If the vitriol and raw energy of punk rock is like a fever dream, then the Tokyo trio Hontatedori — which premiered its U.S. debut, Konata Kanata, two days ago…
Justin Vellucci
143 Articles
Justin Vellucci is a former staffer at Punk Planet and Delusions of Adequacy. His music writing has appeared in national magazines like American Songwriter and PopMatters, alt-weeklies such as Brooklyn Rail, Pittsburgh CityPaper, and San Diego CityBeat, blogs Swordfish and Linoleum, and the Gannett publication Jetty. He lives in Pittsburgh.
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Justin Vellucci
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Sub Pop Records recently reissued Jeremy Enigk’s Return of the Frog Queen, a circa-96 solo debut whose first printing remains, justifiably, a much-sought-after cult classic. It also has become, over…
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Justin Vellucci
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High Plains today quietly released a follow-up to Cinderland, its brilliant debut and, hands down, one of last year’s best records. But, before you go all googly-eyed on me, take…
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Justin Vellucci
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If you like your modern-day interpretations of 60s trash-rock booze-drenched, then you’ll want to tune into Joan and The Rivers, a San Jose-based, EP-prone trio that released two, you guessed…
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Justin Vellucci
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Fans of early Amos Lee — in other words: well-crafted acoustic soul — mustmustMUST tune into Spencer Kilpatrick, a Reno, Nev.-based songwriter who previewed the single ”Lungs” on Soundcloud just…
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Justin Vellucci
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The new record from the Norwegian composer Kaada is a beautiful thing, immense in scope yet startlingly intimate. But, while it plays on a theme — Death; the record, after…
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Justin Vellucci
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Frog Eyes’ frontman Carey Mercer has said Violet Psalms — the band’s goodbye record, out late last week on Paper Bag — was written and recorded like a debut, ”when…
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Justin Vellucci
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From the early notes of ”Failed Celestial Creatures” — the meditative, 20-minute-long title track to the unanticipated debut collaboration between guitar-composer David Grubbs and Japanese musician Taku Unami, out Friday…
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Justin Vellucci
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There are two epic songs battling for your attention on Loam and Sky, the new EP from The Elephant Parallax out Friday, and either could launch a fit description of…
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Justin Vellucci
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Now, this is the way EXPERIMENTAL music is supposed to sound — epic, thought-provoking and loud! The Austerity Program guitarist J. Foley departs sonically from his pseudo-full-time noise-rock/art-metal gig with…
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Justin Vellucci
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As pig-fuck goes, this is some of the best. For those just tuning in, pig-fuck is the unfortunately titled genre of explosive post-punk that, at first, was cut in Chicago…
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Justin Vellucci
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I know it’s utterly blasphemous to suggest in underground circles, but my first point of entry when listening to Dylan Carlson’s new ”Conquistador,” the title track to a series of…
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Justin Vellucci
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Grouper’s new LP — Grid of Points, out tomorrow via Kranky — is no Ruins, but its sparse pairing of multifaceted, ghostly voices with borderline-skeletal piano is nonetheless pretty engaging….
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Justin Vellucci
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Just wow. The new self-titled LP from Reno’s Rob Ford Explorer, out earlier this month, is a potent gem, a heady amalgamation of jazz fluidity and math-rock specificity, and a…
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Justin Vellucci
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As Saleeha, the Australian-born, Vancouver-based Max Buchanan makes meditative, slowly unfurling soundscapes that, surprisingly enough, do not echo or mime fellow Vancouver-based ambient artist Loscil. I say surprisingly because, as…
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Justin Vellucci
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Ugh. The new Melvins record, I am sad to report, dear reader, is a bit of a trainwreck. It’s not that Pinkus Abortion Technician, out Friday on Ipecac, lacks ideas….
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Justin Vellucci
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The cello weeps and sows and soars, and so it goes with Randall Holt and his Inside The Kingdom of Splendor and Madness, which gets the CD/cassette re-release treatment April…
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Justin Vellucci
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Well, turns out climate change — for those rational people who agree with the science behind it — might not be all bad, after all. Big Weather, the latest effort…
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Justin Vellucci
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The Lampshades, a trio of Pittsburgh-by-way-of-Altoona ne’er-do-wells, is nothing if not ambitious. It hasn’t always entirely been this way. Sunshine, its 2005 debut, was more of a catalog of by-the-numbers…
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Justin Vellucci
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This Friday belongs to Your Food. The Louisville post-punk quartet — whose only LP, 1983’s Poke It With A Stick, is getting the reissue treatment at the end of this…
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Justin Vellucci
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It’s an engaging conceit — the folk balladeer’s whispy, sometimes almost stagy voice hovering over deconstructed, ambient soundscapes — and Eric Chenaux nearly pulls it off on Slowly Paradise, a…
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Justin Vellucci
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It starts with a detuned guitar and ends with the lonely shaking of maracas, an epic and loose-limbed nugget titled ”Civilization and its Discontents.” This is Mid Atlantic junk-rock of…
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Justin Vellucci
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The acoustic guitar scales dance with trickles of piano and the occasional tip-tip-tapping of drums, singer-songwriter Katerina Papachristou’s breathy vocals leading the way. It is a magical stew, one concocted…
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Justin Vellucci
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All it takes is 12 minutes to wow us. With a sense of movement falling somewhere between the piano phrasings of Cage (thinking The Seasons, from 47) and Glass’ more…
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Justin Vellucci
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How this one flew under the radar is just beyond me. Released Jan. 26 by MIE Music, Ilyas Ahmed’s Closer To Stranger is a hazy-edged dream riffing on the notion…
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Justin Vellucci
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Every 10 years, Mark Deutrom goes through some fresh hell. Take 1998, a couple of hells ago. Deutrom was recording his first solo record — the excellent The Silent Treatment,…
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Justin Vellucci
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There’s much to celebrate about Pissing Stars, the second solo LP — out today on Constellation Records — from Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Thee Silver Mt. Zion co-founder Efrim…
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Justin Vellucci
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I still remember the CD. My Mudhoney collection was fairly impressive in ’93, having dug deep into the band’s Sub Pop soil, but the disc I found at Vintage Vinyl,…
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Justin Vellucci
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No matter how much he loathes it, Texan and musical-firebrand Mark Deutrom forever might be inextricably linked with Melvins, the legendary Gods-of-Thunder quartet whose debut he released on Alchemy 30-odd…
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