Honest, in-depth album reviews by KLOF Mag – championing and curating intelligent, uncompromising voices in contemporary and experimental music since 2004.
Albums
Rachael Dadd is seated onstage at North London’s The Luminaire, arranged on a table beside her is a collection of crockery and three sets of chopsticks. It is an interesting experimental set up that I’m lucky enough to watch blossom into a spontaneous, twinkling performance of a new song that she tells me is inspired by her husband’s cooking of rice.
Despite musical beginnings a decade ago in Athens, Georgia under the moniker Fillup Shack, Matthew Houck’s better known Phosphorescent guise only recently crept out of the woodwork with acclaimed 2007 LP Pride, the lo-fi, haunted tones of which earmarked him as an artist of a similar highly praised songwriting stature to Will Oldham and Iron & Wine’s Samuel Beam.
by KLOF
Yes, The Vaselines are back after a long hiatus…some of you might feel the urge to run behind the sofa like you did when you were ten after watching Dr. Who when the Daleks ambled along on trolley wheels shouting “EXTERMINATE!” (children back then didn’t need special effects to scare the shit out of them). But hold on…don’t run yet! Apart from the fact that it seems to be the …
“Before, I was pretty lost. Really unhappy. For years. A lot of times I didn’t want to leave my apartment because I felt too self-conscious”, Matt Bauer once confessed. This may, in part, explain why this Brooklyn-based banjo player sings the way he does, in a gruff whisper that is, more often than not, softer than that of his female vocal contributor Dana Falconberry. It’s a tone so hushed that …
Soft Landing are a Brooklyn-based three-piece comprised of Beirut’s Paul Collins and Perrin Cloutier; together with pal Mike Lawless. Forming during a touring hiatus from Zach Condon’s collective, they played together day and night, perfecting these Brazilian born tracks that were later recorded with producer and Icy Demons frontman Griffin Rodriguez; in Chicago this January.
by KLOF
The Low Anthem put on a performance last night in Belfast that immediately won the crowd over. They are the type of band that will always give a consistently good performance. They get the balance right: they play the hits and they play them well. Their timing, delivery and stage presence is second to none.
by KLOF
My first night at Open House Festival was a real treat. I opted for the main Festival Marquee for the night and was saturated in sound from the quiet revolution. Kicking off with Nathaniel Rateliff, followed by The Low Anthem and Iron and Wine.
The Gallery Cafe in Bethnal Green provided the quaintest, cosiest, homeliest of performances from David Dondero on Saturday night. With a cluster of people gathered around half a dozen candle-lit tables it was perhaps even for Dondero himself, so used as he is to playing bars and small grimy venues, something of a quintessentially English change; this little rustic cafe complete with terrace, fairy lights and the odd few punters …
by KLOF
I first came across Matt Bauer in 2006 when he released an e.p. called Wasps and White Roses. It featured a neo-traditional version of Sea Lion Woman a traditional American folk song which hooked me. It led me on a bit of a musical journey which led to many other great artists including Alela Diane, Marie Sioux and Sam Amidon. I’ve been following and playing his music on Frukie since.
These three girls may appear the female counterpart to Robin Pecknold and Co. with their Appalachian revivalist vocals and hauntingly authentic folk, but there is something much stronger behind their whisperings. Mountain Man is comprised of Molly Erin Sarle, Alexandra Sauser-Monnig and Amelia Randall Meath who, having met at Bennington College, Vermont, began a transformation into the sound that they describe as “a creature growing from [their] mouths”. Upon hearing Molly playing what was later to become “Dog …