Arts & Culture

TEST SPIN | Fleet Foxes — Crack-Up

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A lot has happened during Fleet Foxes’ six year hiatus — just ask former drummer Josh Tillman, who split from the band shortly after the band’s second LP, Helplessness Blues, with time to release three records of his signature brand of misanthropic folk rock before the remaining Fleet Foxes produced one. Not to say the other members of the band were lazy on their time off — lead singer Robin Pecknold was pursuing academia at Columbia University and guitarist Skyler Skjelset spent time touring with dream pop duo Beach House. Well finally, the Fleet Foxes long anticipated third album, Crack-Up, has come, and while this new LP certainly reflects a band that has changed since their last record, everything that defined the Fleet Foxes on their previous two albums — nonlinear song structure, reverb-soaked vocal harmonies, layered instrumentation — is all very much there. This album still certainly evokes the rustic respite of a backcountry sojourn, but it is also processed enough to remind you of the smartphone you rely on to take pictures when the landscape most precisely captivates you. Crack-Up serves as loosely defined concept album that explores the theme that “no man is an island” to varying degrees.

Arts & Culture

TEST SPIN: Iron & Wine — Beast Epic

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Music critics (often) fall into two traps. The first is comparison. Lacking a way to describe lyrics, songwriting, production and so on, critics get tempted to compare. We write about how a musician conforms to or subverts their genre. We provide a catalog of suggested listening, a list of similar musicians.

Arts & Culture

Aztec Two-Step Returns to Ithaca

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By CATHERINE HWANG

The Dock is a clean and cozy venue. The stage is lit by blue and purple lights and one side of the room is filled with intimate circular tables that go right up to the stage. At the other side of the room is the bar, but most people are usually far more interested in the other side of the room. When Aztec Two-Step came onto the stage, nearly all of the seats throughout the room were filled and cheers erupted. The group smiled and waved, their edges colored by the stage lights.

Arts & Culture

TEST SPIN: Kurt Vile — b’lieve i’m goin down

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By MAX VAN ZILE

Kurt Vile is an acoustic guitar-wielding loner on his new album b’lieve i’m goin down; a subdued, confessional and ultimately enjoyable listen. His music cultivates a relaxed and reflective vibe: the stuff of long car trips and late-night conversations; the slow pulse of Vile’s sound evoking the view through a rearview mirror. It sounds like it was recorded in his bedroom

The lyrics read like journal entries. This should be regarded as a strength. b’lieve i’m goin down is about solitude, alienation and introspection: Vile sets the tone on the tightly written opener, “Pretty Pimpin,”  when he sings, “I woke up this morning / Didn’t recognize the man in the mirror.” On “I’m An Outlaw,” he aligns himself thematically with country legends like Johnny Cash and Hank Williams, singing “I’m an outlaw on the brink of self-implosion” over a banjo groove.