americana

  • Time for another palette cleanser. You already know mine: folk music. Doug Smith’s Order Of Magnitude is more of that same vein. However, it’s a bit of its own tributary. Here, largely acoustic guitar of the American Primitive style, get’s us one step closer to what a larger, universal other expects of “their” type of…

  • It bears repeating: nostalgia is a powerful thing. When used for nefarious purposes, we get horrible people like Donald Trump trading on delusionary illusions. When used for sentimental reasons, well, that’s when lines blur, and comfort starts to go through that inarticulate process of myth-making. What starts out as a simple idea, present a reflection on…

  • Bert Jansch – 1974 Sometimes you need a bit o’ change to right a trajectory. By 1974, many of the great English folk-rock artists of past had been either disbanding or watering down. One steady man had always been Bert Jansch. Maybe because of it, he’d always find ways to keep his group, the Pentangle,…

  •   Nino Ferrer To tell the story of the artist involved in creating the masterful track of the day, “South”, I have to start backwards from his death. On August 13th, 1998, two months after his mother’s death, Nino Ferrer took the hunting gun from his Creole Cottage-style farm in Quercy in the southwest of…

  • The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and Linda Ronstadt There’s something special about this three song stretch from The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s Symphonion Dream. The first song, “Ripplin’ Waters”, is quite possibly, in this author’s humble opinion, the prettiest song ever made. It’s a song I’d pitch to replace “This Land is Your Land” by…

  • Neil Young – 1970 Now here’s a tough decision! There a few artists out there that embody a musical style based on creating awesome hard, driving songs and magnificent soft, contemplative songs. I may have chosen the following two to review but they’re not exactly my favorites, they’re just a snapshot in thought. Well, if…

  • You know the saying “every woman is someone’s daughter”? I’ll take some liberties and say that “every daughter eventually becomes someone’s mother”. I say this because it’s Mother’s Day (in Latin America) and I can’t help but think of two things my mom and this great track “Mama You’ve Been on My Mind” by Rod…

ambient art pop art rock balearic brazilian electro-acoustic england environmental music experimental folk-rock fourth world Funk fusion japan jazz minimalist neo-folk neoclassical new age walearic