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Take a load off, Abby… Wait, wrong “Weight,” sorry. This “The Weight” is an original song by Vermont singer-songwriter Abby Sherman, a heartfelt acoustic ballad with nary an appearance from Miss Moses or Crazy Chester. Sherman’s been dropping another killer single every few months for a while now, presumably (hopefully!) leading up to another record. Continue reading »
No, indie-pop duo Babehoven “Bad Week” isn’t a play on R.E.M.’s “Bad Day.” “Bad Week” is a moving electro-shoegaze dirge about fighting through depression. As singer Maya Bon sings, “It’s hard to talk about it being a bad week / When it’s been a bad week / For so many weeks now.” She elaborated: Continue reading »
Babehoven weren’t a Vermont band for very long. Singer Maya Bon and partner/bandmate Ryan Albert moved to the tiny town of Arlington, where he’s from, to record this EP, then promptly decamped for Philadelphia. They’ve also logged time in Los Angeles and Portland. But, even if they weren’t in the state for very long, Vermont would do well to embrace the wonderful dream-pop EP they recorded while here. Continue reading »
You don’t need me to tell you that 2020 was a crummy year, for musicians especially. That certainly didn’t stop the flow of great songs though. Artists channelled collective fear and frustrations in a variety of ways. One song on this list is literally titled “2020.” Another complains about masks fogging up your glasses. Most, though, are not that literal. Some offer upbeat escapism; others complain about more personal problems than those in the news. They really only have one thing in common: I can’t wait until I can see them performed live.
Anyone who played computer games in the ’80s will recognize the look of Ben Patton’s new music video. For accuracy, he even used the precise (and extremely limited) color palette of the old EGA graphics card. It seems retro, but Ben’s been spending much of quarantine covering old Cole Porter songs, so for him the ’80s is relatively modern! Continue reading »
We’re back! After a summer away on paternity leave (can a blog take paternity leave? well, we did), County Tracks returns with a supersized roundup of everything that went on while we were away.
This is, as always, “we” in the proverbial sense. It’s really just me, Ray Padgett. And I have my second book out this week! It’s about music, of course. Specifically the history of tribute albums, as told through the fascinating story of one in particular (1991’s I’m Your Fan: The Songs of Leonard Cohen – which, even if you don’t realize it, is the reason you know the song “Hallelujah”). It’s in the great 33 1/3 series of small books on specific albums. Hope you’ll check it out! Preorder links and more info over here.
Now, onto the music…
“The Road” is the first song on Bandcamp that Vermont singer-songwriter Abby Sherman has billed as being by the “Abby Sherman Band.” A minuscule rebranding, but one that feels significant. Whereas her best song last year was a stripped-down dirge, “The Road” features a muscular alt-country backing group giving her melody some heft. Special props to whoever played the country-Mark-Knopfler guitar solo. Continue reading »
Matt Scott, aka Elder Orange, wrote his new EP Stella inspired by his ’71 Stella parlor acoustic guitar. But despite the acoustic guitar-influence, singer-songwriter music this isn’t. Scott’s a producer and composer who builds immersive instrumental soundscapes incorporating that guitar here and there, but not beholden to it. In this case, he says, “Stella is a blend of a lot of my favorite sounds; dusty 60’s funk rock laced with boom-bap alt-latin vibes and gritty electro-fusion.” Continue reading »
When I saw Vermont-based guitar wizard Tom Pearo deliver a masterful album-release show recently, he made a comment about how I Am A Mountain soundtracked a movie playing in his head. Something in the way he said it made me think he had more in mind than a band’s standard promo line about how cinematic their new album is. Sure enough, Pearo has a very specific story in mind. Think a coming-of-age road journey as told by J.R.R. Tolkien (which I realize basically describes Lord of the Rings, but most of the battles in Pearo’s movie are internal). Continue reading »
When I first heard Ben Patton and Michelle Sudarsono’s new album Our Follies, I assumed it was covers of old showtunes. I don’t follow the musical-theater world closely, so the fact that I didn’t recognize any of the titles didn’t strike me as odd. Titles like “Take Her to Hear Some Jazz” and “If They’d Had Flappers (Back in Shakespeare’s Day)” don’t exactly leap out as modern. I figured these peppy and polished songs were just slightly deeper cuts by Cole Porter or whoever – he does have another song about Shakespeare, after all. Continue reading »
You’re going to want to sing along to “The Other Room” after a listen or two – but I wouldn’t. The sketches of plot offered sound like a sci-fi family dystopia, a Black Mirror episode for children.
So thoroughly does Endtime Hymns evoke certain bands that one begins looking for echoes everywhere. Is the title “My Jean Sebring” a nod to David Bowie’s “Jean Genie”? Does “Poisonhead” reference ABC’s “Poison Arrow”? Was “Privacy of Lucy” inspired by The Cure’s “Pictures of You”? Each connection a greater stretch than the last, and likely none intentional. Christian Hahn does explicitly cite the heyday of post-punk and new-wave in his bio though, and, sonically, the comparisons are everywhere. His next song might as well be titled “Bizarre Love Triangle Will Tear Us Apart.” Continue reading »