Music

Basements Best: Alabama Shakes move outward, upward on “Sound & Color”

April 26th, 2015

Though its preceded by the title track, Alabama Shakes’ sophomore album, “Sound & Color,” doesn’t truly begin until about the 40-second mark of “Don’t Wanna Fight.” Steamrolling frontwoman Brittany Howard finds an open spot in the thistle of razorwire guitars and swaggering drums and emits a lemon-tart yowl, sucking all the air out of the room. For just a moment, the world pauses.

She exhales, spitting out the pounding backbeat and humbucked guitars with gale force. If one…

Basements Best: “1st Bath” a baptism in the name of pop music

April 16th, 2015

For a debut album, Avid Dancer’s “1st Bath” plays more like a confident string of hits from a “best of” collection than a document of a young musician searching for his voice. Brimming with nods to pop from every crevice of the previous half-century, Jacob Summers’ project is the sonic equivalent of a kid in a candy shop, and has the sweet-toothed enthusiasm to match.

The attention deficit of “1st Bath” can be chalked up to Summers’ backstory. Raised almost entirely on…

KNDS hosts Twin Peaks

April 16th, 2015

The annual KNDS Block Party is bringing up-and-coming hit rock band Twin Peaks to The New Direction on April 25. Supporting the Chicago garage punk rock band is Minneapolis artist Suzie and local rockers Panda Bandit.

The past block parties have included four or more bands but, according to KNDS general manager Cydney Berlinger, this year they took a different direction and focused on one main band to make it more like a typical concert. The change happened because the alternative…

Basement’s Best: ‘What For?’ a strong left turn for Toro Y Moi

April 10th, 2015

In the music biz, there’s an understandable element of danger in a visionary hard left turn. Time and time again, artists have followed their muses down the charts when their too-high flights of fancy glided on the momentum of their Last Big Thing.

Usually the gamble is a “bigger they are, the harder they fall” ordeal, and countering every electrified Dylan is a soul-patched Chris Gaines. Luckily, as musical attention spans have shortened, artists have begun separating their…

HPR’s Music Festival Guide: 2015

April 8th, 2015

Moondance Jam / Photo courtesy of the staff

By Diane Miller and Kayla Culver

Pump up the outdoor jams, festival season is coming.

We’ve compiled a list of the best music festivals within reasonable driving distance from Fargo. Whatever your tastes are -- dubstep, country, rock, folk, blues, hip-hop, Christian or jazz -- one of these music festivals is bound to suit your groove.

Tickets are about as cheap as they get at this time. So plan ahead and save some money this season.

Please note that most music festivals are welcome to all…

Basement’s Best: Ryley Walker anything but green on ‘Primrose’

April 2nd, 2015

From the dawn of drum machines and samplers to the neat grids of GarageBand and ProTools, the creative process for solo musicians has been greatly augmented by technology.

Stars are born from viral videos, and entire albums are recorded in bedrooms across the world, intangibly contained on hard drives without a single note leaving the creator’s headphones.

While this technology boom has effectively dismantled the once forbiddingly expensive studio complex down to a few keystrokes,…

SXSW scales back

March 25th, 2015

Annual festival still provides many memorable moments

After years of complaints that SXSW was getting too big and a tragic accident that lead to four deaths in 2014, the 2015 annual music, film and interactive festival in Austin, Texas attempted to go back to its roots of artist development and discovery with a more scaled-back feel.

While there was still plenty of opportunities for free booze parties, there wasn’t as much as in recent years. Sure, corporate sponsorship was still…

Basement’s Best Jesso simply swoons on “Goon”

March 25th, 2015

Sometimes even those who know history well are doomed to repeat it.

Considering the recent deluge of albums by the likes of Father John Misty, Natalie Prass and Matthew E. White, it appears that the Nixon-era singer-songwriter heyday is seeing a second life some 40-odd years on.

Sure, it could be a mere coincidence that these records were all released in the span of a month, but upcoming releases by Cali soft-rockers Vetiver and jazz-folk picker Ryley Walker suggest otherwise, and the…

Help fund Amanda Standalone’s new album

March 18th, 2015

Folk singer will release “Trouble” on March 28 at Ecce

Beloved local folk singer Amanda Standalone is on a mission to become a full-time musician. As a community we have an amazing opportunity to help her make that happen.

The songwriter has launched an IndieGoGo campaign to help fund her latest solo album, “Trouble.” So far, she’s raised nearly a third of her $3,000 goal through this online crowdsourcing platform. People can donate any amount before the campaign ends on Friday,…

Around the world to Russia

March 18th, 2015

FM Symphony’s ‘Passion & Beauty’ channels Tchaikovsky, among others

In the wake of BeethovenFest, the Fargo-Moorhead Symphony returns to its Masterworks Series this weekend, bound for Russia in this “Embrace the World” offering.

This season’s worldly theme has seen stops in South America and Asia for tastes of each region’s musical flavors. “Passion & Beauty,” the latest concert, takes audiences to Russia with the likes of composers Peter Tchaikovsky and Alexander…