Tag: Indie Folk
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Father John Misty ‘Fear Fun’ (2012)
Father John Misty’s Fear Fun introduced the world to a bold new incarnation of Josh Tillman in the early 2010’s that would eventually watch him become one of the more commercially successful indie folk artists in an era when it seemed like everyone was doing the vintage indie folk thing. Tillman cut his teeth in…
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Andrew Bird ‘The Mysterious Production of Eggs’ (2005)
Andrew Bird’s The Mysterious Production of Eggs is a lush, introspective journey that showcases Bird’s rare ability to turn eccentricity into elegance. Known for his cerebral songwriting and intricate arrangements, Bird weaves together violin loops, delicate plucks, and soaring whistles into something that feels like it almost comes from another world. It’s like waking up…
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The Lumineers ‘The Lumineers’ (2012)
The Lumineers have had some pretty massive global success over the years (especially with “Ho Hey” off this debut album) and for all intents and purposes they’re massive superstars. The whole Boom-Clap suspendercore genre has been a go-to formula for artists in the last decade, combining the sentiments of mustachio’d Brooklyn hipsters riding unicycles around…
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Neutral Milk Hotel ‘In the Aeroplane Over the Sea’ (1998)
Released in 1998 to little mainstream attention, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea grew quietly until it became a sort of sacred text in the history of indie folk music. Lo-fi, cracked open, and bizarre in many ways, it made room for a type of vulnerable artistic expression that would define indie rock for the…
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Frightened Rabbit ‘The Midnight Organ Fight’ (2008)
Frightened Rabbit sounds like the soundtrack to nearly every Indie film from the mid-aughts. Sentimental and cinematic, hazy with reverb and quiet in its approach. There’s a subtle longing in every word and note on The Midnight Organ Fight that feels like you’re opening a diary and reading the words verbatim on the page. It’s…
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Dawes ‘Stories Don’t End’ (2013)
Taylor Goldsmith possesses a rare gift for distilling the quiet beauty of everyday life into poignant songs that feel deeply personal and universally relatable. It’s everywhere in Dawes music– the idiosyncratic descriptions of the mundane going-ons of everyday events, the subtle character observations of quirky personalities, the romanticization of life itself. There’s no better storyteller…
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Alex G ‘Trick’ (2012)
Alex G is the stage alias of Alex Giannascoli, a songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who built his reputation with intimate lo-fi pop that combines strong melodic sensibilities with a ragged performance style. Trick was self-recorded with an unpolished charm that’s prominent from the opening song, and the album’s bedroom pop aesthetic stands out in an increasingly…
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Phoebe Bridgers ‘Stranger in the Alps’ (2017)
Phoebe Bridgers’ debut album Stranger in the Alps is steeped in melancholy, with lyrics that expose some pretty raw emotional depths. But despite the dark themes she explores with reckless abandon, there’s a subtle, self-aware humor woven into every song on this album, as if Bridgers wants to reassure listeners that she’s somehow okay. Case…
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Local Natives ‘Gorilla Manor’ (2010)
Gorilla Manor was an absolute gem of an album when it was released in 2010 and almost immediately became a fixture during my final years of college. Everything about this album brings me back to those sunny days in Isla Vista, feeling the wind on your face as you biked past front yards littered with…
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Big Thief ‘U.F.O.F.’ (2019)
There’s a real beauty in seizing a moment in space that captures a specific period of time. It’s a concept that Big Thief managed to capture during the recording of their third full-length album U.F.O.F. Featuring majestic soundscapes, ethereal vocal melodies, and subtle mood changes that matriculate throughout the entirety of the experience, Big Thief’s…
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The Civil Wars ‘Barton Hollow’ (2011)
The Civil Wars debut album Barton Hollow is filled with tales of love, loss, and longing that find a way to burrow deep into your soul immediately when the first note hits. Comprised of singer-songwriters Lucinda Williams and John Paul White, the pair inexplicably find a way to tug at the tender notes of romantic…
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Rainbow Kitten Surprise ‘RKS’ (2015)
Rainbow Kitten Surprise was quite the surprise (yes, pun intended) for me when I flipped on their album RKS yesterday. It was suggested to me by someone in January when I was collecting album recommendations for my one album per day listening project and ended up on a spreadsheet unattributed. Put another way, I have…
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Maggie Rogers ‘Heard It In A Past Life’ (2019)
Just about everybody and their mother has seen the video of Maggie Rogers sitting down with Pharrell Williams and listening to her song “Alaska”. Rogers was a college music student at the time, Pharrell was invited to the class to critique and offer feedback, and after listening to the track he simply says “Wow” and…
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Fleet Foxes ‘Shore’ (2020)
Known for their majestic four-piece harmonies and folk wistfulness, Fleet Foxes is an indie rock darling in my group of friends. They are a band that has orbited around the sun of commercial success while never quite finding their way onto the surface, but that hasn’t kept them from weaving their way into my life…
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The Shins ‘Oh, Inverted World’ (2001)
During the indie pop folk craze that dominated the early 2000’s, The Shins were gigantic. It’s pretty much impossible for anyone in my generation to not at least be vaguely familiar with the two singles “Caring Is Creepy” and “New Slang” based off their prominence in the Garden State film featuring Zach Braff, Natalie Portman,…
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Bon Iver ‘For Emma, Forever Ago’ (2008)
The story behind the recording of For Emma Forever Ago is almost mythological in nature. Bon Iver (who at that point was simply known as Justin Vernon) had just gone through two particularly nasty breakups– the first with his band of childhood friends that had been together for over a decade, and the second to…
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Brian Fallon ‘Local Honey’ (2020)
Brian Fallon’s rise as a Jersey-born songwriter has drawn a lot of comparisons to the legendary Bruce Springsteen, and it’s clear at points during Fallon’s career with The Gaslight Anthem he was trying to fill those shoes a little too earnestly. Fallon’s solo career has been equally nostalgia-infused and songwriting driven, but in 2020’s Local…
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Wye Oak ‘Civilian’ (2011)
There’s something desperately lonely about Wye Oak’s 2011 effoort Civilian, from the pensive guitars, moody vocal melodies, and aggressively driven percussion. Lead vocalist Jenn Wasner never lets a good minor key vocal melody go to waste, and her dark indie folk brand of songwriting is as immediately recognizable as it is visceral. The whole thing…
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