One of my very favorite songwriters, Kelley Stoltz, has a new album out on Sub Pop next month called Circular Sounds and it seems certain to fall somewhere in my top ten for 2008. Here’s my review, which runs in Harp this month.
Kelley Stoltz Circular Sounds (Sub Pop) After flirting with the piano in 2006’s Below the Branches, San Francisco’s Kelley Stoltz has returned to the fuzzy glories of 1960s guitar. His fourth full-length layers a psychedelic haze over songs that range from delicate chamber pop to raucous garage rockers. On the harder side, “Birmingham Eccentric” is a latter-day answer to “Are You Electric?,” all straight-up guitar raunch and banging piano keys. “Your Reverie” has a whiff of early Kinks, its chiming chords subsumed under dreamy pop-washed choruses. But it’s the trippy, tremolo-waved “I Nearly Lost My Mind” and echo haunted “Tintinnabulation” that make the sale, putting an otherworldly spin on post-Beatles melodies. As a one-man show, Stoltz undoubtedly works hard at writing, performing, singing and recording. Yet, as always, his music feels effortless and natural, as if it had sprung up fully formed out of a pleasant daydream, to be delivered with casual, careless grace.
Standout tracks:“Your Reverie,” “I Nearly Lost My Mind”
By Jennifer Kelly
I also interviewed Kelley for PopMatters a couple of years ago and he seemed like the sweetest guy. http://www.popmatters.com/music/interviews/stoltz-kelley-060321.shtml
Kelley’s got a web page http://www.electriccity.org/intro.html
And a MySpace http://www.myspace.com/kelleystoltz
My Trusted MOGs
I'll have to check this out ... Stoltz did a 7" for my cousin's record label a while back ("Discount City"/"84 Tigers") that I really dug, but I've never heard much of him outside of that.
My Trusted MOGs
Yay! Love this guy's stuff. Great news Jenny - thanks.
-G.
My Trusted MOGs
you are, as always, right on the money... i knew i returned for a reason... XXX
My Trusted MOGs
I'm so glad you're back....and also very glad that people are liking Kelley Stoltz.
My Trusted MOGs
been enjoying this lp a lot... thanks Jen...
My Trusted MOGs
It's kind of an oasis, isn't it? A nice quiet place where beautiful things happen.
Or something like that.
My Trusted MOGs
Just had WFMU on, and “Birmingham Eccentric” jumped out at me enough that I dropped the task at hand and started checking playlists, consulting with allmusic, subpop, etc. I'll be keeping an ear open for more. Raves about artists on MOG are all well and good, but you just gotta find a place like FMU to tune in and see what hits ya and what doesn't.
"Are you gonna be hip? Are you gonna be hip? Are you gonna be hip?
Are you givin' me lip? Are you givin' me lip? Are you givin' me lip?"
- followed by a reference to "The Golden Arches" was all it took. That and a healthy similarity to the Velvets.
My Trusted MOGs
No argument about WFMU. Pretty close to everything I know about music comes from listening to that station. One of the things that sucks about reviewing all these records is that I don't have as much time to just check out what they're playing anymore.