s Room 205 session a few months back to see how I too modified my voice a bit but still said the same thing), for better or worse depending on the critic’s mood. I have no interest in criticizing; I’m far more motivated to share my passions with those I hope may have similar desires. read more

“Have you heard the latest reinvention in the street?” sings Cut Copy front man Dan Whitford in “Blink and You’ll Miss a Revolution.” It seems unlikely that the lyric is an act self-promotion, yet it’s certainly applicable to the sound Cut Copy have developed. With their emphasis on synthetic timbres and Whitford’s strong, clear baritone voice, one can easily liken them to the dance-pop groups of the 80’s. The Melbourne, Australia-based quartet, however, seem to be right with the times, and many music critics agree. Their catchy melodies and moving beats, cleverly complimented with real guitar, bass, and drums, have earned them numerous nominations and awards as a Dance/Electronica group, including a nomination for Best Dance/Electronica album at the upcoming Grammy Awards. Clearly, Cut Copy are doing something right and aren’t just a bunch of copiers (pun intended). read more

Blind Pilot is a band of well-worn shoes, figuratively and literally. Their songs are the stories of seekers and lovers setting off down long, dirt roads, passing under hanging stars, tramping wooded hills and curling up beside welcome campfires or beneath piled blankets. They are songs with an earned grace and lessons as dear to the heart as capillaries funneling hot blood to the brain and limbs. Most Blind Pilot songs start softly – acoustic picking, Israel Nebeker’s easy, endearing vocals, a toe-tapping rhythm – and casually build to a gentle chug, like a dependable train pushing across the immense, American landscape. Soon come the full band harmonies belted out soulfully but not showily. It’s from-the-heart music meant to love on first listen and for faraway, changing times. read more

In honor of Matthew Sweet’s October stop in Indianapolis and recording of this charming Laundromatinee session, I’ve been spinning his 1991 pop masterpiece, Girlfriend, in heavy rotation. In retaliation to the battle lines that have been drawn over recent decades between pop radio and the more critically adored, relevant music, I’ve opted to spin Sweet’s loveable songs to get back in the arms of a good friend and again remember such a divide needn’t necessarily exist. I was merely 8 years old upon Girlfriend’s initial release, but I discovered its majesty in the mid 90’s and fell in love with it time and again during college and into my 20s. From the opening lick of “Divine Intervention” through the irresistible, sunsoaked glory of the title track and into the resplendent, lovesick ballad “Winona”, Girlfriend is an unabashedly appealing collection of pop bliss; like a greatest hits collection recorded and delivered in a single wave of artistic inspiration. read more

Joy Williams and John Paul White, otherwise known as The Civil Wars, have become quite popular in 2011, plunging the otherwise horrific term into a sea of ambiguity. To put it lightly, The Civil Wars are beautiful. The bulk of their repertoire, performed almost entirely with a single acoustic guitar and their voices, is slow and mellow, but there is a warm energy to it much like the energy one finds in a shot of bourbon. The harmonies are vibrant, their voices all but designed to be sung together, and the guitar playing is soothing, though White can certainly rattle the strings when he wants to. It also doesn’t hurt that Williams and White look like movie stars cast together as leading male and female. For all these reasons and undoubtedly many more, The Civil Wars have found themselves nominated for two Grammy’s, and their 2011 release, Barton Hallow, has appeared on numerous “Best of the Year lists,” including American Songwriter, Paste Magazine, and NPR Music. read more

Whether or not you believe in fate, you have to admit that some people are born to play music or at least born with the obvious choice to play music. Caitlin Rose is one of those people. Raised in Nashville by two parents heavily involved in the country music scene, it makes sense that Caitlin would want to follow in her parents footsteps. Or somewhat follow. Caitlin doesn’t appear to be some pampered brat playing country music for her parents’ approval. She admittedly dropped out of college to focus on music and has a love of punk rock that clearly shows in the neo-country sound she now plays. read more

St. Louis MC Rockwell Knuckles dropped into Indianapolis to record this take of “Play Catch” live in the Spa at the French Pharmacie for Laundromatinee. “Play Catch” is an infectious as all hell track of brains and reckoning, making a call for the crowd to follow Rocky’s master plan and get in on the ground floor. He rhymes with a dazzling mix of supreme confidence and heart, taking down MCs claiming to catch bullets in their teeth just as he remembers that “the closest people to me keep my level at a medium/been knowing them so long I do not remember meeting them”. read more

The guys of Cymbals Eat Guitars walked into Big Car Gallery in Indianapolis for this session early on a Saturday afternoon in late October after a late night Chicago set. Having listened to the new album, Lenses Alien, a dozen or so times over the past few months and Why There Are Mountains time and again in the past couple years, I was unsure quite how the band would come across in personal interaction. I knew little about them other than their outstanding albums – playing a strange rock and roll cocktail, simultaneously invigorating while lyrically solid, enigmatic and challenging - and reviews I’d read here and there. It was gratifying to see a quartet of hardworking young guys I could easily relate to. Running on a few hours sleep and surely worn from the road but still congenial and zealous enough, the guys hauled their gear up the old stairs and into the gallery, shaking hands, smiling and offering eye contact and invitations for coffee runs. While tuning and checking levels, they bantered with us and each other, rattling off a litany of funny asides and inside jokes, making it effortlessly clear that they are a tight-knit group with easy personalities and lacking pretense. read more

Has it been long enough since ‘O Brother’ for the cultural cycle to come back around for another bluegrass revival? I suppose when you’re talking about a style that could care less about what’s hip it really doesn’t matter. The five members of the Woodstove Flapjacks String Band don’t seem to be too interested in what’s trending on Spotify at this moment. The Lafayette, Indiana natives have spent six years learning the timeless craft of picking, plucking and storytelling. The spirit of their tunes make reach for phrases such as “harken back” and “old-timey.” And they have no problem with that. read more

If you have trouble getting out of bed in the morning and find yourself feeling slow, sluggish, and unproductive throughout the day, consider adding some Beat Connection to your routine. Nothing gets me going in the morning like a hot cup of home-ground coffee and a few tracks of “tropical psychedelic pop,” as the Seattle-based group categorizes themselves. It’s fun, it’s fresh, and everybody’s doing it! The music is pleasantly melodic. The beats are dance club-worthy and, well, connected. After listening to a Beat Connection song, it’s difficult not to feel energized. You’ll be dancing your way through the day’s work, smiling the whole day through. So if you do end up spicing up your routine with a bit of Beat Connection, you best get yourself a good pair of shoes. read more

Alex Zhang Hungtai and his band rolled into Big Car Gallery in late on a late September afternoon before Dirty Beaches’ performance at White Rabbit Cabaret. Watching and hearing a Dirty Beaches set or listening to Hungtai on album, a frenzy of thoughts and feelings come to mind. One such descriptor that could get overlooked without seeing him in person is likeable. Between songs and engaged with a crowd, Hungtai is a humble, considerate person on stage and in print. He acknowledged a newfound fondness for Indianapolis in his initial trip to the city and seemed genuinely enthusiastic about his band’s new suit purchases down the street before the show. He has the persona that makes you want to root for him and his band. read more

When first listening to this session, I closed my eyes and let the music of Pree take me somewhere. Through doing so, I found myself in two places simultaneously. The first place was in an old wooden boat sailing away from the coast of Ireland, the waves gently bouncing the boat and the wind whipping my hair. There’s something about a steady snare beat and flute that takes me to Ireland. I have no idea why. Hopefully, you can relate in some way. The second place was in a city on a grey, rainy day, and I was the protagonist in a sentimental indie film. I think this is a more reasonable place for people to go when listening to Pree. They have that distinct sound that is original yet, expected for an indie film -- strong, feminine vocals, mellow guitar playing, echoing drums, a third party instrument – and it manages to pick out a previously unknown part of your psyche and hold it up for you to look at. Or maybe that’s just me again… read more

The first thing that always comes to mind when I think about Deer Tick is John McCauley’s feral, bloodthirsty howl. It’s a truly painful thing of beauty. One minute he inhabits a down-and-out hard case seconds after getting socked in the gut bellying up to the bar one too many times, and the next he’s that wounded, rabid beast raging for survival. He’s a writer with a knack for prose that could fit between the margins of any Raymond Carver story, and he’s smart enough to utilize his own tattered voice to color the wordplay. It’s the sort of unshakeable, unpolished instrument that many a producer and A & R rep would fight to clean up and make pretty. It’s a damn good thing the band has never fallen into such a trap, because mixed with the tight rhythm section, devastating lyrics and obvious guitar worship, it’s the unmistakable sound of Deer Tick. read more

As I watch and listen to the footage of this week’s session featuring The Coathangers, I can’t help but think of Halloween. Maybe it’s the oncoming presence of fall as it creeps in undeniably with the wind, a little more every day. Maybe it’s my intense craving for candy as of late, and I’m subconsciously fantasizing about the mother of all candy-giving holidays. Most likely, it’s the aesthetic of The Coathangers; a lively clash of dissonance and melody in which every instrument and voice contributes to the overall haunting sound. Think The Dead Weather but with a sharper edge making The Coathangers ever more viscous, yet ever more gentle. read more

For this session, Roberto Carlos Lange rolled into Lovebird Recording with a synthesizer and his voice. With minimal exception, these are the very tools he used when he tucked himself away in rural Connecticut to record a new album with a fresh sound. Canta Lechuza was the result. It is a sparser, even more intimate collection of songs than anything he has previously done under the Helado Negro name or any of his other projects (ROM, Epstein, Boom & Birds). Lange, a Brooklynite by way of South Florida and the child of Ecuadoran immigrants, has a special knack for creating sensuous, intoxicating moods utilizing little more than the synthesizer and a haunting croon. The songs that result wouldn’t be out of place accompanying almost any scene to a Sofia Coppola or even a David Lynch film. The majority of Canta Lechuza and the entirety of this session strike me as the soundtrack to all hours drives on desolate highways through sprawling, sleeping cityscapes and but a handful of blinking lights guiding the way forward. I hear electronic wayfaring hymns: the sounds of midnight boats drifting towards shore, a vagabond approaching a mountain refuge with a glowing porch light. read more

Before hearing Little Tybee’s music, the band’s name somewhat baffled me. With research, I soon discovered the its origin to be an island of the same name off the coast of Georgia, near Savannah. The area’s tourist site TybeeVisit.com describes Little Tybee (the island) as “a pure, uninhabited nature preserve, accessible only by boat…with coastal marshes, pristine beaches, natural dunes and subtropical forests of live oak, pine and palm”. read more

Holiday Shores is a truly exciting band from Tallahassee,FL that is damned hard to pin down. They thrive on making truly beautiful and melodic songs, often piling on the noise and shifting the tempo just to keep things interesting and tightening the grasp on your attention. These tactics and songs often erupt into delirious shoutalongs and irresistible rhythms that leave you happily helpless in their hold. read more