Those two distinct features are the mixture of organ with soft guitar notes and the guttural, unnatural vocal grunts that they’re set behind. With the album’s well-timed pacing and all the shout-along choruses, “Go Tell Fire To The Mountain” is easily one of the best, most cathartic surprises in indie rock this year. Not a […]
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Laura Marling – A Creature I Don’t Know
So much of the 21-year-old’s third LP, “A Creature I Don’t Know,” comes in styles more nuanced and technically difficult to perform than pure, simple folk, while it simultaneously avoids lazily dipping into other stylistic offshoots for guidance or song structure. Stories are told here in country, British folk, American folk and plenty of other […]
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Wilco – The Whole Love
The latter eschews much of that melody for a grittier rock and prog sound, and a wider thematic range, lyrically. Linking the two is the band’s universally beloved and critically lauded 2002 opus, “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot,” but, save for Jeff Tweedy’s most devout, wide-eyed followers, few find themselves with an equal appreciation for both albums. […]
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Beet it
Will Beatty — who raps under the name Beetyman — is quick to point out exactly what he expects from fellow hip-hop artists: Honesty ranks high, and by extension, authenticity. Really, it has to do with speaking about what you know, and much of what Beatty knows has to do with being the underdog. The […]
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Gum — Make It Sound New
With guidance from Trent Bell and the equipment in his Bell Labs Recording studio, the young group’s debut (they’re all around college-aged or fresh out of school) nicely juxtaposes a certain sonic wisdom against the songwriting of messy, emotive, mid-20s lives. Download the song “Ooo La La” for free. The album swings with John Baber’s […]
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Kashing in
Tim Kasher writes songs the way any author of good fiction tells a story. After first establishing a base within his own experiences, he exaggerates and embellishes, fabricates and reimagines until a good song manifests. Not always does the character closely resemble the singer, but even those closest to him can’t tell you for certain. […]
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Chamber-made
Brightmusic, the city’s shape-shifting classical ensemble with a boundless, dynamic repertoire, starts its new season Monday. The season’s lineup is as varied as one would expect, simultaneously comfortable and challenging. “We’ve done something very different. This year, there will be no sixth concert, but a four-concert festival instead,” said David R. Johnson, Brightmusic president. Each […]
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Fire good!
Mighty Big Fire hasn’t been playing shows all that long, but the group is already bringing down the house. Literally. “We were playing a show at this pizza place and, well, the ceiling fell,” lead singer J.T. Darling said. Added guitarist Chris Feng, “It had been raining all day, and I was just standing in […]
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A sound shade of Blue
For her, Norman’s Blue Bonnet Bar had real potential as a live music venue. Eight years ago, during her undergrad years at the University of Oklahoma, she told her friends she’d like to work there. They said that she couldn’t: “That’s a rough place.” right Black Canyon at Blue Bonnet “Well, I’m going to try […]
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Emmanuel forever
Almost 10 years to the day, Australian guitarist Tommy Emmanuel still remembers almost every detail of a show he played in Oklahoma City. “Right after 9/11, I came through, and it was one of my first shows of the tour. Everyone was still pretty numb,” Emmanuel said. “I found some poetry about America, and I […]