Music at the Crane

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“Equal parts doo wop, vocal jazz, and Norman Rockwell-era Americana, Love to Live is a product of another time, an album that wouldn’t seem out of place on the phonograph of some postwar American living room.”–All Music Guide

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“The Sea is a testament to Rae’s artistic growth as it provides comfort to those left on the wistful side of eternal love, and insight to those who are not.”–All Music Guide

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“Simmering more than it strikes, High Violet coaxes you into baroque indie darkness rather than shines bright pop lights. But the National inevitably make that bleakness sound incredibly seductive and impossibly cool. That’s the National’s insidious brilliance: No other band makes dark and stormy seem like ideal weather.”–Spin

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“Compass is actually the former Super_Collider frontman’s funkiest outing yet, with no shortage of booty-shaking bass, gritty drum grooves, or gnarly vintage-keyboard textures…The expansive supporting cast here includes Beck, Chilly Gonzales, and Nikka Costa.”–The Phoenix

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“Janelle Monáe is not like other pop stars. The ArchAndroid, her debut album, is an 18-track, 70-minute conceptual opus, split into two suites, each one separated by ludicrously extravagant Overtures. To say it’s ambitious feels like damning with faint praise; its sheer musical scope – from the James Brown funk of Tightrope to the English pastoral folk of Oh, Maker – is spellbinding…Behold, pop music has found its latest superstar.” –The Guardian

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“The music…is the stuff of romcom soundtracks: acoustic in mood, gently pulsing, shot with silvery strings, occasionally stumbling into schmaltz. Sounds awful? Well, no, because Thorn’s voice, rich and smooth as the most expensive chocolate truffle, brings each story to genuine life and invests it with heart-snagging emotion.”–The Guardian

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“The long songs reveal Murphy’s bottom-line agenda: He’s still a dance guy at heart, and he knows it’s his job to ignite parties and clubs. But he approaches dance music more like a folkie singer-songwriter than a DJ, as a vehicle for storytelling and confession. So crank up the music, and move your body, at 120 beats per minute or so, into the lame unknown.”–Rolling Stone

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“Nobody’s Daughter recalls the highlights of the band’s critically acclaimed 1994 album, “Live Through This,” and shows that, as a band, Hole is not one bit damaged.”–Billboard.com

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“Alex Ebert and his band hark back to a carefree age of patchouli and bell-bottoms on their debut. This is intoxicating psych-indie for heady days in unbroken sunshine.” — The Observer

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“Woman + Country is somewhat of a grower — it’s so purposefully hazy it seems to pleasingly fade into the slipstream upon the first play, but those repeated spins reveal the deep craft at the heart of Woman + Country, deep craft from both the songwriter, his producer, and musicians.” –All Music Guide

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“On “Minor Love,’’ Green’s sixth solo record, he proves adept as ever traversing through the American popular songbook and filtering his findings through a hazy stoner’s smog of absurdity.” –Boston Globe

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“Given the wonderfully mercurial, fiercely independent persona Shelby Lynne has displayed throughout her career (one that has inspired fans and infuriated record company executives) her first self-produced, self-released effort might have been fraught with egocentric excess. Many artists have fallen into that trap. But they don’t have her backbone and keen self-critical eyes and ears: Tears, Lies and Alibis, issued on her own Everso imprint, is anything but. Produced with exquisite balance, these ten self-penned songs reflect what Lynne’s learned about the studio process in her 20 years as a recording artist.” –All Music Guide

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“Congratulations, MGMT’s time-warped sophomore release, is a strange beast, a candy-colored acid trip set to music, and easily the most hallucinatory rock record of the year so far.” — Boston Globe

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“After a breakthrough debut with Extraordinary Rendition, San Francisco’s Rupa Marya and her band of musical misfits returned in 2009 with Este Mundo, an album formed in ways around a more singular cultural core. There are still the elements of Gypsy jazz, the elements of Indian classical music, and the Argentinean milongas and tango pieces that were present in their previous album. However, there’s a stronger tie both thematically and musically with Mexico here. The lyrics, largely in Spanish, deal strongly with the displacement and danger inherent in border-crossing, and the music takes on a casual norteño sound with its reliance on the accordion and bass.” –All Music Guide

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“The Chieftains’ Paddy Moloney has been obsessed with the historical account of the San Patricios, a band of immigrant Irish soldiers who deserted the American Army during the Mexican-American War in 1846 to fight for the other side, against the Manifest Destiny ideology of James Polk’s America. San Patricio, more than merely satisfying Moloney’s obsession, raises more questions about what stories lay hidden under the floorboards of history than it answers, thank goodness. Music this beautifully articulated allows cultures to talk to one another across time, space, language, and other divides.” –All Music Guide

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“…One of the best (and certainly most underrated) live records in her discography. All of Fitzgerald’s hallmarks (technical wizardry, breakneck scatting, irrepressible humor and warmth) are on full display, with a small but expressive quartet backing her performance, including pianist Lou Levy, guitarist Herb Ellis, drummer Gus Johnson, and bassist Wilfred Middlebrooks.” –All Music Guide

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“An acoustic LP that finds its creator strumming the guitar, crooning about love, and co-writing most of his own material…taking its cues from Jason Mraz, Ben Harper, and other folk-pop heavyweights.” –All Music Guide

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“The AC/DC of trashy stoner rap…as the Dude would say, Suite #420 got it all rolled up, and you just gotta put a light on it.” –All Music Guide

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“From the sound of her music, Smith spent her years growing up in Canada listening to some combination of old Joni Mitchell albums and old 78s from the ’20s; occasionally, she may have tried applying a hip-hopper’s scratch technique to those records.” –All Music

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“More than ever, the singer sounds like part of the old guard, willfully ignoring anything modern or rocking, preferring to sing swaying ballads and pay tribute to Vern Gosdin via a cover of “Till the End.” Certainly, there’s a fair share of charm to Jackson’s cozy confidence…it’s the sound of a major star gently easing away from the spotlight, deciding that he’s so comfortable in his old clothes that there’s no reason to try something new.” –All Music Guide