dream pop

Saturday Music Interlude — French for Rabbits performing “Hard Luck Stories”

Out of Wellington, New Zealand, French for Rabbits is a folk-rock/dream-pop duo composed of vocalist/keyboardist Brooke Singer and guitarist John Fitzgerald.  They have been performing since 2011 and have just come out with their debut album.  The subjects of their songs reflect the cold seafaring and rocky coastal environment of their origins, especially in the case of Singer, who hails originally from Waikuku Beach.  But, of course, nothing is that simple in art.  Listening to their music evokes in the mind more significant connections and analogies.  Their music has matured and gained greater complexity since their first forays in 2012 and 2013.  Among the best is “Hard Luck Stories”, which follows.  Its tone is simultaneously dreamy and organic at the same time, overlaid with Singer’s beautiful vocals that leads us through her lyrical world of loneliness and desire.

 

Saturday Music Interlude — Marissa Nadler

Few musicians can create their own atmosphere with repeated and extended listening–it is a talent that is reserved for the truly special and talented. Marissa Nadler is one of those artists.  Well grounded in the folk tradition she extends the music to dark and heavy places to include dream pop and ambient.  Her latest album July is a song cycle about one year in her life from breakup to reunion.  If Judy Collins and Joan Baez had jointly mentored a talent it might have been Marissa Nadler.