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SAM PFEIFLE

Latest Articles

Trails (and Kool G Rap, which is crazy)

Dropping things from way up high
Twenty-eight seconds. That's the length of Kool G Rap's contribution to Trails' new Anvils & Pianos , the hip-hop duo's third release (and it might as well be their fourth release, too — at 19 songs, it's a monster).

By: SAM PFEIFLE | June 13, 2013

Kings and queens of summer

Free, to do what you want, any old time
What’s more “summer” than hip hop and pop radio?

By: SAM PFEIFLE | June 07, 2013

Like Tristram and Isobell

Sea Spells and love songs
Isobell are now a tight five-piece, with Bekah Hayes's piano and keyboard work providing alternately crisp melody lines and echoing organ atmosphere, and Chris McKneally's electric guitar tone moving between airy psychedelia and precise prog.

By: SAM PFEIFLE | May 30, 2013

Robert Stillman returns with the Archaic Future Players

Station Wagon ride with John Fahey
For a guy who plays the saxophone the way people talk about, Robert Stillman is an awful good drummer. And keyboard player. He does a fair bit of impressive composition, too.

By: SAM PFEIFLE | May 23, 2013

Joe Farren’s countrified second release

South by southeast
It's been more than five years since Joe Farren's last record, a debut number on which he showed off his multi-instrumental chops and riffed on Americana themes.

By: SAM PFEIFLE | May 23, 2013

Filling up with Putnam Smith

Kitchen, Love, and Emily Dickinson
Putnam Smith wishes he could trade places with Emily Dickinson.

By: SAM PFEIFLE | May 16, 2013

Tricky Britches are in Good Company

Don’t call it a throwback
Tricky Britches lean pretty heavily toward the old-timey end of the spectrum, with a deep and abiding respect for the body of American stringband work, manifesting itself in original songs that are instantly familiar.

By: SAM PFEIFLE | May 10, 2013

Four new works from Whitcomb

The free Conqueror
Part of Whitcomb's appeal is that the material and the performance are of a piece, everything placed just so and meticulously machined.

By: SAM PFEIFLE | May 10, 2013

A vibrant and forward Worried Well

Baroque me, Amadeus
There's something baroque, something emotional and primal, vivid and stark about Luck, the band's first proper full-length release.

By: SAM PFEIFLE | May 03, 2013

Dancing? You'll need a license

Papers, Please
Papers, Please

By: SAM PFEIFLE | April 24, 2013

The Malletts know the lay of the Land

Rub some mud on it
On their new and third full-length release, Land , the Mallett Brothers Band alternate between boozy and anthemic ballads and boozy and anthemic sing-along stomps, always providing plenty of opportunity for just about anybody to find a personal touchpoint.

By: SAM PFEIFLE | April 24, 2013

Bangers and mish-mash

First thing with the English Breakfast
The order of operations used to be you played a bunch of shows, then you released an album. Now it's often the other way around. When the English Breakfast played Slainte last weekend, it was their Portland live debut. Yet their debut album, Shifting Seas , has been marinating on Bandcamp since March 1 — a 15-track affair, no less.

By: SAM PFEIFLE | April 19, 2013

Arborea erect fortifications of light and darkness

And the horse they rode in on
"After the Flood only Love Remains" is stop-in-your-tracks beautiful, and what passes for a single for them. If you can slow yourself down to their pace, see the world in half-time for a bit (which is almost impossible when you try to keep up with the pace of things like the Internet), it becomes incredibly catchy, a sing-along.

By: SAM PFEIFLE | April 10, 2013