Noble Oak - Eveningstar (YouTube) Recently, a friend on Mastodon asked followers about their first cassette purchase. I had no trouble recollecting getting Starship's Knee Deep In The Hoopla when I was in the fourth grade as my introduction to the world of music on tape. I wore that tape out playing the all-too radio...

Tortoise - I Set My Face to the Hillside (YouTube) Last year, I bought TNT by Tortoise on CD from a Discogs seller, though I already own it on snow white vinyl. I should tell you, this sort of activity is as sure a sign of my devotion to a particular album as any. After all, I’ve got access to high-quality digital...

Terry Godier might be a certain kind of genius, as evidenced by his masterfully crafted RSS reader, Current, and the ideas behind it. So when I saw he had created a short documentary about music formats, one of my favorite subjects, I had high expectations. Godier hits upon a lot of the problems intrinsic to streaming...

Some good news came this week in the form of more Velocity Girl remastering. This time it’s a compilation of non-album tracks from various places being released by Slumberland Records. The collection is called 1989–1992 and the contents are precisely what it says on the tin.

I’ve been on a post-punk x new wave kind of kick the last several days, after I learned Black Marble (who I blogged about last year) are going to be playing nearby in September. The algorithm overlords recommended Castlebeat to me after the end of a listening sesh of “Bigger Than Life.” I hadn’t listened to Castlebeat...

I recently hit my 20th anniversary (!!!) at the company where I work. Instead of a gold watch, I got what amounts to about $400 in a foreign currency they call “Spotlight points.” Thought I didn’t pull the trigger right away, my immediate thought was to blow the lot on a pair of Sennheiser HD 650 headphones. I’ve been...

A few weeks ago, I saw Mark Robinson from Unrest/Air Miami/Flin Flon open for the Wedding Present at the Motorco Music Hall in Durham. Although the bill clearly stated that Robinson would be playing Unrest songs, imagining him doing those songs without the two other band members, Phil Krauth and Bridget Cross was...

Everyone has been posting about the Aadam Jacobs collection. Since I love indie music from the 90’s, I’m certainly going to spend some time with the massive 10,000 live recordings collection. I went to the page on the Internet Archive and one of the first recordings I saw was Rachel’s at Lounge Ax. I bought The Lounge...

Charlotte Cornfield is the latest musician to put out something via Durham, NC’s Merge Records. Hurts Like Hell is also the first long player by the Canadian singer/songwriter since becoming a mother. The title track, “Hurts Like Hell,” wallows in a remembered sentimentality with the advantage of looking at difficulty...

My wife and I have long been devoted to music from the band Stars. It’s hard to pick a favorite album, but I especially treasure a few of the songs on No One Is Lost. The 2014 album was recorded in a studio the band built above a gay discotheque and seems to have absorbed some of the dance vibes, if not the sexuality,...