ALBUM REVIEW: Amanda Anne Platt and the Honeycutters Process the Pleasure and Pain of Looking Back
There’s an emotional yearning in Amanda Anne Platt’s crystalline voice, whether it’s for a person, a place, or a time. Her vocals come across with drenching clarity and vibrance, leaving the listener with their own desire to look back, to set things straight, to love purely, or
ALBUM REVIEW: Amos Lee Searches and Finds on ‘Transmissions’
Amos Lee has been a remarkably busy man as of late. In the last two years, he’s released three full-length studio albums. He began the streak with 2022’s Dreamland (ND review) and followed it up with two tribute albums to two of his greatest musical influences: Chet
ALBUM REVIEW: On ‘COUNTRY,’ Skylar Gudasz Plays in Natural and Emotional Environments
If Joni Mitchell, Aimee Mann, and Sharon Van Etten’s voices wafted up into a cloud of lavender smoke, Skylar Gudasz would emerge from it in a poof, brilliant and gleaming. The golden-throated Southerner possesses that bewitching vocal quality that seems capable of hypnotizing those who hear it, and
‘It Was All Right There’: Alison Brown Converses With the Past for ‘Simple Pleasures’ Reissue
Like most humans do at some point, Alison Brown got to thinking recently about her younger self. She was poring through the original tapes of her landmark 1990 album Simple Pleasures in preparation for a reissue, and she wondered about the twenty-something who’d recorded it.
In a way,
THROUGH THE LENS: Newport Folk Festival 2024
The 65th edition of the Newport Folk Festival was a humdinger. This year's installment of the venerable fest that keeps renewing itself year after year featured poetry reading, impromptu dancing by fest grande dame Joan Baez and Rhiannon Giddens, Gillian Welch duetting with Sierra Ferrell, two separate performances
FRESH TRACK: Frank Viele – 'Necessary Evil'
Earlier this year, Connecticut musician Frank Viele — the reigning New England Music Awards’ “Artist of The Year” — announced the official launch of Bigger Beast Records, his first record label devoted to artistic collaboration and nurturing the next wave of groundbreaking songwriters. The announcement of the venture coincided with the announcement