How Khruangbin’s Groove Opens the Door to the World
‘A La Sala,’ the fourth studio album by Houston’s psychedelic-soul-rock trio, is as globally inspired as it is intimate.
‘A La Sala,’ the fourth studio album by Houston’s psychedelic-soul-rock trio, is as globally inspired as it is intimate.
On her most introspective album yet, the star seems to be, as the kids say, “romanticizing her life.”
With two new singles, Bey is planting a flag squarely in country music—and we have a feeling she’s about to school us on the genre.
The Texas punk pioneer and Hall of Fame singer-songwriter reflects on the release of his first solo album since a 2019 heart attack.
The compilation cover album Texas Wild, which includes pairings such as Adrian Quesada and Destiny’s Child’s “Say My Name,” was curated by a mad Texan genius.
A supergroup of strings player helps take a mix of Willie anthems and deep cuts to a whole new, banjo-picking level.
After months of chart-topping singles, the Edinburg group has released ‘El Comienzo,’ a debut album filled with nods to the past—and an eye toward the future.
The Austin neoclassical group’s new album, ‘Pendant World,’ evokes the natural wonder of the Lone Star State.
Willie Nelson covers ten songs written by his late friend Harlan Howard in ‘I Don’t Know a Thing About Love.’
The jazz vocalist pays tribute to the Dallas icon in ways that make her work feel fresher than ever.
The San Marcos–bred supergroup released two farewell albums last week, one of which is a reflective solo record that complicates the band’s legacy.
‘Live at Budokan’ is a mythical lost recording of Willie at the height of his powers.
The queen’s new album nails the sweet spot between nostalgia and new wave, paying tribute to past trendsetters while blazing a new path forward for pop music.
In ‘12th of June,’ the Klein singer-songwriter shares the love and joys of home life.
‘A Beautiful Time’ picks up where his "mortality trilogy" of albums left off, with an especially off-the-wall cover and new songs reflecting on life and death.
Plus: swing by an Austin jazz festival, then listen to a record dedicated to a SpongeBob SquarePants character on your way home.
‘The Light Saw Me’ is maybe the weirdest, most unexpected post-pandemic album to come out of the Red Dirt country scene. Just in time for Omicron!
The Nelson clan’s new gospel album meets the grief and trauma of the pandemic with spirit and hope.
The multifaceted musician, former city-council candidate, and documentary star returns with an album of pristine guitar and gentle self-reflection.
The Texan singer-songwriter-guitarist’s second album of 2021 proves he still has something to say.
Six years after the Denton duo recorded its first and only release, the album is finally out—and worth the wait.
In ‘Star-crossed,’ Musgraves again defies labels, creating an epic requiem for lost love that spans disco, pop, and country.
The Fort Worth–based singer-songwriter’s attraction to a life she chose to reject fuels the artistry of her debut album ‘Bad Romantic.’
On ‘To the Passage of Time,’ the Fort Worth country singer, 46, meditates on the freedom that comes with age.
The singer sheds her painful past on ‘Dancing with the Devil . . . the Art of Starting Over.’
The Texas native infuses ‘Cool Dry Place’ with sharp turns and deceptions, all accompanied by her effortlessly beautiful vocals.
Singer Laura Colwell explains how the band’s ethos—and day jobs—led to an album uniquely suited for our pandemic times.
The Dallas native’s jazz statement ‘Love and Liberation’ is a call to action.
“The Lion King: The Gift” features fun collaborations with West and South African artists, but fails to include other African regions.
The album honors black culture in Houston, but also looks beyond it to the traditions of rural Texas.
For Austin’s White Denim, everything old is new again.
LUCINDA WILLIAMS’s music is evocative in a way others can’t touch. It’s not only the fragility and ache in her voice but also her economy of language, with its declarative simplicity that cuts to the heart. A perfect album is a rarity, yet Williams has made two, her 1988 self-titled
Hot CDsInevitable baggage accompanies an album whose sessions splintered a great band, ousted three producers, and outlasted a record company. But if ex-Austinite Lucinda Williams is a paragon of self-doubt, she’s also a gifted writer who gets to the core of a character in the course of a three-minute tune.
Hot CDs and Hot Books
Hot CDs and Hot Books
Hot CDsThis month Texas music shines on the silver screen. The soundtrack for The Horse Whisperer (MCA) not only features cuts from Don Walser, George Strait, and Steve Earle but also a Butch Hancock—Joe Ely— Jimmie Dale Gilmore reunion (long removed from Lubbock, they are now called the Hill Country
Hot CDsSan Antonio’s Monte Montgomery is a guitarist’s guitarist, but he doesn’t let that get in the way of the music on 1st and Repair (Heart Music). He brings taste, precision, economy, and a playful sense of timing to poppish songs with sturdy hooks and sings in a voice that’s
Hot CDsTalk about a “solo artist”: On You Coulda Walked Around the World (rainlight records), Butch Hancock is record label boss, co-producer, photographer, singer, songwriter, and lone musician. The Lubbock-born Hancock left Austin for Big Bend about a year ago, and the result is a casually haunted album that’s suffused
Hot CDsSure, you can waltz across Texas to the Cornell Hurd Band’s Texas Fruit Shack (Behemoth), but you can also shuffle, two-step, boogie, and maybe even jitterbug. Joined by guest stars like Johnny Bush, Austinite Hurd fronts a versatile group that puts an authoritative stamp on the full run of
Hot CDsThe 33 selections on My Time: A Boz Scaggs Anthology (1969— 1997) (Columbia/Legacy) are as sleek and as shiny as a Highland Park Mercedes. Despite the ex-Dallasite’s irresistible sense of flow-as-melody, several tracks on the two-CD set are also vapid enough to reconfirm that all that glitters is not
Hot CDsFew voices evoke the pathos of country and western tragedy as genuinely as the rich, honeyed timbre of George Jones. By 1962, the year Jones signed with the United Artists label, the East Texan had been divorced, jailed, and was already as legendary for his hard drinking as his
Hot CDsRunning on equal parts inspiration and gumption, Austin’s Damnations are the alternative to alternative country, going way back for tunes like “Copper Kettle,” forward for a romp through Lucinda Williams’ “Happy Woman Blues,” and their own way with impressively traditional-progressive originals. The mostly acoustic Live Set (Damnations), pressed in
Hot CDsWest Texas bluesman Long John Hunter plays even more guitar than usual on Swinging From the Rafters (Alligator), and that’s a lot of guitar. Hunter represents the party-down end of the blues spectrum; he’s gotta poke fun at himself even when he’s ostensibly down-and-out, as on “I’m Broke.” With
Hot CDsThe real pleasure in Toni Price’s Sol Power (Antone’s/Discovery/Sire) is trying to peg her as country, blues, or folk. Whether she’s singing something silly and simple, such as “Cats and Dogs,” or taking the sultry and sublime route, as when she covers Allen Toussaint’s “Funky,” the Austinite offers an
Hot CDsThe Horsies are an extremely unusual outfit, so it figures that the perverse, polymorphously percussive Austin combo’s second record, Touch Me Columbus, is only available on the relatively obscure Japanese label Benten (though some Texas record stores will be carrying it). A giddy three-man, three-woman band with five often
After five years ex-Austinite Lucinda Williams’ follow-up to her 1992 CD Sweet Old World is finally kicking up dust. The album’s title, Car Wheels on a Gravel Road (American Recordings), refers not to the sound of the Grammy award winner’s voice but to the cross-country travels that inspired such
Hot CDsAbra Moore’s wispy, quivering voice works hard to be heard among the loud, rude guitars of Strangest Places (Arista/Austin). It’s a far cry from her earlier, softer work with Poi Dog Pondering and as a solo artist. Even when she falters, the Austinite’s transformation into a rocker adds resonance
Hot CDsSing, Cowboy, Sing: The Gene Autry Collection (Rhino) is a three-CD set featuring 84 favorites by the singing cowboy from Tioga. But these aren’t always the best-known versions; many are previously unreleased transcriptions from his Melody Ranch radio show that measure up well and thus add to the Autry
Hot CDsThanks to her auspicious debut, Baduizm (Universal), 25-year-old Erykah Badu is being billed as the hip-hop Billie Holliday, which may be a bit—how do you say?—premature. But working with jazz and hip-hop all-stars and singing originals that are definitely more intimate than gritty, the silky-voiced South Dallas native does
Hot CDsIn the sixties, Mayo Thompson’s The Red Krayola was a Houston psychedelic band with a writer—Frederick Barthelme—for a drummer. Thirty years later, the amorphous experimental outfit has a new lineup that makes music with the help of such guests as Minutemen alumnus George Hurley, but time has not tarnished