Albany, New York, is a strange nexus. There, the state highway crosses and splits to different compass points, connecting disparate cultures — tumbling north from New York City to Montreal, winding west from Massachusetts to Buffalo. At this crossroads, you’re at once immersed in New York state politics yet a stone’s throw from New England, [...]

Writers fairly consistently and fairly accurately yoke Tom House to tradition — the mineshaft caterwaul of Dock Boggs, for example. But House also seems to occupy his own musical world, a surreal, American primitive landscape full of fleabag beauty, poetic mind shapes, and intriguing, oddball non-verbalisms (liquid purrs, primal scat warbles and amiably bubbly vibrato). [...]

Amy Allison’s third album adds new dimensions to the vocalist’s pose as downtown NYC country chanteuse. The opener, “What’s The Deal?”, evokes the easy, pastoral roll of the Byrds’ “Ballad Of Easy Rider”; it is lush, winsome and reflective all at once, with Allison’s evocative, funny little voice providing comfort even as it hints at [...]

The pair of openers, “Are You Coming Or Going?” and “The Day Before I Found Her”, pretty much typify the intent here – cascading, chiming guitar figures and sweet stinging leads propelling George Usher’s euphoniously arty popcraft. The former member of Beat Rodeo and the Schramms has a pure pop heart, but much like fringe [...]

Eric Bachmann, who led North Carolina indie-rockers Archers Of Loaf throughout the ’90s, took a turn from insouciant noise-pop to melancholy when he initiated Crooked Fingers in 2000. Red Devil Dawn, the third Crooked Fingers album, continues that mode — but this time around there’s also a surprising levity at work, with the tunes coming [...]

Ry Cooder is an iconoclast and a searcher, and when he chooses his collaborators, he tends to ally himself with characters just as fiercely enigmatic. This is to be expected from a man who pores through discarded, cheap guitars, looking for a sound or tone he hasn’t yet heard (except in his mind). It was [...]

With Dirt, Mark Selby stretches beyond the fairly direct blues-rock boundaries of his 2000 debut More Storms Comin’. Selby has had a lucrative run penning songs for such radio-friendly folks as Trisha Yearwood, the Dixie Chicks, Jo Dee Messina and Kenny Wayne Shepherd. On his own, however, he adheres to more rugged principles, letting his [...]

Laura Cantrell has consistently posited herself as a fan first and foremost, not only through her duties as a DJ at famed freeform station WFMU, but also with her 2000 debut album, Not The Tremblin’ Kind. On the latter, she championed great songwriters such as Joe Flood, Amy Allison and Robert McCreedy, covering their songs [...]