The album Mount Moriah demands to be heard on vinyl. Released last year on CD and an online download, it’s a debut defined by spaciousness and warmth, merging various elements of rock, country and folk into songs at once overwhelming and intimate. Jenks Millera master of texture and momentum with the metal-leaning Horsebackadds guitar lines […]
Jordan Lawrence
Bio: After seven years in the Triangle, Jordan Lawrence followed his fiancée and their fluffy cat to Greensboro. He has written about music for the INDY since 2010.Twitter: http://twitter.com/JordanLawrence
Posted inMusic
Hear a track from Le Weekend’s third album, the magic y/ear
The music of Chapel Hill’s Le Weekend is marked by stark contrast: moments of catchiest pop abandon give way to noisy freak outs. To this point, it’s been a balance that the trio has struggled to maintain. The transitions between its disparate elements sometimes get a bit too jarring. But the magic y/ear—the group’s third […]
Posted inMusic
The Love Language welcomes new era at The Cave
Photo by Jordan LawrenceThe Love Language in low places On record, The Love Language has enhanced its fraying emotions with divergent pop techniques. But The Love Language has always been at its best when it plays lean and lively garage rock. The quartet that Stu McLamb now leads understands that better than any of the […]
Posted inMusic
The continuing struggles and songs of Dan and Letha Rodman Melchior
Read Letha Rodman Melchior’s thoughts on her battle against cancer. Donate to the Letha Melchior Rodman Cancer Fund. Buy Dan’s album The Backward Path from Northern Spy. Last September, Dan Melchior, a fabled British-born garage and art-rock musician living in Durham for the last six years, gathered his live band on the cramped, low stage […]
Posted inMusic
Cat’s Cradle takes over the Commons
Photo by Jordan LawrenceMandolin Orange plays to the Commons Tift Merritt, Megafaun, Mandolin OrangeCarrboro CommonsSept. 21, 2012 To any concert promoter or civic entity in Durham, Wake, Orange and surrounding counties with the means to put on free and accessible outdoor concerts with local musicians: We need more of them. Friday night, after three good […]
Posted inMusic
Girl Talk speaks the language in Raleigh
Photo by Jordan LawrenceGirl Talk greets the crowd Girl TalkLongbranchSept. 20, 2012 Gregg Gillis, who performs as Girl Talk, had been playing Raleigh’s Longbranch for about an hour when he finally paused. In such quantities, his manic mash-ups of pop, rock and hip-hop were an endurance test as much as they were a party starter. […]
Posted inMusic
The Old Ceremony’s Fairytales and Other Forms of Suicide
The Old Ceremony plays Cat’s Cradle, with Megafaun opening, Friday, Sept. 21, at 9:30 p.m. Tickets are $10–$12. On Fairytales and Other Forms of Suicide, Chapel Hill’s The Old Ceremony feels more at ease than one could expect for a band in their position. This album is their fifth since forming eight years ago. In […]
Posted inMusic
Shirlette Ammons debuts video for “Take a Chance”
At first blush, the video for “Take a Chance,” the new single from Durham MC Shirlette Ammons, seems quite simple. A colorful blue and purple screen announces that there is breaking news. The bulletin: “Shirlette and Anansi find their Bentley mode.” Shirlette sits making hilariously serious faces at a news desk as a monitor shows […]
Posted inMusic
The Evil Tenors’ Peach Fuzz
Peach Fuzz is out now. The Evil Tenors play an EP release party Saturday, Sept. 15, at The Pinhook with North Elementary and Le Weekend. Tickets for the 10 p.m. show are $5. It’s entirely possible that fans of Nathan Oliver, the currently shelved project of Durham’s Nathan White, won’t recognize “Your Love Is Instrumental” […]
Posted inFestivals
The legacy of Tar Heel pop-rock transmissions
Helpful links Wristband / ticket distribution info Purchase tickets The schedule The day parties Complete event info This summer, Shuffle magazine, a quarterly publication covering music in both Carolinas and for which I serve as music editor, ran an essay reviewing three new pop-rock records by area bands. One was Falling Off the Sky, the […]
