Everyone's a Critic
Pianist Garrick Ohlsson's performance with the San Diego Symphony featured Chopin’s "Andante spianato et grande polonaise brilliante," Opus 22, and "Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor," Opus 21. Ohlsson’s accurate playing was free of …
This opera is seldom performed because a soprano who can and is willing to sing the vocally schizophrenic part of Abigaille, Nabucco's brutal elder but rather illegitimate daughter, is difficult to find. This work is …
Despite his 60 years, Gil Scott-Heron is still hip, inspiring informed rappers with star-smashing paradigms like the oft quoted "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised." He even got an extended namedrop on James Murphy's cred-laden …
Canadian five-piece You Say Party! We Say Die! hasn't changed its dance-punk sound on their latest, XXXX, but has darkened its sonic palette and refined its arrangements. The band's sound has matured, filling up spaces …
Sojournalism: The Summer Articles, from San Diego's own Sojourn, is proof that performers do not have to resort to using clichés to prove their worth as artists. His spoken word/rap style infuses meaty tracks with …
Those looking for Pat Metheny's trademark experimentation on Orchestrion should be forewarned, the experimentation isn’t compositional but technical. Metheny is the sole human player on this disc, modernizing the concept of the orchestrion, a mechanism …
"After a while, there's something comforting about Lemmy's single-octave range," a man was overheard saying after the Head Cat show. It was a valid observation. Pairing the frontman of British heavy metal band Motörhead with …
A tattooed man playing a washboard and yelling with glee leaps off the stage into a hoedown of dancers. The joyous press of musicians onstage play at a breakneck pace, with a melange of instruments: …
For the new EP, Portastatic's Mac McCaughan taps into his Merge catalog, covering songs from Spoon, Destroyer, Magnetic Fields, Lambchop, and lesser-known acts from Merge's past: Matt Suggs, Spent, and the Renderers. If you've followed …
More, indeed, than any other American band of their era, Pylon (the amazing-est Athens, GA act you never heard of) sounded like semaphore, like ordinary communications forced into a code and forced upon you without …
Los Campesinos! has made a career out of demolishing the hierarchy between fans and friends. All of their records are thematically (and musically) relatable to what the average indie kid can muster -- simultaneously garnering …
If you're one of those people who hears old-timey, country-fied sounds and opines, "I've heard that -- Beverly Hillbillies theme music," you'll want to skip to the next review. But if you're interested in windows …
Kevyn Lettau and Peter Sprague have played prominent parts in the San Diego jazz scene for several years. Though Lettau has relocated to Los Angeles, she and Sprague have continued a musical relationship. What Is …
No Hope, No Future left me unsatisfied, plain as that. A few steps behind the Arctic Monkeys, the Kooks, and Franz Ferdinand, the Good Shoes seem to have not yet developed a signature sound. The …
The Loft on UCSD campus is the last place you would expect to find traditional country music in San Diego. Regardless, this was the setting for some honky-tonking, courtesy of Joe Pug and Justin Townes …
The third album from Baltimore duo Beach House should be renamed Instant Dream, as track one, "Zebra," doesn't waste time in putting you into a hypnotic state. Victoria Legrand's tough but gentle voice is backed …