It’s easy enough to sound sweet. Beautiful voices grace an inventory of folk projects, especially those fronted by women; you’ll see adjectives like “dulcet” and “mellifluous” used to describe their voices, with sugar baked right into the words. But sweetness sounds best up against a snarl — some complexity and tension. Lena Elizabeth, part of…

Dirt Train, Chris Koza, Kiss the Tiger, and DJ Jake Rudh performed at the Varsity Theater last night to celebrate its re-opening under new ownership. The 962-capacity venue has a very long history, spanning over 100 years in Dinkytown. The new staff opened the theater’s doors to some very cold Minnesotan music fans, who felt…

Many musicians see their careers change when they have kids. Few actually make music out of their children’s toys, but this is exactly what Zach Bagaason, better known as Medium Zach, does in episode 75 of his #BeatStory video series. I had the opportunity to sit in on the making of this episode with Medium Zach,…

Dosh just sent “some random e-mails to friends,” he remembers, asking them to sing the songs of Mister Rogers. “Just record them into your cell phone, make it kind of low-fi, don’t even worry about going into the studio. Just send it to me and then I’ll sort of do my thing with it. I’ll…

POLIÇA + s t a r g a z e, “Agree” Poliça and orchestral group s t a r g a z e are one week away from releasing their collaborative album, Music for the Long Emergency. They’ve prefaced the release with a video by Maria Juranic, as tender as Channy Leaneagh’s vocals and as urgent…

When listeners hear the name Miles Davis, they might think of some of his early works like Kind of Blue and Birth of the Cool, but those albums were just the beginning. Even as a young musician, Davis was always ahead of his time. He never liked to look back on the past and was…

For the past three years, Jesse Mortenson has been crafting a new online show calendar for the Twin Cities. At the end of 2017, the calendar, called swhenever, became available to the public. Swhenever lists concerts from venues such as First Avenue, Icehouse, and the Cedar Cultural Center, all in an eye-pleasing color combination of mint…

“That was pretty poppy,” an usher said to me as I donned my coat last night. “Wasn’t it?” Well, yes, I guess it’s true that most concerts presented by a wing of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra don’t end with Metallica covers. It’s also true that Anna Meredith is just as comfortable playing in a…

It’s early February, which means you might be brainstorming ways to celebrate Valentine’s Day. This Hallmark holiday can get boiled down to chocolate and putti (they’re not cupids!). But if you’re in a romantic relationship, it offers you a genuine opportunity to celebrate whatever makes your connection special. For a lot of people, that’s rooted…

In a development that would have been unthinkable 25 years ago, Best Buy will stop selling compact discs — but will continue to sell vinyl. As of July 1, reports Billboard, CDs will disappear from Best Buy store shelves, but the Richfield-based chain will continue to sell vinyl records for at least two years. It’s…