Sometimes, you just need a little time to catch your breath. It’s been almost a decade of jet-setting and TV appearances for Oklahoma City pop-rock singer Graham Colton, all amounting to very little rest and downtime in his hometown. Some changes have afforded Colton a welcome return to the Sooner State, and he’s taking it […]
Music Features
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Russell’s brand
Tom Russell has no patience for pigeonholes. Despite a penchant for rootsy story-songs about dust-blown, blue-collar characters, he scoffs at the Americana tag that’s been hung around his neck for years. “They always need a tag — progressive country, new country, altcountry — to put outsider writing in,” Russell said. “I don’t see my music […]
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Bob Dylan — In Concert: Brandeis University
But when a CBS executive feared a libel suit from the John Birch Society and asked Bob to perform something else, Dylan walked out. American audiences never saw Dylan’s satirical song performed on the popular Sunday-night variety show on May 12, 1963. However, a previously unknown recording of that song from two days before is […]
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Dirty Vegas — Electric Love
For one thing, it’s not dirty-sounding at all. Sayonara, sense of foreboding. As the lead track “Little White Doves” makes perfectly clear with beats of shiny, sunny optimism, this disc equally aims to put a smile on your face as it does to move your feet. Subsequent songs live up to this promise of positive […]
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Dam Mantle — First Wave
The glitch-heavy production only serves to enhance the feeling of life within the tracks, which is the first time I’ve heard that herky-jerky stops and starts have worked that way. The winner here is “Movement,” which I featured here. A symphony orchestra gets the chopped-up treatment, with the breaks and jumps only serving to make […]
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Noah and the Whale — Last Night on Earth
Noah and the Whale’s “Last Night On Earth” trades in the acoustic guitars and clever lyrics of previous efforts for big synthesizer hooks and optimistic platitudes. These tunes aren’t bad. They have solid choruses, good instrumental melodies and pleasing arrangements. All those elements are carried over from Noah’s two earlier albums. But there are bands […]
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Toro Y Moi — Underneath the Pine
This is probably why Baths plays piano now, Foxes in Fiction is suddenly a guitar-based songwriter, Neon Indian is collaborating with The Flaming Lips, and Toro Y Moi plays disco/funk. Yep, you heard that right: Toro Y Moi, a pillar of the nascent chillwave scene, has released a sophomore album called “Underneath The Pine” that […]
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Yuck — Yuck
But some people hype a thing because it’s actually really good. Yuck, the latest in a seemingly constant stream of “next big thing”s, has the music world all aflutter because the tunes on its self-titled debut are great. Yuck’s sound is a modern interpretation of early ‘90s indie rock (good grief, how was that almost […]
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Brianna Gaither — Love Is Patient
Edmond native Brianna Gaither’s “Find You” does that immediately, kicking off her brilliant “Love Is Patient” album with a bang. “Find You” opens with a pensive piano line, haunting guitar and a propulsive snare/ kick beat that creates intriguing tension between the urgent rhythm section and the casual melodic instruments. Then, her lilting voice comes […]
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Ray of humanity
Ray Bonneville’s latest album is titled “Goin’ by Feel,” and there couldn’t be a better summation of the Canadianborn roots artist’s life and approach. Inspired early on by country music, blues and pre-Beatles pop, he remembers pressing his ear against his grandmother’s furniture-size radio in the 1950s upon hearing that oldfashioned twang. Soon, he got […]