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Posts tagged
'This Week In Music'

Goodbye to all that (Arkansas edition)

What I'm trying to say is that I'm quitting the Arkansas Times — this is my last week — and not because I hated it, but because I loved it so much.
IT Arkansas job board

New music from Kari Faux, Ginsu Wives, Solo Jaxon, Country Florist and more

Any new Kari Faux is a cause for celebration, and the Little Rock expat recently announced she had a new album finished and forthcoming, "Lost En Los Angeles. " Here's the great first single, produced by longtime collaborator bLAck pARty. I interviewed the two of them a couple of years ago, when they left  town — seems like a long time ago now.
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New music from Fresco Grey, Doctor Nod, Daniel Moody, Beedy and more

Fresco Grey is so good he makes me proud to live in Little Rock. How often can you say that? "I'm just sitting back doing algebra," he says at one point, because why not? My only problem with this song is that it should be about twelve times longer.

New music from Chris Maxwell, Liquid Skulls, Pepperboy, Bombay Harambee and more

Former Gunbunnies front-man and Little Rock expat Chris Maxwell has a new album coming out March 4, "Arkansas Summer," and Paste premiered the great title track this week. Pre-order the record at Pledge Music.
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New music from Oh Cathy, Peace Boner, Lo Thraxx, SW/MM/NG and more

TK 1. 

New music from Goon des Garcons, John McAteer and Gentlemen Firesnakes, Solo Jaxon, Young Spielberg and more

From my perspective, Goon des Garcons did more than anyone else in 2015 to make Little Rock look like a fun place to make art, and that accomplishment alone demands respect. He also happens to be an almost compulsively ambitious rapper, continually raising the bar for the production value and reach of his and his friends' work. Arkansas tends to prefer a kind of modest, slacker self-effacement from its artists, and so Goon's loud pride might seem initially misplaced or uncouth; but the guy is explicitly attempting to start a movement, to get some momentum going. And look at what he did.
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New music from bLAck pARty, The Body, Love Ghost, The Wandering Lake and more

Fayetteville's The Wandering Lake — the recording project of Brian Kupillas — released a new set of songs on Bandcamp this week and they are predictably great. The EP, "From James' Garden" comes after, Kupillas says, "what felt like a long drought of spirit." Find him on Tumblr, where he posts new music plus photos of elephants and body-builders.

New music from The Uh Huhs, John Willis, JONA$, Cellophane Garden and more

Kind of like the Buddy Holly song, but more ambivalent and tense and anyway louder. “Holly looked for space in the noise,” Greil Marcus wrote of Holly once. “He built his music around silences, pauses, a catch in the throat, a wink.” Little Rock's The Uh Huhs are up to something similar — space in the noise, a wink. You can find this song on their debut 7", which will presumably be available soon (will updated when I know).
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New music from The Hacking, Saeuce Millz, Bad Match, Billy Von and more

I'm pretty sympathetic toward any attempt at making a Little Rock anthem, and this one isn't bad as far as it goes. "Bangin' in the Rock ain't dead," Ekko Muzic says, which is both an obvious gesture and a deeply subversive one — to point out that the past isn't the past, the city's old issues and tensions and divisions remain urgent and troubling, which seems inarguable and worth mentioning occasionally. Local anthems are necessary and positive by definition — it's good to talk about your surroundings, even if "try not to get shot" is the message you come up with.

New music from Express Rising, Sister Fox, Keshawn, Yung Envy and more

Express Rising was originally the recording moniker of Chicago's Dante Carfagna, a record collector and producer associated with the great archival label Numero Group. With his new release, "Fixed Rope," Carfanga has added William Suran and Fayetteville's Kevin Blagg, who also records under the name Cellophane Garden; the trio recorded the album somewhere in "rural Arkansas" with synths, pedal steel, banjo and a wash of reverb, loose atmosphere and mysticism. It's an ambient record with a real sense of place, and it's one of my favorite Arkansas releases in months.
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New music from Gold, St. Jermaine, Liquid Skulls, Solo Jaxon and more

I talked to Liquid Skulls for the paper a couple of weeks ago, and he explained that the recording project "was formed out of cobwebs, boredom, sloppiness, euphoria, joblessness, fleeting moments, liquid curses and lost responsibilities." All of this comes through in his new track "Rituals," which sounds like a computer projection of a pop song wrapped in bubble-wrap and stomped on.

New music from Goon des Garcons, Ten High, Pockets, Wolfy Mane and more

The latest from Little Rock's Goon des Garcons — lately of Foredise Records and always of Young Gods of America — is a moody, energetic industrial anthem about pride and roots. Also check out his most recent tape "YOUNGDIRTYBASTARD."
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