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#209: Xylouris White, “The Sisypheans”

We’re back from Le Guess Who?, one of the few festivals in Europe where we could choose between four or five quality club nights in various venues or a packed Xylouris White gig post-midnight on a Saturday. We were lucky to get in and witness one of the best concerts of the festival, which doubled as a release show, since the duo composed of Greek singer/laouto player George Xylouris and Dirty Three’s Jim White has just released their fourth album in six years, The Sisypheans. Plus: new tracks by Oiseaux-Tempête, 10 000 Russos, Katie Gately, FKA twigs, SebastiAn, Moor Mother, Vanishing Twin, Gus Seyffert, Wolf Parade, Jeffrey Lewis, Jonathan Wilson, Itasca, Mount Eerie & Julie Doiron, The Delines, Twain, Sea Lion, and The Good Ones.

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Bolachas Now Playing

#208: Vetiver, “Up On High”

After two more layered, denser, and less critically popular records where we saw Andy Cabic holler at soft rock and psychedelia, “Up on High” is the sound of Vetiver returning to their acoustic beginnings. Welcome to your new favourite Saturday morning breakfast prep folk rock record. Plus: new tracks by Terry Allen, Simon Joyner, Tindersticks, Lambchop, Itasca, Mount Eerie & Julie Doiron, Michael Kiwanuka, Dylan LeBlanc, Theo Lawrence, Charles Rumback & Ryley Walker, Squirrel Flower, The Deer, Cate Le Bon & Bradford Cox, The Growlers, Pinegrove, Iguana Death Cult, Imperial Wax, Pop. 1280, DJ Nigga Fox, Peel Dream Magazine, and Warmduscher.

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Bolachas Now Playing

#207: Yīn Yīn, “The Rabbit that Hunts Tigers”

YĪN YĪN’s debut album is another gem coming from the same vibrant Dutch scene that brought us the great Altin Gün. But instead of looking at Turkish folk and psychedelia for influence, the lads from Maastricht infuse South East Asian textures in their Moroder-inspired disco – with a nod to the Ghanaian institution that is Kiki Gyan’s “24 Hours in a Disco” in their single “Dis kô dis kô”. Plus: new tracks by 10 000 Russos, Heavy Lungs, Ancient Shapes, Battles, PAUS, Maria Reis, Chairlift’s Caroline Polachek, Hop Along’s Frances Quinlan, Sarah Pagé, Destroyer, Mikal Cronin, Why?, Common Holly, Simone White, Andy Shauf, Frazey Ford, Courtney Barnett, Youbet, Lankum, Leonard Cohen, and Justin Peter Kinkel-Schuster.

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live

TakeRoot Festival 2019: our picks

The Grote Zaal of De Oosterpoort during the 2018′s TakeRoot festival.

TakeRoot Festival. Saturday, 2 November 2019, at De Oosterpoort, Groningen, The Netherlands. Tickets for sale here.

Coming of age in the era of MySpace meant stumbling into a lot of “A little bit of everything, except country and rap” on your fellow scenester’s profiles. Fast forward some 15 years, and there’s a rapper headlining your favorite indie festival, much to the disgust of a few folks who haven’t grown from their proud everything-except-country-and-rap pedestal. But most young alternative Europeans still look at country music with the same disgusted look that your aunt made the first time she stumbled upon a 50 Cent music video.

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Bolachas Now Playing

#206: Matana Roberts, “Coin Coin Chapter Four: Memphis”

The fourth volume of Matana Roberts’ “Coin Coin” series on Constellation Records, “Memphis”, is our album of the week. It finds the American composer and saxophonist developing her ethnographic work through spoken word traditionals and blues, punctuated by free jazz bursts that make it an essential listen. Plus: new tracks by Dead Combo, Jaimie Breezy Branch, Yazz Ahmed, Vive la Void, Warmduscher, Comet Gain, Wolf Parade, Peggy Sue, Allah-Las, Jennah Barry, Julien Baker, The National’s Matt Berninger & Phoebe Bridgers, Gus Seyffert, Cass McCombs, John Moreland, Christopher Paul Stelling, Richard Dawson, Lankum, Daniel Martin Moore, and Andre Ethier.