For the last year and a half, the Trackpacking series has focused on musicians that inspire me to travel. Today, I’m highlighting an artist who reminds me of home, whose sounds somehow conjure the ice-limned window panes and silent white pine forests of Wisconsin winters.
Bon Iver, a purposeful misspelling of “good winter” in French, is the project of Justin Vernon, a man the same age as me who went to high school in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, just 90 minutes north of where I went to high school. Living in western Wisconsin during my adolescence was a difficult time, all country music and shining and chewing tobacco at the gas station. It wasn’t my scene – I didn’t do those things – and listening to Bon Iver, I suspect Justin didn’t either. Read more...
by Keith Savage on April 20, 2011 · 1 comment
Thievery Corporation has introduced me to entire genres of music I would have never found a way to enjoy on my own. From Bhangra to Afrobeat and Cumbia to Arabic hip hop, the guys of Thievery have a masterful way of curating talent and finding musicians to slot into their songs and remixes. They’re not shy about looking in their own backyard, either. Enter Nickodemus, a Brooklyn-area DJ/producer with world-spanning musical tastes that make him right at home on Thievery’s ESL Music label.
Let me put it simply: this is feel-good house music. Read more...
This month’s Trackpacking post marks the one year anniversary of this series (have a look at previous Trackpacking posts)! It seems only fitting that I tackle a Scottish band just days before I head off to Scotland. Far from any similarity to the fuzzy little critters in Gremlins, Mogwai are a five-piece clan of axe-shredders bent on dazzling you with melodious interludes prior to annihilating your ears with riffs so heavy they emit their own g-forces.
Here’s a business idea: Mogwai should ship their albums with a set of ear plugs; at their live shows, they’re a prerequisite as important as your ID, I kid you not. Read more...
I was horribly late to the Sigur Rós bandwagon. When their breakthrough album, Ágætis Byrjun, dropped in 1999 I was too busy listening to Radiohead’s OK Computer over and over and over again on my Diamond Rio MP3 player (at 60MB, it had just enough memory for the album).
Forgive me?
It wasn’t until last year that I really started listening to Sigur Rós in earnest, and I’m happy to say the years of guilt at having ignored them were justified by the first bass line of Olsen Olsen (have a listen to it in Pack These Tracks).
Incredible. Read more...
Eluvium is a geological term that refers to sediments and soils derived from weathering. The stripped-down music of Eluvium sounds like the creation of a man who has endured his own fair share of weathering.
Merry Christmas. Seriously, stumbling on Eluvium several months ago now feels like an early Christmas present. Allow me to happily pay it forward. Read more...
A hunter, oft-stubbled and bleary-eyed, driven by an insatiable hunger for exploration and experience - and perhaps a chance to thin the herd of caffeinated and alcoholic beverages. From the highlands and islands to Edinburgh, Glasgow, and the Borders, I explore Scotland with a pen in hand and a fire in the belly (which could be partly from the whisky). 
