Month: February 2016

Anderson East – Learning

     Anderson East combines his gravelly voice to rhythm and blues on Learning and what you get is a moving (as in “keeps your feet moving”) horn-filled phenom.  Learning is from Anderson’s fourth-coming sophomore long-player, Southern Family, preceded by the wonderful Delilah. It’s been a while since Vodka has been excited about an artist on a major label.  Often, it seems that artists get picked up by major labels only to disappear or become less accessible.  It’s always a disappointment for me to follow an artist who struggles along making great music, have…

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Joseph – Cloudline

     Joseph is the type of band that Vodka simply loves: Three sisters that sing close harmonies. Cloudline is the lead-off track to the sibling’s debut long-player, Native Dreamer Kin (March 2014). Joseph creates light pop songs with strong melodies and powerful vocals that blend perfectly together. Often haunting (Wind, Come In Close), sometimes choir-like (Tell Me There’s A Garden), and always beautiful, the music that Joseph creates is compelling. You can find out more information about Joseph by heading on up to the band’s website.  You can pick up Native Dreamer Kin…

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Grammys Disappointing  same-old same-old

    Let me say this at the outset: The Grammys are impertinent. If you want to know what’s out there for music, stop listening to the radio and start cruising the Internet’s dark corners for the gems that never get the time of day on the Grammys, or for that matter, the radio. Music with the same pasteurized, homogenized sound, that is barely discernible from one artist to the next, that is what you will find on the radio and at the Grammys.   Now granted, I’ve known this for some time. It isn’t some new revelation. I watched the Grammys last…

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Lily & Madeleine – Hourglass

     Over two years ago, Lily & Madeleine made a flurry on Vodka with three posts from their 2013 EP, The Weight Of The Globe. We were excited about these two sisters back then and that excitement has not waned. Enter Hour Glass from the duo’s forth-coming long-player Keep It Together, due out February 26, 2016. This time out, the girls step up the production values a bit and yes, play with rhythms that are a little outside their original formula. What stays the same is those wonderful two-part harmonies…

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Smooth Hound Smith – Sweet Tennessee Honey

     It was over two years ago when Vodka posted California Sway from Smooth Hound Smith’s self-titled 2013 long-player.  Fast forward a few years and we still find Zack Smith and Caitlin Doyle rocking out.  Zack never ceases to amaze with his one-man-band act (guitar, drums, and harmonica), all the while breaking away to sing as well.  Ms. Doyle provides the “Smooth” in Smooth Hound Smith, with her velvety pipes able to polish the edges on this wonderful little rockabilly-country number, Sweet Tennessee Honey, the title track of…

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