Caitlin Rose performs “Only A Clown” at Mercury Lounge, NYC
So good! She’s another person I would have loved to discover at SXSW but instead I had to wait and see her close to home. And WOW she and her band are terrific! Tight tight tight! And those songs ride perfectly on my preferred side of country pop. What a great night with such a great album! Come back whenever you like y’all!
When I wrote about my recent obsession solo acoustic guitar music a few weeks ago, I presented it as a temporary break from my usually indie rock-leaning listening habits. William Tyler’s new album Impossible Truth, released last week on Merge Records, seems to have proven that sentiment to be misguided, if not entirely false. It’s one of the few albums that I’ve loved front to back so far this year, and most certainly one of the most unexpectedly enjoyable albums I’ve heard in a while. There is a certain element of challenge to listening to this kind of music, but when he’s at his best - as he is on “Cadillac Desert”, streaming above - Tyler’s music is as engaging as any indie rock act out there. His textured playing, filled with moments of tension and release, shifts effortlessly between cacophony and sparsity. All the while, the album’s eight tracks contain an amazing feeling of forward momentum, never relying on atmosphere alone to create interest. This record could be pegged as an easy entry point into the sometimes intimidating world that it inhabits, but that assertion suggests a simplicity that isn’t present in most of Tyler’s work. For a genre that is often limited to a monotonous palate,Impossible Truth paints in surprisingly colourful strokes; it is both immediately accessible and endlessly fascinating.