Adam Yas – Wild Horse Sun
Genre: Post-Punk, Indie Folk, Folk rock
Similar artists: Elbow, Flaming Lips, Depeche Mode, Neil Young, Bon Iver, Puscifer, David Bowie, Neil Diamond, Queen
It’s nearly impossible to find a really great artist without a bit of an overinflated ego. How could they not? The majority of them want two things. They want to build their own world according to their own rules. And, they also want people to love them for it. Once achieved, this is unlikely to make them happy, but this is really beside the point.
Great songwriters function in much the same way. Only that some will be wise enough not to admit it. Everyone makes music nowadays. You don’t want to find that your neighbors’ toddler has a band that sounds better than you. And, you don’t want to be Noel Gallagher shouting about Oasis’ greatness by album #5.
Adam Yas’ Wild Horse Sun is world-building according to the rules clearly etched out by his San Franciscan forebearers. This is psychedelic music that requires the listener to pay the price of admission and step through the looking glass. It’s folk music that glows. And, it is clearly made by someone who thinks that they’re better than most. Adam Yas is right about that.
Judy Blank – Confetti
Genre: Indie Folk, Indie Pop
Pop musicians look to be present in the moment, to capture it, wrap a pretty bow around it, and sell it back to people who, similarly, are trying to live in the present. It’s a winning strategy. It has, at least, made fortunes for many rock stars, for countless decades.
However, there are some for whom the present moment is unbearable. There are some who live outside of time because they must. The artists who suffer from this, but who also manage to translate these feelings into art, are both tremendously blessed and horribly cursed.
Judy Blank’s Confetti sounds like music that exists out of time, a recording found on an old tape machine that nobody gets to play in time. It also happens to be a poignant song, a tune of loneliness made with respect for the sadness of whoever might one day hear it. In avoiding something that sounds modern, Judy Blank may have just created something that will sound timeless.
