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My favorite collaboration record in 2013 came from Susanna and Ensemble neoN… who sound (moniker and in aesthetic) like they should’ve been together from the start. Oslo-based Susanna Wallumrød has spent the past decade singing and songwriting, primarily in Susanna and the Magical Orchestra, but also under a few...
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Truth be told, 2013 was nearly the end of the line for my time in “music journalism.” A few months ago I realized that I was almost 30 and had spent the better part of a decade doing something I don’t particularly like for pretty much no pay. I...
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To those who don’t “get it,” Skinny Puppy tend to come across as some of the most confusing and scary noise of the past century… To those who do “get it,” the Vancouver-born, Los-Angeles-dwelling Industrial outfit have proven to be one of the most beautifully chaotic and haphazardly fun...
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Of all the things I like about Sweet Soubrette, I think it’s the things that inspire their songs that I find to be the most endearing and intriguing. “I write a lot of songs about books,” Ellia Bisker, mainwoman and writer and composer for the Brooklyn-based outfit. The singing,...
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Philthy and Philly would like to personally thank YACHT for providing the City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection with some of its brightest, most brilliant, and beautiful musical moments of 2013… All without even technically touring the East Coast… Yet, twice in the past two months the LA-based...
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Sarah Dooley is the latest, and current favorite, in my existential love affairs with hyper-quirky NYC singer/songstresses. Dooley has been in the spotlight for a while now, albeit in a different capacity. When she left Indiana for NYC to attend Columbia University around 2008 she wrote and starred in...
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Shy Hunters have characterized their debut album as, “A record about white-light-joy and black-hole-suffering, and the thin membrane that often separates them.” If that’s not enough to get you to give it a spin, then I seriously doubt I am eloquent enough to convince you. That album is O...
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Despite the fact that their self-titled debut LP doesn’t drop until February 25th (on Nettwerk Records), Run River North have already accumulated a bevy of accolades, including being shortlisted at Cannes and gaining over 1.5 million YouTube hits. Over the summer, shortly after first getting signed to Nettwerk, vocalist/guitarist...
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Crushed Stars have been at it for more than a decade now but, in a recent chat with Todd Gautreau, the head and the heart of the project tells me that the Crushed Stars moniker may be nearing an end. On January 21st Gautreau and crew (Jeff Ryan, Hillary...
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Seattle trio Helms Alee have spent the past six years writing and recording abrasively beautiful and avant-garde sounds that have been labeled with phrases such as “experimental metal” and “art rock,” although they would seem far more comfortable with their sound, inspired by the outermost fringes of ‘80s and...
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LA duo Yell For Help recently released Love Will Keep Us Together, their debut EP. I, naturally, assuming it was a snarky nod to Joy Division, was very excited… It turned out to not be any kind of a nod to Ian Curtis, Hooky, and crew… but it’s still quite...
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Philly and Philthy alike have made themselves quite familiar with Tristen Gaspadarek (better known as, simply “Tristen”) over the past several years. However, I think it’s safe to say that the Tristen of 2013 is a new Tristen. We previously knew the Nashville-based songstress for a sassy brand of...
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Jadea Kelly was a country and folk musician based out of Ontario… However, she’s recently shifted her sound into something quite a bit more experimental and orchestral… but without losing the Americana aesthetic which is still ultimately at the core of her songwriting. This can be found on her...
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Dott are definitely the sunniest band to find themselves on Graveface Records… They embrace fuzzy sonic transgressions but, in general, they remain far more delightfully upbeat than label peers like Black Moth Super Rainbow, Xiu xiu, and Monster Movie… yet without being any less awesome. Last week the band...
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Hayley Coupon is quite modest (although she does consider herself to be quite skilled in certain areas). Hayley Coupon is a NYC-based singer/songwriter and pianist. In a recent chat she told me that she’d rather not think about the roots of her music career, but admitted that she has...
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Toronto trio Magneta Lane are a pastiche of music history’s most badass ladies, both sonically and sartorially. At times they sound like a Warped Tour take on Debbie Harry and Blondie. At others, they’re sounding slightly more superficially satanic and are far more reminiscent of Ozzfesty vixens, like Drain...
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Australia’s The Oyster Murders began when Grant Redgen relocated from the creatively numbing countryside to the city of Brisbane and met Wendy, a student of entertainment business. The two formed a cosmic connection of sorts, began making music, and went on to get married. ...
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Although 2013 has been a big year for reunions, there have also been a noteworthy number of first-time collaborations, such as Devon Sproule & Mike O’Neill, who released their first album as a duo, Colours, in October on Tin Angel Records. Devon Sproule has spent the past decade and...
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For someone who’s not exactly a household name, Juliette Commagere has a resume that is relatively mind-blowing. The Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter has played with Maynard James Keenan’s Puscifer, The Bird and the Bee, Nick Lowe, Linda Perry, Liz Phair, and Ry Cooder (whose son, Joachim, is Juliette’s husband and...
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The first time Lucius played Philadelphia there were four people in the room… That’s including the band, the headlining act, and myself… That was more than three years ago and they’ve come a long way. Lucius expanded from Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig to include Dan Molad and Peter...
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Seasick Mama is a stunning and brilliant creature who, somehow, I identify with to an ineffably intense degree (right down to the people we call “friends”). Seasick Mama is Marial Eve Moon, a singer, songwriter, and model. She has been the face (and body) of several of the most...
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Anna von Hausswolff may be the most poignantly conceptual and boldly experimental artist I’ve ever known to characterize her music as “pop.” Anna is a Swedish singer/songwriter and pianist, who has toured with a handful of noteworthy acts and been frequently compared to Kate Bush. This July her sophomore...
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This Weekend Union Transfer played host to a plethora of heroe… well, to be honest, they were mostly heroines… of the 1990s… Mazzy Star took UT’s stage on Friday night on their first US tour of nearly two decades, while Saturday had the ladies of Luscious Jackson playing their...
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Rosi Golan may be based out of Brooklyn, but she certainly feels at home and welcome in the City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection, where she’s played around a dozen shows in the past few years. I recently got a chance to chat with the ineffably enchanting folk...
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2013 has been a big year for getting-back-together… Kathleen Hanna and Kathi Wilcox, Girls Against Boys, My Bloody Valentine, Mazzy Star… but Luscious Jackson have held a monopoly over my excitement for reunions… The alt rock outfit that existed from 1991 to 2000, releasing four albums that embraced traditions...
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San Francisco-based Debbie Neigher’s musical career is still fairly fresh, although she already has quite an impressive list of credentials. Last week she released her sophomore LP, Unravel, her second to be produced by John Vanderslice, most famous for his work with the likes of Spoon, Death Cab for...
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Los Angeles duo Gliss have been at it for nearly a decade now… but 2013 would seem to be their most profound year to date. The band was first brought to prominence by Billy Corgan, who helped them push their psychy, fuzzy, black-clad brand of post-punk revivalism across the...
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Boston trio Quilt have a sound that I’m going to characterize as “mystically quirky indie pop.” They play with sonic psychedelics, but tend to remain on the sunnier, and not scarier, side of things. They recently released “Arctic Shark” as a 7-inch and their sophomore LP, Held in Splendor,...
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I first fell in love with Kate Nash in 2007. She was a young, British chanteuse of the indie pop variety. Her debut album, Made of Bricks, was proudly juvenile and playfully vulgar, including songs like “Dickhead” and “Shit Song.” When it came to addressing loves never to be...
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My relationship with John McCauley and Deer Tick over the years has been complicated. I actually ignored the Providence-born band for their first three indie folk releases. And then, on a whim, simply because I was a massive fan of McCauley’s then-fiancé Nikki Kvarnes’ band Those Darlins (I’m also...
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Minneapolis’ The Melismatics turned ten this year. They seem to have been “celebrating” that landmark all year, but it was formally commemorated this October with the release of their sixth and most accomplished LP, Rising Tide. The album is a concept album chronicling the lifespan and trials and tribulations...
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Philthy Mag has been profiling a noteworthy number of “sister acts” as of late, however, Bianca “Coco” and Sierra “Rosie” Casady, AKA CocoRosie, have been at it for a decade now, long before it seemed to be any kind of a trend. The two sisters, despite being American by...
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Techno, as a genre, is currently becoming a major player in the world of youth musical tastes, but it is, unfortunately, largely still a boys’ club (although that might not be reflected by the electronic musicians Philthy, personally, tends to cover), but Berlin-based, Austrian Clara Moto has been a...
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For the past two years and change He’s My Brother She’s My Sister have been boldly trekking back and forth across the US of A and beyond with a bold brand of rockabilly, glam, garage, and Americana-inspired southern rock, which, in a live setting tends to manifest itself in...
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The Paper Kites are a five-piece, hailing from Melbourne, who are currently on their first trek across the US, with about a month and a half of dates, which included three weeks opening mega venues for City and Colour in October. Their trip is nearly going to wrap up...
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Canada’s YAMANTAKA//SONIC TITAN are postmodern in every sense of the word. The performance art group abrasively slam high and low art against each other, taking inspiration from Buddhism, doom metal, manga, psych rock, NYC art rock, and classical traditions of Eastern theatre. At the heart of the project are...
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Brooklyn’s Folding Legs are ambiguous not only culturally (Members hail from NYC, Vienna, and Stockholm.) and sonically (Their influences range from high-minded pop music spanning several decades to performance artists), but even in terms of artistic mediums themselves (In addition to music, they take inspiration from theatre and film,...
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We Are The Brave are what happens when a singer/songwriter (Jess Chalker) gets together with a hip-hop producer (Nathan Cunial aka OXY). The Australian duo came together over a mutual love of a number of things that seem like they would be of very little interest to a singer/songwriter...
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Like the recently profiled Blessed Feathers, Tic Tic Boom!’s Leilani Francisco (vocals/keys) and Mike DeLay (instrumentation/engineer) are not only musical partners, but real-life partners. The LA-based duo make a highly infectious, sugar-coated, and synth-heavy brand of dance pop that is equally indebted to artists of each of the past...
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There may be a lot of artists currently exploring Americana and the idea of the Great American Wanderer, but Blessed Feathers may have an edge, when it comes to authenticity. Although Philthy Mag first introduced the band to you this March, in case you’ve forgotten, Blessed Feathers are Donivan Berube...
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Love Inks are a blend of history’s most poignant and transgressive pop music and postmodern, off-the-grid musicality. They compose spacey dream pop on analogue recording devices, while playfully and delightfully ringing of the of post-punk of Blondie and the synth pop of Depeche Mode. The Austin-based trio released their...
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This February Sallie Ford & the Sound Outside released my favorite album of 2013, Untamed Beast. The album is a confrontationally sassy amalgam of Americana, soul, garage, rockabilly, and Southern rock that, to me, sounds quite a bit like post-riot grrrl with a Southern twang. The Portland, Oregon-based outfit...
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Maine’s Coke Weed recently traded in a folk rock aesthetic for something that more closely (quite closely, in fact) resembles the fuzzy, gazey, and psychedelic beauty of ‘90s alt rock. The songs found on their third and latest album, Back to Soft (released this past July) sound like something...
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Super Wild Horses are one of those beautifully and admirably unrefined entities that actually manage (to a certain degree) to appeal to a popular aesthetic… albeit in a very anti-/post- way… Super Wild Horses are Amy Franz and Hayley McKee of Melbourne. When the two first began the band...
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I recently caught up with Chris Ward and Andrew Thiboldeaux of Philadelphia’s own “Pattern is Movement”. They were the 2008 January issue of Philly Weekly’s “biggest indie bands” (and in 2013 are Philthy Mag’s biggest indie band to watch). If you look them up online they are likened to Dirty Projectors, Beirut and Grizzly...
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There’s something especially satisfying about art that is not only good, but that disappoints… This past Saturday Fiona Apple and Blake Mills graced the Merriam Theater for something that… well, was apparently not what many concertgoers had expected. The duo are currently nearing the end of a collaborative tour...
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I recently turned 29. And as an “ambitious outsider” and “resident alien,” I find myself wondering if my youthful transgressions from popular culture and a “healthy” Western lifestyle are still relevant, if my identity still addresses and confronts those aspects of heteronormativity that I despise so much and if...
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Portland trio Lovers are both quite accomplished and quite new to the music scene. Although technically on their seventh album, as the band’s current formation, the Portland-based trio, are only on their sophomore effort. Lovers are comprised of songwriter Carolyn Berk, producer and performance artist Kerby Ferris, and producer...
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Holly Conlan is my kind of person. “From the time I was a little kid, I was always worried about having the right shoe and the right necklace… I’m in love with fashion and if I weren’t in music, I’d probably be doing that,” the Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter tells...
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Despite a newfound maturity (relatively speaking), Austin, TX’s Wild Child are still more than suited for their moniker. Earlier this month the indie folk outfit released their sophomore effort, The Runaround, on Ben Kweller’s The Noise Company. The album was even produced by Kweller, himself. While the band’s 2011...
My favorite collaboration record in 2013 came from Susanna and Ensemble neoN… who sound (moniker and in aesthetic) like they should’ve been together from the start. Oslo-based Susanna Wallumrød has spent the past decade singing and songwriting, primarily in Susanna and the Magical Orchestra, but also under a few...
Truth be told, 2013 was nearly the end of the line for my time in “music journalism.” A few months ago I realized that I was almost 30 and had spent the better part of a decade doing something I don’t particularly like for pretty much no pay. I...
