The last time The She’s blessed us with an album was in 2017 with the release of the appropriately named “All Female Rock and Roll Quartet.” Mastered by Oakland’s own Piper Payne (we love you) and mentored, as the girls lovingly say, by Merrill Garbus (Tune-Yards, another Oakland great), well: the album was as delightful as we were expecting. Though laced with some of the same heart we hear on their first album–lots of those lovely pure melodies and catchy, surfy pop riffs–Quartet is, if we may, a little bolder than their first LP. Remember, these She’s aren’t teens anymore (newsflash, Walter Cronkite, they’ve been playing together since middle school). Exploring funkier, dronier tonalities and writing about more than simple matters of the heart, Quartet takes The She’s to a different place. Special love to “Heartache” and “Lie Again.” What’s next? Find out on February 27th, when they’re playing The Independent with Albert Hammond Jr as part of Noise Pop. –Michelle Kicherer, Associate Editor 

 

There’s a quote from Inside Llewyn Davis, a Coen Brothers film which details a few days in the life of a fictitious songwriter, where its titular character states, “If it was never new, and it never gets old, then it’s a folk song.” I thought about that quote a lot while listening to Blueberry Mountain, an LP by New York singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Erin Durant. The album, recorded entirely in analog, is split between piano and acoustic guitar arrangements, with Durant’s mezzo-soprano floating softly over minimalist instrumentation, all set against the warm hiss of tape in the background. It’s a verdant, welcoming record, reminiscent of the 1960s Greenwich Village scene that never feels panderingly vintage; rather, Erin Durant’s songwriting and its honest lyricism are rife with the timelessness inherent, and necessary, to good folk music.

Erin Durant will bring her classic soundscapes to The Park Church Co-Op on February 8th, lending support to Erika Spring and Stranger Cat. Stream 2016’s Blueberry Mountain below. -Connor Beckett McInerney (@b_ck_tt)