Articles by Deanna Ortiz
The Bowerbirds – Upper Air
Folk doesn’t get much folksier then when it’s floating, homespun, from the eco-friendly home of two lovers (an acoustic guitar and an accordion) and their friend (on percussion) in North Carolina.
As with its predecessor, Hymns for a Dark Horse, Upper Air is minimal in a hemp weave sort of way, songs here talk…
The Dodos – Time To Die
Following their second release, Visiter which repeatedly featured on Best of 2008 round-ups, Time to Die sees the San Franciscans still huddled with anarchic glee around Kroeber’s progressive, deliciously vertigo-inducing drumming. Only difference is, this time Kroeber’s fat, idiosyncratic beats are scaffolding to the sunny boho mood of The Shins. Here, we see the…
Patrick Kelleher – You Look Cold
Hailing from Glendalough via Rugby, England and back again, Kelleher, head of the band of the rotating name (His Cold Dead Hands was once the Sick Fucks and The Wet Dreams), dramatically emerged from his bedroom recently, pale, laptop in one hand and debut album in the other.
There’s so much in You Look…
Florence and the Machine – Lungs
Florence Welch – 22, tall, stunning, with auburn hair and a fathomless voice part Kate Bush, Natasha Khan, Bjork and Patti Smith – is proof that when we were all joining the Talent queue some clearly arrived earlier than others.
The child of a Studio 54-frequenting art historian and an ad exec, Welch began…
Dear Reader – Replace Why With Funny
Take a gently simmering pot of Feist-like sweetness, add a pinch of St. Vincent’s left of centre mood, and more than a smidge of Lisa Hannigan and you could very well end up with Dear Reader or something quite like it. Replace Why with Funny, produced by Menomena’s Brent Knopf, is the South African…
Anni Rossi – Rockwell
Like many female artists with zany “love it or hate it” vocal styling, Anni Rossi’s first full-length album is determined not to make things simple for you. The Minnesotan multi-instrumentalist started with violin at age three and went on to train classically. Having earned a solid reputation for impressive live performances where she plucks,…
Soap & Skin – Lovetune for the Vacuum
The fact that eighteen-year-old Anja Plaschg resembles an attractive Edwina Scissorhands on her debut album cover should be a mood setter from the get-go. Having composed music from age 12 from her bedroom on an Austrian pig farm, she mastered the flute, harmonium, violin, piano, accordion, and carillon before discovering a spot of electronics.…
Valerie Francis – Slow Dynamo
After having her gorgeous video for ‘Punches’ posted by Kanye West on his blog, and opening for Jose Gonzalez, Stars, Jape and The Lost Brothers, Dubliner songstress Valerie Francis releases her debut (co-produced with Jape/David Kitt’s Jimmy Eadie) to high expectations and much deserved buzz. Francis expresses a love for Kate Bush’s quirkiness –…
Papercuts – You Can Have What You Want
Like an American Oliver, Jason Quever was orphaned at a young age. But, instead of suffering Dickensian cruelty, Quever was adopted by a Californian commune before settling in San Francisco – a far cry from begging for more gruel. It was in San Francisco that he recorded with Cass McCombs, Casiotone For The Painfully…
The Whitest Boy Alive – Rules
The Whitest Boy Alive are a funny lot to define. Helmed by Kings of Convenience vocalist and soloist Erlend Øye, this previously electronic group has forsaken sequencing in favour of non-binary instruments for album number two.
Their stripped back sound has its pros and cons. Instrumentation here is as smooth as brushed steel: vintage…
Eugene McGuinness – Eugene McGuinness
Parting sonic company with his lo-fi debut EP, McGuinness slips on his spats, runs a comb through his hair, and dramatically slides onstage a la Kramer from Seinfeld. Wide-eyed exuberance is tattooed all over the 22-year-old Liverpudlian’s self-titled album. Tracks jitter, toe-tap, bounce, jive, wiggle, shake, and swing, but they rarely sit still.
McGuinness…
Guggenheim Grotto – Happy The Man
Fresh from the success of their debut, Waltzing Alone (as heard on TV shows Brothers and Sisters and One Tree Hill as well as on Starbucks’ Across the Pond compilation), Happy the Man, Dublin-based Guggenheim’s Grotto’s latest, wears its heart squarely on its sleeve.
At times sugary, its first half is predominantly upbeat: think…
Lisa Hannigan @ Festival of World Cultures
The sun cast a golden glow on the sea on the final evening of the Dun Laoghaire Festival of World Cultures. After navigating the cacophony of food smells at the world food village, State shuffled, one of a flock of sheep fed mercilessly through the strange pinball machine system that festival security employed to…
