Shape Usa May 2018

Toronto's Bernice craft weightless, genre-defying pop music that touches on indie pop, jazz, and R&B and sings the praises of family and the environment. Led by singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Robin Dann and rounded out by some of the city's most in-demand musicians, the group came into its own in the late 2010s with the ornately produced EP Puff and the minimalist pop of Puff: In the Air Without a Shape.

I initially thought that this Judith Owen album was a dicey proposition at best. Owen has been on a roll, as of late. Her last release, 2016’s Somebody’s Child, was a gem in the singer-songwriter genre. Actually, the album is a gem, period. Ebb & Flow, the release prior to that, made my list of best albums for 2014. She has also played a role in Smalls Change, the quirky new all-star release by Harry Shearer’s Spinal Tap alter-ego Derek Smalls. (Shearer is her husband.) Owen even carved out time for the Simpsons TV show in between successful tours of Europe and America, opening for Bryan Ferry.

It was on September 23, 2008 that Blitzen Trapper, after putting out three albums on its own label, released its fourth full-length album, 'Furr', via Sub Pop. At that time, it was a record that captured exactly where the band’s frontman, Eric Earley, found himself, both literally and metaphorically, geographically and existentially. Not that the Portland-based musician actually remembers much about the creation of the record’s 13 intriguing, spellbinding songs. Or, more specifically, what its songs actually mean, either now or then. Instead, 'Furr', stands as a kind of tribute and elegy to the city that inspired it, but that, a decade later, no longer exists.

Sun June is a 5 piece outfit from Austin, Texas that create moving tapestries of warming folk pop that wistfully pours over you like the wind on a calm summer night drive, windows down. After four single releases that have caught the eye and ear of many a music publication, comes Sune June’s wonderful debut, Years.

Swearin’ is the kind of band that comes around, at best, once a decade. Thankfully for us, they’ve come around twice. After releasing two beloved full-lengths, 2012’s Swearin’ and 2013’s Surfing Strange, the Philadelphia band quietly put things on hold. It was due, at least in part, to the band’s main songwriters, Allison Crutchfield and Kyle Gilbride, ending their romantic relationship. And though Swearin’ tried to soldier on, it became far too stressful to keep going. But after a few years apart, those bad feelings disappeared.

Being in a band is a sacred thing. Being in a band in 2018 is a sacred thing. Being from the Midwest is a sacred thing. Being in a band that is from the Midwest in 2018… Consider Shy Boys - DIY local champions of Kansas City, MO, who if you add it all up, are something sacred. Comprised of brothers Collin and Kyle Rausch and best friends Konnor Ervin, Kyle Little and Ross Brown, Shy Boys are the heartland’s answer to The Beach Boys had Alex Chilton been on guitar.

Truly a musician's musician, Adam Holzman's career, visibility-wise, has waxed and waned over the keyboardist's thirty-year career, but he's never been less than busy. His time spent with Miles Davis, during the last years of the music icon's life, helped raise the masterful and broad-reaching keyboardist/producer's profile. Certainly, based on his work with jazz artists including Davis protégée Wallace Roney, Davis reissue producer/saxophonist Bob Belden, Grover Washington Jr. and Michel Petrucciani from 1989 to 2010, Holzman has kept plenty of prestigious company. And why shouldn't he? In the jazz world, he's a keyboardist with a full appreciation for its tradition, its broad and sophisticated language, and the demands made by a genre that has continued to evolve in a myriad of ways since emerging around the turn of the 20th century.