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No Depression has been the foremost journalistic authority on roots music for well over a decade, publishing 75 issues from 1995 to 2008. No Depression ceased publishing magazines in 2008 and took to the web. We have made the contents of those issues accessible online via this extensive archive and also feature a robust community website with blogs, photos, videos, music, news, discussion and more.

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Author: Linda Ray

Record Review from web archive December 26, 2008

Calexico

Many folks, often with a sigh of relief, considered Carried To Dust a return to form for Calexico after 2006′s Garden Ruin. Certainly the signals are there: cover art by Victor Gastellum, recording at Wavelab Studios, production by Calexico with a Craig Schumacher assist. Aesthetically, the subtle effect of rustic textures and open spaces on [...]

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Live Reviews from web archive November 10, 2008

Vic Chesnutt & Elf Power

Does Vic Chesnutt apologize wherever he goes? Or was there some embarrassment last time he came to town? At the brink of launching their set, Chesnutt signaled for Elf Power to hold back as he riffed, solo, a musical apology: “Hello, everybody. It’s good to be here, again. Last time I got too drunk. Sorry.” [...]

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Column from web archive October 20, 2008

Squeezing out sparks from
the modern music marketplace

Whatever other factors may have contributed to the recent collapse of mail-order distributor Miles of Music, it’s hard not to see it simply as more detritus of the ongoing fireworks display of options for music consumers – colorful, exciting, changing almost minute to minute. For years, Miles of Music advertising was a fixture of the [...]

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Record Review from web archive October 17, 2008

Cuchillo

It’s a dark romance that Cuchillo plies with Israel Marco’s supple guitar swooning and delicate fills. And it’s as alluring as parts unknown. Mystical seascapes give way to desert drones; a lolling drum tattoo may yield to the snaps of maracas. The Barcelona duo refers to their music as “psychedelic folk rock experimental,” but that’s [...]

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Live Reviews from web archive October 1, 2008

Barcelona Accio Musical

Thousands thronged Las Ramblas and strolled the ancient blind alleys among the sepulchral stone walls of the Barri Gotic as the final night of the Barcelona Accio Musical (BAM) played out on the eve of the citywide Merce holiday. Every language could be heard on the streets, and nearly every genre could be found on [...]

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Waxed - Record Review from Issue #75 May-June 2008

Chris Mills – Living In The Aftermath

Pow! Biff! With a pounding rush of fear-fueled adrenaline, we “run with out sabers and our guns” in a futile attempt to escape the apocalypse. We feed the war machine to save our wives and babies from the vampires and the aliens, until we break ranks and escape to an even worse fate. Chris Mills [...]

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Town and Country - Shorter Artist Feature from Issue #75 May-June 2008

Whipsaws – One up on the Lower 48

The Whipsaws may be the most popular bar band in Alaska. Certainly they have logged the most miles across the tundra, with the deepest repertoire of original music, routinely playing four-hour gigs in the live-music-starved watering holes of the hinterlands. In the process, they’ve engaged a broad array of Alaska’s more colorful characters, several of [...]

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Waxed - Record Review from Issue #74 March-April 2008

Mando Saenz – Bucket

Mando Saenz is that guy: that seductively, entirely incidentally, totally wrong guy. He’s the dreamer, the brooder and, ultimately, the heartbreaker, but at least, for all the good it’ll do you, he’s right up front about it. “Wrong Guy” spells it out in the opening track, just as clearly as “Go Away From My Window” [...]

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Town and Country - Shorter Artist Feature from Issue #73 Jan-Feb 2008

Ha Ha Tonka – Ozark Highs and Lows

Ha Ha Tonka State Park, which rests near the center of the Ozark Mountains, is a sprawling testament to how awe-inspiring highland natural phenomena can be. Culturally, the Ozarks’ scattered population shares many traditions with the Appalachian region: rugged individualism, deep and sometimes exotic manifestations of faith, and an influential heritage of music. Ha Ha [...]

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Waxed - Record Review from Issue #73 Jan-Feb 2008

Namoli Brennet – Singer Shine Your Light

A tireless troubadour, Namoli Brennet has criss-crossed the country’s coffeehouse circuit through five albums of original material. No doubt she’s surprised a few of the regulars on that route; she’s not your average, self-absorbed folkie. In fact, she’s as apt to swing out a rockin’, soulful keyboard as a cozy, sweet-sounding guitar, and her lyrics [...]

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From the Blogs

  • Brittany Holljes on the Origins of Delta Rae and Her Healthy Fleetwood Mac Obsession
    Delta Rae might sound like the down-home name of a backwoods country singer but it’s really just Greek to Brittany Holljes. “I think there are a lot of ‘Delta’ bands out there, too, so we kind of get that ... people get confused,” said Holljes, the whip-smart singer of the North Carolina-based sextet (like Deborah Harry used to say about Blondie, Delta Rae i […]
  • Crowd-sourcing to crowd-pleasing: The rise of Kat Edmonson
    If Kat Edmonson ever becomes a household name, she can put it down not just to her talent as a jazz singer, but to some decidedly modern financing as well. The 29-year-old Texan, an old-school chanteuse with a contemporary lilt, has funded production of her second album via a community workshop and through… […]
  • When to get your ass saved and when to drown
    How does the co-writing song process differ from the alone songwriting process you just wrote about? Co-writing is quite different from writing alone. When I'm working on something alone I have complete freedom. Freedom to experiment, to make mistakes, to try things I'm quite sure won't work and the freedom to reconstruct whatever has come bef […]
  • CD Review - Fiddleworms "See The Light"
    The ambitious new album See The Light, from Alabama quintet Fiddleworms is a cavalcade of styles with literally a parade of guest musicians including the University of North Alabama marching Band. The eleven original tracks are interspersed with snippets of radio sound effects and spoken word segments that flow from jazzy blues to stomping country rock fusio […]
  • Interview with Raul Malo from the Mavericks
    May 2013 There are very few singers or bands that have a 100% distinctive Trademark sound; but The Mavericks achieved that very early in their career and in the UK you still can’t go to a Wedding without being corralled onto the dance-floor as soon as you hear the opening bars to Dance The Night Away. After breaking up in 2004 lead singer and songwriter, Rau […]
  • The Great Escape, Brighton, 2013: day one
    So, here we are again, tramping the streets of Brighton, squeezing into someunfeasibly small spaces to see bands we've never heard of... I'd been feeling somewhat underexcited by this year's Great Escape because it the only one of hundreds of names on the bill that I knew I liked was Billy Bragg, who appears at the Dome tonight. But a quick bu […]

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