Listen Up
D. Anson Brody: A Song a Week for a Year
ANTHONY MARIANNow that major record labels have become the sole province of mega-stars, local musicians are coming up with creative ways to release new music. For example, instead of putting out an album per year or less frequently, the root...
The Great Tyrant
There’s a Man in the House (Dada Drumming)Ken Shimamoto
The ominous mood is established by the cover art: a sepia-toned ’20s photo, which seems haphazardly attached to a piece of stained cardboard, depicting a child with a ribbon in her hair descending a staircase. In one hand, sh...
Magnus
Magnus (Self-released)Ken Shimamoto
Magnus is living proof (as if any more were needed) that heaviness is its own reward. The band was reborn, phoenix-like, in 2007 from the ashes of a late-’90s vintage outfit — familiars of respected locals Yeti and the rece...
Dust Congress
Open Your Eyes, The World is Shit (Paperstain Records)Caroline Collier
Denton’s Dust Congress takes indie-rock back to a time long before any such genre was envisioned. On the band’s most recent release, Open Your Eyes, The World is Shit, frontman Nick Foreman leads an old-world ensemble of ba...
Various artists
How Y’All Doin’ Tonight? (Self-released)Ken Shimamoto
With all the breast-beating and rending of garments that one periodically hears regarding the state of “the scene” here in the Fort, it’s worth remembering that DIY venue 1919 Hemphill has been in operation since 2002, ma...
Merkin
Scatology (Self-released)Ken Shimamoto
It might not matter to anyone else, but it does to me: Merkin was the last band I watched grow up onstage at The Wreck Room. That’s what’s fun about following local music: seeing assemblages of kids who are frankly not that...
JoCo
A Troubling Noise (Self-released)Ken Shimamoto
This CD-R came with a note from its creator, one Jonathan O’Connor, which read, “Chris Hardee said I should mail you one of these. I was also a fan of PFFFFT! and thought you might like this.” Right away, my bullshit filt...
The Panic Basket
Hard Bread (Self-released)Ken Shimamoto
Here’s the first recorded result of a collaboration between electronics wizard Darryl Wood (ex-Confusatron and ex-Parasite Lost) and Darrin Kobetich, solo acoustic guitar virtuoso who’s jammed bluegrass with the Blackland R...
The Dangits
Greatest Hits Vol. 1 (Self-released)Ken Shimamoto
I’d resigned myself to the fact that nobody around the Metromess plays real, unhyphenated rock ’n’ roll anymore — you know, that blues-based music with a backbeat Chuck Berry said you can’t lose?
Nels Cline Singers
Initiate (Cryptogramophone Records)Ken Shimamoto
A musician I know put it thus: “Nels Cline is a warlock!” While I doubt the Wilco guitarist is conversant in the dark arts, I agree that his instrumental prowess approaches the supernatural.