Friday, Oct. 6: As influential for her funk- and punk-inflected take on singer/songwriter acoustic rock as for her rigorous self-determination and relentlessly energized activism, walking the talk where so many others are content merely to talk it, Ani DiFranco is simply important. She’s a lightning rod for polarized opinion as well, but that just comes with her territory.
Thursday, Sept. 28: There’s no overestimating the influence of the Cowboy Junkies on the aesthetics of “low”, leading, decades after they rocked the world with whispers, directly to the phenomenon of dreampop and to the genre that I hereby deem closet folk (think early Iron and Wine).
Sunday, Sept. 24: Very few bands have ever comfortably supported three songwriters, and even two can be a fractious challenge. Consider, then, the rare case of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young – not only four songwriters in one outfit, but four established ones who had written hits with their previous bands: Buffalo Springfield (Stills and Young), the Byrds (Crosby) and the Hollies (Nash). Imagine the wrestling over vinyl bandwidth.
Sunday, Sept. 24: Flying Machine features substantive contributions from five-time Grammy winner Cindy Cashdollar on steel guitar, paired on a track with drummer and family torchbearer Gabe Butterfield. Avant-garde vocalist, composer and violinist Iva Bittová appears on the same track as the reed player and scholar of animal sounds David Rothenberg and the world-recognized harmonic overtone singer Timothy Hill. Imagine that. No, really.
Friday, Sept. 22: The High Kings are, in melody, instrumentation and subject matter, maybe not reverent, but certainly compliant traditionalists. But in production values, they cleave to the path of Enya: utterly enhanced space somewhere between Heaven and within. Their wildly successful 2008 eponymous debut sounds like the Clancys singing inside a magic cloud.
Saturday, Sept. 9: Ear Op finds the veteran New Paltz trio opting, for the very first time, not to self-produce. The Doggies called upon the New Paltz-based indie- and post-rock producer Kevin McMahon. McMahon is best-known for his work with the epic punk group Titus Andronicus, the avant-noise legends Swans, the clinical indie guitar-pop band Real Estate and some other nationally known acts.
Friday-Sunday, September 8-10: The Meltasia Festival offers much to differentiate itself from ordinary music festivals: B-movies, a haunted mansion, wiffleball games, pool parties and goats, to name a few. Last year, Meltasia was held in the high-concept setting of the long-abandoned Catskill Game Farm. Great in theory, but this year they’ve upgraded the digs to the Blackthorne Resort in East Durham.
Friday, Sept. 1: You need to accept – acquiesce to – Sting’s default pieties and pretensions. That’s just him. Get over it. Once you’ve done that, be prepared to be impressed both by the musical craftiness of these new confessional songs, and ultimately, by their courageously awkward honesty.
Friday-Saturday, August 25-26: Silencio will be making two regional appearances in tribute to the music of the enduringly popular and recently revived television show Twin Peaks, which is to say the music of Angelo Badalamenti. Badalamenti’s evocative soundtracks (and songs co-written with series creator David Lynch) combine unironic sentimentality with jet-set swank and all kinds of creeping menace, which is just another name for “Lynch.”
Saturday, August 26: He jumps on as the headliner of an already well-stocked Americana lineup at the Livestock Music Festival in Bovina.