Beth Ann McDowell – Where The Calm Things Are
Genre: Pop Rock, Emo, Alternative Rock
Similar artists: Big Thief, St. Vincent, Japanese Breakfast, MGMT, PJ Harvey, Aimee Mann
A lot of great, and terrible things have happened as artists have struggled to leave their comfort zones. In pop music, for example, it’s helped with the creation of musical masterpieces that have seemed to arrive out of nowhere. It’s given a voice to images and words that would’ve otherwise just remained jammed in the artist’s imagination.
It hasn’t all been wine and roses though. There are also instances of writers going too far. Some succumbed to their demons as if the door they’d opened had also called up something terrible. Even worse, some of the experiments have merely led to terrible self-indulgence and records best left forgotten.
Beth Ann McDowell’s Where The Calm Things Are sounds like the result of an artist taking a step out towards the edge and stopping at precisely the right time. There’s something beautiful, and naive about the song on the surface. The gentle nursery rhyme-like song, however, reveals traces of anxiety. It’s imagination used as therapy. Beth Ann McDowell has created an intriguing sound that reveals just as much as it keeps hidden.
Devils Wielding Scimitars – Blue Star Linoleum
Genre: Indie Rock, Alternative Rock
Many people like watching their peers succeed. They just might not know it immediately. But, make no mistake. Without the proper representation of the folks in the audience, no shows can be expected to sell tickets for long.
The early rock artists liked the present themselves as otherwordly. By the early 70s groups were flying around in private planes and dressing like European aristocrats losing their minds on absinthe.
They didn’t necessarily represent most music lovers. But, thankfully, others like them were about to trouble the charts. This, in a way, is how we arrive at the Devils Wielding Scimitars’ Blue Star Linoleum. This is clever folk-rock made by people with teeming bookshelves, nice record collections, and no gimmicks. Devils Wielding Scimitars stand for the common music devotee.
