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Fire On Fire / The Orchard / Review
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Dustedmagazine.com / by Michael CramerThe Orchard is a striking and consistent debut, clearly executed by a band in full control of their creative capacity that has put plenty of time and effort into formulating their sound. www.dustedmagazine.com http://www.dustedmagazine.com/reviews/4737 Dusted Reviews Artist: Fire on Fire Album: The Orchard Label: Young God Review date: Jan. 13, 2009 By Michael Cramer Fire on Fire are in fact Cerberus Shoal reborn as goth-folk string band. They’ve traded in the horns, electric guitars and sprawling compositions for acoustic instruments (banjo, mandolin, accordion, upright bass and the occasional oud) and a sound that, however idiosyncratic, clearly evokes American folk and bluegrass traditions. Their first full-length, The Orchard, co-produced by Michael Gira and released on his Young God Records, bears few marks of the band’s past. An entirely new and self-contained aesthetic seems to emerge here fully formed. Dispensing with the meandering suite-like pieces characteristic of Cerberus Shoal, The Orchard favors rigid and repetitive song structures; most tracks here simply repeat the same chord progression over and over again, sometimes with, and sometimes without, a chorus. This is clearly a conscious strategy rather than a shortcoming, and perhaps a subversion of the repetitive structure of the folk......
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Pop music? It's a girl thing now (Larkin Grimm)
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Kitty Empire | The Observer | The Guardian / UK Who are the most exciting newcomers in pop? These six singular talents get our vote, says Kitty Empire. We talk to the innovative women who are trouncing the boys with guitars... http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/jan/11/new-music-2009-la-roux There is a saying among women in music: "female" is not a genre. And yet, time and again, female artists find themselves lumped together, compared and contrasted, in a way that rarely occurs with men. On these pages we've profiled six budding acts for the coming year. All are female. This isn't lazy journalism, however. It is an acutely calibrated matter of both quantity and quality. Of all the scores of new artists jostling for space on the pop-cultural radar in 2009, the vast majority seem to be female. It's as though, at some point last year, UK record labels decided that boys with guitars were passé, and that 2009 would usher in an age of oestrogen-powered, often electronic music. Having listened to innumerable debut singles, samplers and MySpace pages, we can only conclude that not only are there more new female performers out there, these girls are far more intriguing, flamboyant, innovative and culturally charged than their......
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lisa germano / magic neighbor review
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spin magazine / david beavanher touch remains as delicate as everDavid Bevan / Spin Magazine October 2009 Three songs into Lisa Germano’s eighth album, as an unfussy guitar line gives way to a winsome waltz led by her own violin, she sings the realization “That the world could be so simple.” Of course, Germano has long since realized that it’s anything but, so she proceeds to rasp devastating lines about “turning families into target practice” (on the title track) while wrapping her grave words with filigrees of piano and chimes. Little has changed since her mid-90’s 4AD heyday, but instrumental bagatelles like “Marypan” and “Kitty Train” reveal that her touch remains as delicate as ever....
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Fire on Fire | The Orchard
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Alex V. Cook | outsideleft.com Fire on Fire are psychedelic formalists of the highest water.http://www.outsideleft.com/main.php?updateID=1141 Their approach is that of the crack, cracked string bands of yore like Incredible String Band and Holy Modal Rounders and the lush chamber dwellers like Love. The group lives and makes stirring acoustic music communally, howling in unison like Sacred Harp Singers terrified to find themselves in Purgatory. “Sirocco” sets the tenor of this splendid record, accordions offering counterpart to a precision cycle of banjos and hand percussion. The chorus offers if we tear this kingdom down, let be with a deserving and joyous sound. Amen, and the kingdom is all around you. Fire on Fire are dead serious in mission, but do it with a rapturous and confident manner that you want to sign up with their cult recruiter. “Heavy D” is a perfectly wrought chantey not about the rapper – at least I don’t think so – but a meditation on heaviness itself. “Assanine Race” is serpentine in meaning like much of their material, and that of great psychedelic music, and it points to what is so potent about this music. They utilize and exploit the most accessible of folk plainsong melody,......
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Larkin Grimm - Parplar
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Adam McKibbin | The Red Alert This year's presidential election was a reminder that Americans are suckers for a good story. Whether the point of focus is Hollywood or Washington, whether you're a Hockey Mom or fallen pop idol, narrative always matters. http://www.theredalert.com/reviews/grimm.php How does this pertain to a talented, eccentric, folk-fueled singer-songwriter named Larkin Grimm? Well, Grimm's bio reads like the result of a brainstorm session in which an artist, publicist, critic and label exec sat around dreaming up the most compelling and sometimes contradictory twists and turns they could cram into a 27-year span. Of course, this really isn't a lonelygirl15 sort of deal but what a deal it would be. The CliffsNotes: Grimm was born into a religious cult, raised by a commune, lived in poverty in Appalachia, then got whisked off to a boarding school thanks to a scholarship from Coca-Cola, one of the dominant global symbols of the capitalist rat race. That led to Yale, Yale fatigue, world travels, Into the Wild Alaska, a stint in Dirty Projectors and, after an extended game of cat-and-mouse, Yale graduation (guess it wasn't too elitist in the end). Wanderlust runs wild on Parplar and when Grimm......