“Wayfinder” is the new album by singer-songwriter Taylor Vick, her fourth as Boy Scouts. You should listen to this if you like Andy Shauf. You should still listen to this if you don’t know who Andy Shauf is (really? There’s a song from his new record in this playlist, too).
What a surprise. There’s a new Daniel Romano album and it’s featured here. “Cobra Poems” is another stellar collection of some of the best songwriting in today’s rock music, and it doesn’t seem like Romano’s Outfit will stop steamrolling any soon.
Sometimes it’s hard to be objective and unbiased when writing about a festival that is such a big part of your life. Except for two (very) unremarkable lineups that made me stay home, since I was old enough to go to college all my summers involved a trip to Paredes de Coura (and a painful trip back, too). When you’re a kid, they say you’ll eventually get older and boring, in a process they call “becoming an adult”. This usually comes with amazing perks such as ceasing to listen to any new music whatsoever, stopping seeing your (also ageing) friends, having great conversations about changing diapers with your remaining friends (yes, the other couple with kids you always go vacationing with to some shitty beach full of other couples with kids and the odd mother-in-law). Obviously, a multi-day, non-kid friendly, rural music festival such as Festival Paredes de Coura seems like one of those things that are amongst the first to drop from your newfound “adult life”. Except you don’t have to be that person; and is there anything better to remind you of that than going there and finding all your friends in the same place, same month, year after year, all over again? (Well, other than imagining the smell of those diapers.)
Vodafone Paredes de Coura 2018. Photo by Hugo Lima.
Another summer, another missed opportunity to have a vacation somewhere because there’s nowhere else we’d rather be other than at our little paradise of Paredes de Coura, in northwestern Portugal. The festival runs from the 14th to the 17th of August, but, like always, the fun begins way earlier than that, with four fun-packed, free entrance days with concerts and DJ sets right in the center of the small Minho village.
Three years later, Sensible Soccers finally drop their third LP and we still have no idea why they’re not taking this record worldwide with a big ass tour. This might be their best album to date. Plus: new songs by Matmos, The Comet is Coming, The Budos Band, The Mystery Lights, Black Pumas, Sasami, illuminati hotties, Lola Kirke, Jenny Lewis,Kim Lenz, Michael Nau, Helado Negro, The Fire Harvest, Tyler Ramsey, The Wild Reeds, Bill MacKay, James Yorkston, Carl Anderson, Baptiste W. Hamon, Daniel Norgren, and Howe Gelb.