Review: David Bazan and Passenger String Quartet at The Grey Eagle

While there have been cellos and violins (and probably even the odd viola or two) on The Grey Eagle stage before, it’s possible that they’ve never been played with quite the breathless splendor of Andrew Joslyn’s Passenger String Quartet. That group, led by violinist and arranger Joslyn, with cellist Rebecca Chung Filice, Seth May-Patterson on […]

Sound Check: Daryl Hance

North Florida-based guitarist Daryl Hance (formerly of JJ Grey & Mofro) has a sound oft-compared to the watery lowlands of his home state. “Daryl Hance’s music is appropriately swampy. The sweltering jams are thick with humidity,” said Free Times in Columbia, SC. Hance recently teamed up with Asheville band Turchi for the Kudzu Swamp Spectacular, […]

5 (or more) questions with The Budos Band

On its first three records, Brooklyn’s nine-member Budos Band has teased soul, funk and Afrobeat into its sweltering instrumental music, which slotted perfectly with similar-minded bands on the vaunted Daptone Records. But on its fourth and newest record, Burnt Offering, The Budos Band gets heavy, alchemizing ’70s psychedelic rock and proto-metal into its unique, horn-driven […]

Solo searching: Floating Action returns with a hi(gher)-fi new album

“Quiet bros stick together,” is how local singer-songwriter and producer Seth Kauffman sums up working with musician Ray LaMontagne. Kauffman played guitar on LaMontagne’s recent, Dan Auerbach-produced Supernova and says that LaMontagne asked him to work on his next album as well. In fact, Kauffman has been spending a lot of time working on other […]

Smart bets: Bobby Bare Jr.

Bobby Bare Jr., son of Country Music Hall of Famer Bobby Bare, is touring in support of his latest release, Undefeated. The album is “10 songs of reality checks, clever wordplay and daring arrangement, the aural companion to that buddy who pulls up a barstool next to yours to help soak away your sorrows,” according […]

Smart bets: Gringo Star

The psych-rock outfit Gringo Star has been described as a “’60s beach party on acid,” and with musical influences ranging from The Stooges to The Kinks to Sam Cooke, that sounds about right. Musicians and brothers Nicholas and Peter Furgiuele and cohort Chris Kaufmann put forth the band’s latest, self-produced album, Floating Out to See, which […]

Ship shape

World Party comes to Asheville It’s possible that the most famous World Party song is “She’s the One,” made a hit single by Robbie Williams in the late ’90s. But World Party founder and core member Karl Wallinger is no stranger to hits: “Ship of Fools” came from the band’s 1986 debut; Wallinger has also […]