RECENT LISTENING #9

Windy & Carl, Jim White & Marisa Anderson, Wombo, Scott Foust, Sic Alps, Neil Young, ESSi, Wingtip Sloat, Cocteau Twins, Stephanie Dosen

WINDY & CARL Allegiance and Conviction (KRANKY) This album rules. And it’s only 6 months old. Windy & Carl are BACK, y’all. I’m just kidding, they never left, but they do take their time; their last ‘official’ release (We Will Always Be) on their ‘primary’ label (Kranky) was in 2012. I don’t think they tour at all, just stay at home recording music and running the record store they own, Stormy Records in Dearborn, Michigan. Lina and I went on a road-trip there once, way back in 2002, to see Windy & Carl play live in the store, with special visiting opening act Charalambides. Incredible, beautiful show. Windy and Carl worked the counter, except when they were setting up and playing, and now it’s eighteen years later, and this new album, my goodness. It’s beautiful celestial drone, like their music always is, but with a particularly dark and driven edge to it as well, which seems really honest about the times we live in. The earth is in this music, and the earth isn’t doing too well, an…