Month: May 2019
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FLYING LOTUS’ new album FLAMAGRA is a genre-bending and ambitious yet cohesive full-length from the astro-futurist himself.
The first thing that hits is the funk. Ellison’s more upbeat productions have always had a squelchy, roly-poly quality, but thick wah-wahs and clavinet gives the beginning of Flamagra the feel of mid-’70s Stevie Wonder. Boisterous jams with Anderson .Paak (“More”) and George Clinton (“Burning Down The House”) come off like Ellison strutting
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NEW RELEASES, 5/31: SURPRISE! It’s a new SUPERCHUNK, and *repeat repeat, RORY GALLAGHER and KENNY WAYNE SHEPHERD are in the house, too!
The band that started it all, Superchunk, is back with a surprise new studio album! Acoustic Foolish is a complete re-recording of their classic 1994 album, Foolish,. Long considered to be one of their most tender & well-received albums in their storied history, the band was interested in re-exploring what the songs mean to them…
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NEW RELEASES, 5/24: MAVIS STAPLES, FLYING LOTUS, JUSTIN TOWNES EARLE and EARTH are all in the house this week!
Over half a century after her voice was at the forefront of America’s civil rights era, Mavis Staples is still crying out for Change. The bluesy backbeat opening track of her 12th studio album confronts recent shootings in the US before she concludes, brilliantly, “What good is freedom if we haven’t learned to be free?”…
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JUSTIN TOWNES EARLE casts his incisive eye over the American landscape and finds hard times on his new album, THE SAINT OF LOST CAUSES, out now!
For The Saint of Lost Causes, Earle is focused on a different America – the disenfranchised and the downtrodden, the oppressed and the oppressors, the hopeful and the hopeless, as well as their geography. “I was trying to look through the eyes of America,” Earle says.
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ESPARANZA SPALDING casts 12 LITTLE SPELLS, a dynamic and experimental collection that explores the healing properties of art, in-stock NOW on CD and vinyl LP!
Each song is dedicated to a corresponding body part, which is weird but also delightful. On “Until The Next Full,” she sings, “Our eyeballs are hollow/but presently hold shape/around a gooey filling” is obviously dedicated to her eyes, as is the sultry “Thang” with its purring demand that you “sink into your hip,”
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NEW RELEASES, 5/17: THE NATIONAL, NICK LOWE & LOS STRAITJACKETS, CHRISTONE “KINGFISH” INGRAM, INTERPOL, ENDLESS BOOGIE and more!
The second Lowe/Los Straitjackets studio collaboration EP features only four selections, running a total of 14 minutes. Three are new Lowe originals that, well, sound like others of his tunes, and the fourth, “Raincoat In The River,” is an obscure Phil Spector cover, initially recorded by the little known Sammy Turner.
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The 2019 CHAMBER MUSIC SOCIETY OF THE CAROLINAS season (formerly the SWANNANOA CHAMBER MUSIC FESTIVAL) will be gracing Greenville, with performances at the FINE ARTS CENTER every Monday in July!
Beginning in 2015, the Swannanoa Chamber Music Festival began including Greenville as part of its schedule after a 45-year gap. We’re thrilled that the Festival is continuing this tradition,
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NEW RELEASES, 5/10: ESPERANZA SPALDING, MAC DEMARCO, THE BB KING BLUES BAND, DUKE ROBILLIARD all in the house today!
This is the funkiest record of Mac DeMarco’s career, with its serene charm and more introspective songs proving its creator now cares less about what will play well on the festival stages and more about letting us inside his head. The record is paced slower than his previous work, with the coked-out synths of
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THE YAWPERS’ bring their rawkin’ punk-rockabilly-blues-whatever-else-they-can-find sound in order to answer the HUMAN QUESTION, in-stock now on CD & LP!
On their fourth album Human Question, the Denver trio zooms out to a more vast and accessible stylistic and spiritual universe. The 38-minute thrill ride generates growth and cathartic self-reflection for audience and performer alike. If there was justice in this world, the Yawpers would be the savior that rock-n-roll didn’t know it was waiting…
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NEW RELEASES, 5/3: BIG THIEF, VAMPIRE WEEKEND, DOYLE BRAMHALL II & SMOKESTACK, JUDAH & THE LION and more!
Over the course of their previous two albums, New York foursome Big Thief pruned their meaty alt-rock back into mellow indie. UFOF sees them pare things down further still, in a collection of gentle folk that seems dazed by its own exquisite beauty. Sometimes, the results bring to mind a sugar-coated Elliott Smith: acutely lovely…