Year: 2013
Beautiful Godzilla: Home Sweet Home
Every winter, but especially after a particularly wet one like this year, I promise myself it’ll be my last in Salt Lake. I really love this city––I just can’t handle pedaling or driving through all this extremity-numbing precipitation. What inevitably keeps me here is the fact that I can navigate my way around this godforsaken desert without Siri holding my hand. A city doesn’t become home until you can confidently give a stranger accurate directions to the nearest, local strip club. … read more
Gallery Stroll: Art for the Young and the Young Artist
It’s not hard to find good art in Utah. Here are two of my picks of Utah’s art offerings. … read more
Local Review: Settle Down/Sure Sign of the Nail
This split single is a fantastic introduction to two of Salt Lake’s finest bands, and the songs they’ve chosen have a great emotional contrast. Sure Sign of the Nail opens with “Flora and Fauna,” a slow, ambient, tranquil trip with a thick bass line, overlaid with beautiful humming guitar and deep vocals that remind me of some primitive, Gregorian chant, rattling the deep parts of your chest with its dark beauty. … read more
Local Review: Ben Best & Karl Jørgensen
Ben Best & Karl Jørgensen are a local experimental duo with an appreciation for analog recording techniques, having recently released a nicely packaged cassette of their self-titled album. This volume of music contains a sonically warm series of untitled audio explorations that are almost aquatic in tone. … read more
Local Review: KonSICKwence & Skip Sanders
Utah hip hop just keeps getting better. I mean it. I know many of these kids have been around for a minute, but they’re hitting their strides. Utah. Jazz. is just that—full of dusky, distant piano samples over bass-heavy boom bap. … read more
Local Review: A Lily Gray
A Lily Gray has released a solid and highly enjoyable EP with The Fall. The album is ethereal and emotive, a bit more complex than most standard rock, but not quite stepping into any “progressive” territory, and has a strong foundation in the complementary sound of the music with singer David Lynn’s unique and far-reaching, clean vocals. … read more
Local Review: Mooninite/RS2090
Side A, Mooninite’s side, treads lightly in familiar ambient territory, owing much to the sampled instrumentation of Boards of Canada and the swirling arpeggios fancied by fellow compatriot OK Ikumi. The beats are slightly off, staggering with a seasick lurch. RS2090’s side is all absurdist rhythm patterns, pitch-shifted lecture notes, squiggly synths, bottom-scraping low-end and an angular, almost geometric approach to composition. … read more
Local Review: Mystique
This three-song EP is packed with delightful bounciness. Urgent piano riffs and a really rich female vocal execution stand out on the first track. Even the second song, which is more of a ballad, continues with a great rhythm. … read more
Local Review: Porco Rosso
Porco Rosso is the chillwave project of Park City’s Davis Johnson, and the One Day As A Lion EP is on Bandcamp for a name-your-price deal. There is no other information about him online, but that’s fine, because the music is capable of speaking for itself. … read more
Don’t Be an Ass, Use a Glass!
I have a problem—a glassware problem. If it’s a vessel made to carry a specific beer, I probably own it. Some of it is tradition, how some glasses are almost ceremonial in their approach to beer, but I know there’s more to it than that. So, when people ask me, “Hey, moron! What difference does it make?” or “How can it possibly affect the taste of the beer?” I have some simple answers. … read more
Kvelertak: Meir Og Meir
After missing their scheduled set earlier that night on Converge’s headlining tour due to van problems, Kvelertak rolled into SLCto play a last-minute show on 10/22/12 and delivered their potent mix of black metal, punk, hardcore and classic rock n’ roll to a rapturous crowd. Kvelertak riled up the crowd so much at midnight on a Monday that multiple fights broke out, but, as vocalist Erlend Hjelvik potently put it when the band stopped in the middle of a song to calm the audience down, “We are here to party, not to fight!” … read more
Local Review: Robert & The Carrolls
Can’t get enough Mumford & Sons? Want to be ahead of the curve on the next band from Provo destined to hit it big? Robert & the Carrolls are for you. … read more
