Cape Breton Island is in the northeast of Nova Scotia. Waves of Scottish immigrants in the 18th and 19th centuries created a distinct regional form of Gaelic music on the island that still thrives today, in part due to the Rankins. The Rankins come from Cape Breton’s small coastal community of Mabou. Five Rankin siblings…
“Jubilee Street” – Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
No one has aged more in the 2010s than Nick Cave. At the start of the decade, Cave had rediscovered high-energy post-punk with his Grinderman side project; his goth rock classic “Red Right Hand” was resonating with a new audience as the theme song for Peaky Blinders; and he’d written the screenplay for the Tom…
“Oh, Death” – Game Theory
Supercalifragile by Game Theory I wasn’t familiar with Scott Miller’s music during his lifetime. The first time I visited his website, this note from webmaster Sue Trowbridge appeared at the top of the homepage: “I wish it weren’t true, but as much as it pains me to write these words, Scott passed away on April…
“Seventeen” – Sharon Van Etten
Sharon Van Etten used to be one of those artists I could count on to have two or three great songs per album. Full LP doses were always a little too much for my taste – folky, lovely, but samey. I’d still get excited about the prospect of new SVE music, because those two or…
“SDSS1416+13B (Zercon, A Flagpole Sitter)” – Scott Walker
Merry Christmas! Gather the family around and listen to the late, great Scott Walker regale us with a tale as old as time. Yes, it’s the story of Zercon, the Moorish dwarf who served as jester to Attila the Hun, and who became so desperate to transcend his brutal, soul-crushing circumstances that he literally elevated…