Mastria

Something about the approach of Cool Charisma is somehow surprisingly gentle. It does not blast the door open, but kind of strolls into the house, nonchalantly, as though it were a visitor who is always welcome. That chirpy, ringing guitar melody slides past your ears like the sun does into half-open window blinds on a morning when you are alone in the house. And you find yourself even before you are aware of it your body is reacting to it, a tiny nod, even a smile you did not originally intend. It is marvelously nonchalantly done. The music you might hear on the radio one night when you can't fall asleep, and you listen to some Irish radio station, and you listen to a song, and you get the thought in your mind God, I must tell someone about this song. MacLeod, the pulse of the beloved Cisco in Dublin, has never been shy to talk of his influences, and here he carries them like an old jacket that has always been worn, and which, nevertheless, retains the outline of the man you once ...

  Prience (Prince) Moore and his No You And Me (Without The Kids) do not pass through your speakers, they establish themselves. It is that kind of a song that comes softly in the room and before you realize it, it is sitting next to you asking some soft questions on love and life. Moore is a Seattle artist who has the ability to make the commonplace touchingly profound. There is that pure, home-grown sincerity of his words, the wisdom of people who have experienced what they are singing. The song exists in that well-known conflict between love and responsibility - that tug and pull between the individual that you fell in love with and the life you have created together. It is a personal, yet not dramatic, one. Rather, it is like the silent sighing when the children have gone to sleep and the house has finally shut down. The song breathes in those little spaces, those honest places. Moore's voice is pure soul. It is not attempting to impress you, it is telling you the truth. It has ...

Sean MacLeod has a sort of easy-going warmth in his "Romeo" the sort of thing that makes one feel like walking into a sunlit cafe on a lazy afternoon. His voice, full and full of experience, encloses you like a blanket, with that indefinable "lived-in" quality that can only be achieved by someone who has actually lived the songs they are singing. This honest, human glow has always been present in the sound of Sean, as in his days in Dublin with Cisco, or in his collaboration with the former producer of U2, Paul Barrett. It is not noisy or demonstrative, it is friendly. I had this sense of silent nostalgia, as I listened to "Romeo," as though I had found a letter, written to me in days gone by, by a person who knew me well. These sunny, catchy guitar riffs that open the song immediately put one in a better mood-- they are familiar, but new, a bit Beatles sunshine sprinkled with Motown groove. It is that swinging, easy-going, never pressing too hard, rhythm ...

  This haze of Fall Behind by The Shrubs is so cloudy and dreamy, it seems like sunshine dying away behind an old vinyl record, warm, golden and a little bittersweet. The lyrics are airy and slow, as though reminiscing a mildly sweet thing. Josh and Miguel, and Sophie, are creating an easy and pure sound, that is, psychedelic rock with a heartbeat. It is the type of song that just creeps on you. It happened to do just that one quiet afternoon. I was sucked into its light, and had that old nostalgia of straightforwardness of the past, the one you have trouble defining. You almost know the band in their Katy home studio, the light of the sun pouring on the studio floor, laughter in between recording. The music is nostalgic-- retro, but lively. It is bounced back by surf-rock, and the guitar voices move in bright and irritable lines playing off against the background of the song, which is one of heartbreak and loneliness. The drums advance everything with this loose groovy beat - cons...

Something intoxicating about the Energy Whores (Pretty Sparkly Things) is its glittering sort of poison, which slips under your skin before you even notice. The voice of Carrie Schoenfeld, delicate and with an edge, is able to cut the fog like a silent revelation that is spoken in the midst of the crowd. Out of New York, a blend of classical piano elegance and indie movie grime, she has made a song that is a waltz of attraction and rebellion. It belongs to social retribution, a song that makes you dance and at the same time makes you question your own morals. I first listened to it in the middle of the commute, the city passing by, and was of the opinion that submerged rage was beginning to surface, the rage that occurs when you see how effortlessly we are all hypnotized by beautiful lies. The music glitters, insatiable and stinging simultaneously. Electropunk synths are neon veins vibrating on jagged beats that make you sway despite the message burning. It is a reflection of what the ...

This gnostic thunder is in Tritonic in Oh, Sinai! that sounds in the very blood, Peter Jewkes melodic singing with a Bowie overtones, tinctured with existential agony--haunting, unique, and drawing me into the questions of the cruelty of creation that had echoed my own late-nights cynicism with an uninformed universe. The friends were dispersed by the oceans, and having re-embarked in the Marketstall in London, the band is now in exile globally, which only adds to the radical sincerity of the band, which is austere and yet humanly welcoming, evoking feelings I did not anticipate in the depths of sludge-prog. The tune blossoms to chant-like in the chorus, welcoming, but heroic, and jagged riffs by fretless guitar, homemade conversions, beckoning dissonance, open with uneasiness, beckoning the infinite ambiguity with which they seek. No pre-recorded samples, all is touching the physical world, stained with manipulation of real space, a mixture of hardcore hits with the whisper of the fre...

It has this roar to it like the roar in Bevin, in You Don't Decide and just seizes you and her voice is soaring and she cuts through everything like she is declaring war on silence. She is this lone ranger of LA who has cut her own path to the American Gothic Rock and you can hear all those classical influences blended with actual grit, the kind of grit that comes with touring with Motley Crue and writing with Tim Armstrong. It is an anthem, this song, the one that causes you to pull yourself up even more. I originally listened to it when I was riding with the windows down, and something in me was beginning to unravel. The anger I had been holding back all that time, it burst out, uncivilized, and terribly freeing. The tune picks up and is full and utterly defiant, casting these alt-rock perimeter around ideas of body ownership and throwing all these weary patriarchal plots into something woman-focused and ablaze. It is not just a song to listen to. It is a toxic control manifesto,...

Something about Daph Veil, and her Bloodsucker, makes you a little more than usual you know that, when a song swishes around you and around, and around, and then it bites on you. Everything is united by the voice of Paula Laubach. It is mesmerizing in this daintily, as though she were withholding something huge, and you can sense all that not expressed feeling just boiling beneath. Her harmonies as they are superimposed on each other, when they are overlaid, are as glass - beautiful, yes, though with those rough edges that make you remember that beauty can cut. This is an ideal combination of the sweet and the bitter bite of knowing you have been duped, all of this being seductive and disturbing at the same time. This musical line, the sultry and bluesy guitar line, begins the song, and makes one think those moments of silent calm before everything exploded. At first, it is smooth to the point where it is really too smooth and then gradually begins to unravel with the track. The music ...

When "Risen" by Deflecting Ghosts comes on, one gets a feeling of being right in the midst of a storm that they have no (or does not want to have) way out. The guitars thunder and the voice of Luke Fitzgerald cuts through with pure emotion- rough, desperate, unbearable. You hear all the weight he is carrying as he charges the anarchy. Here, Hutchinson, Kansas, the three, Luke, his wife Rhema on bass, and a brother-in-law Austin on drums, (capturing the drums), convert their mutual past and internal struggles into something powerful and moving. I initially heard it at a troubled night and it struck somewhere in the depth, making that burden I had been carrying something powerful, even rebellious. The sound itself is massive, as though it is spilling out of the speakers, shaking the walls. Produced by Jeremy Valentyne of New Years Day and Brandon Wolfe, the recording still lacks any drop of that home made heart. It is almost possible to imagine what this sounded like in the bas...

There is this soft touch in Gideon Unna, the song What Is Love, and the voice of Kaley Halperin is floating over all, as a balm over war-torn skies. It makes you feel warm inside and out, particularly when you tell that it comes in the heart of the uproar in Israel. Gideon is an Israeli singer-songwriter who incorporates Jewish faith into contemporary soul, and his acoustic folk music makes the entire song base on something close and sympathetic not furious, but very human. The performance is modest, as though he is offering spontaneity to everyone involved: drummer Yotam Botner, keyboardist Yoav Asif all of them with something real. I was listening to it on a quiet evening, and it simply enclosed me, causing me to feel that common human vulnerability that we all experience during such hectic moments. This radiance of sympathy is in the voice of Kaley. It is gentle yet depthy in the sense that it penetrates to the skin and intermingles with the guitars and bass of Gideon to produce suc...