Tag Archives: acoustic

Review: Becca Stevens Band – Perfect Animal

by Dæv Tremblay

Becca Stevens‘ crowdfunding campaing was probably the most infuriating one I’ve ever participated in. Their new album, Perfect Animal was set on being released in fall of 2014, and was crowd-funded to cover the expenses of recording, mixing and mastering (which was already made at that point), and to fund the promotion, album art, and printing vinyl and CD. I am really fine with this kind of crowdfunding: the album’s [almost] ready for delivery, and even if the goal was not met, it would still get released, not like other shitty campaigns.

And then we were left in … Read more

Review: Fountainhead – Home EP

by Dæv Tremblay
I’m glad the first album I get to review in 2015 is from Tom, Fountainhead. Tom, the fretless guitarist, at least that’s what we know him for, mostly on his Fear Is The Enemy album, which was highly praised by us and the rest of the metal community, even if it was barely metal at all.

Now, on Home, it’s more relaxed than ever. Remember the epic, inspiring strings? That’s mostly gone, now, but no need to worry, this folk-alternative-experimental sound, vaguely reminiscent of Sufjan Stevens, is really something to enjoy. The songs are perfectly crafted and executed. … Read more

Review: Ethan McKenna – Embracing Uncertainty

by Dæv Tremblay


Don’t let yourself be fooled by its simple appearance and instrumentation, because Embracing Uncertainty is certainly the best acoustic music album I’ve heard in a long while!

Dressing the simple acoustic guitar with fancy playing techniques, like percussive playing, tapping, and probably slapping and popping too, Ethan McKenna is able to keep my mind interested through the listen. Moreover, the song structures are hardly conventional (with maybe a few exceptions), and often make use of uncommon time signatures. A good example of that is the second half of the first song, Dark Night of the … Read more

Brendan Byrnes’ Micropangaea

by Dæv Tremblay

Micropangaea is a unique thing. So unique I can’t even find any appropriate comparison or metaphor…

The use of microtonality in music has long been kept to advanced and underground acts, be it of metal, ambient or ethnic music. Jute Gyte has recently released an astonishing microtonal album, Discontinuities, which was written in 24-EDO. Basically, that means that a 24-EDO guitar will have twice as many frets as a normal one, bringing the possibility to play quarter-tones without having to always bend a string. The black metal-vibe of the album is given by the great use of dissonant intervals … Read more

Space Jam

by Dæv Tremblay

If you haven’t seen it already, Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield recently uploaded a music video of him playing David Bowie’s Space Oddity while in orbit around the Earth.

That means he’s around 410 kilometers above Earth, and whizzing at 27 743.8 km/h! This speed, at this height, allows them to counteract the force of Earth’s gravity and feel weightless, but in fact they’re just falling forever (as explained in this video ).

So that’s pretty impressing, huh? Behold!

-D… Read more