Metro Pulse

Singer/songwriter Jonathan Sexton took time off after the breakup of the Whiskey Scars to finish college and start a job teaching kindergarten in Knox County. He’s performing again and just released his first solo album, Big Love, and will perform this weekend as part of the New Leaf Festival, the first in a series of shows highlighting veteran local performers in their new line-ups. Full story »

darsombra is the one-man vehicle of Baltimore’s Brian Daniloski, who piles layers of guitar and bass distortion on top of each other to build waves of drone that shift, at about the same pace a glacier moves, from ambient gloom to haunting beauty. Full story »

Evan Patterson is guitarist/singer for the Louisville, Ky., trio Young Widows. The band delivers its own take on late-1980s and early-’90s post-hardcore scuzzfests by the Jesus Lizard and Killdozer as well as the dexterous post-rock of hometown heroes Slint on its second album, Old Wounds, produced by Converge guitarist Kurt Ballou. Full story »

Mick Collins, guitarist and singer for Detroit’s Dirtbombs, is something of an archivist. His band has recorded covers of songs by artists as different as Stevie Wonder, Flipper, Thin Lizzy’s Phyl Lynott, and the Sparks. The Dirtbombs turned Pilot Light into a pop-music revival meeting back in September; they’re back less than a month later opening for TV on the Radio. Here’s what Collins has been listening to in the meantime. Full story »

Matt Stillwell comes from Sylva, N.C., and he injects his brash Nashville country with raucous good-ol’-country-boy twang. He’ll be showing off his new single “Shine” when he plays Patrick Sullivan’s this weekend. Here’s what he’s been listening to lately. Full story »

Brent Bagwell and the other members of the Eastern Seaboard claim a lineage of both punk and jazz, but the New York trio definitely emphasizes the jazz side of the equation—particularly the late-1960s golden age of free jazz, with swirling rhythms and far-out saxophone improvisation. Here’s what Bagwell’s been listening to lately. Full story »

Todd Steed doesn’t need much of an introduction. The veteran singer/guitarist/songwriter has been part of the Knoxville music scene for most of the last 20 years, interrupted only by his globe-trotting expeditions to Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe. He and his band, the Suns of Phere, will celebrate the release of their new album, Eskimo Hair, this weekend with Kat Brock, formerly of Knoxville bands Dixie Dirt and Whiskey Scars. Here’s what Steed’s been listening to in order to get ready. Full story »

Stephaniesid are an Asheville-based outfit fronted by vibrant chanteuse Stephanie Morgan; their intoxicating admixture of dreamy rock and cabaret-style pop is best heard on their latest release, 2007’s Grus americanus (Nine Mile Records). The band’s five members all pitch in with what they’re listening to right now. Full story »

The three brothers in Pontiak—Van, Lain, and Jennings Carney—just released their second full-length album, Sun on Sun (Thrill Jockey), which mixes stomping, bluesy psychedelia with three-part harmonies for a stoned-out take on campfire music. Full story »

“Downtown” Randall Brown fronts the quirky local band Quartjar and performs regularly on his own, primarily at the Bistro next to the Bijou Theatre. Brown also manages the News Sentinel’s entertainment listings and runs the daily’s Ramblin’ Man entertainment blog. Here’s what he’s been listening to lately. Full story »

Brooklyn songwriter and banjo master Matt Bauer mines traditional American folk music, especially mountain music and old-time ballads, as the framework for his impressionistic, sometimes hallucinatory, songs. His new album, The Island Moved in the Storm, loosely based on the true story of an unidentified woman whose body was found in Kentucky in 1968, will be released on Sept. 2. Full story »

Singer/songwriter Jodie Manross left Knoxville for New York a few years ago, but she comes back often to perform. She’s in town this month to record a new album, Myth of Solid Ground, with her musical partner Laith Keilany, and will stop by the WDVX studio for a Blue Plate Special. Here’s a list of music she’s been listening to. Full story »

The Oakland, Calif., group Faun Fables has explored the connection between folk music, performance, and avant-garde composition since 1997. Founded by Dawn McCarthy, the group released the ambitious rock cabaret Transit Rider in 2006 and toured with a complete theatrical production. The group issued the sparse four-song EP A Table Forgotten in July. Full story »

Local guitar mama Brandy Robinson (she runs the Guitar Mama record label, so it’s OK to call her that) will throw a little funk, soul, and reggae into her folkie jams at Barley’s Taproom this weekend. Here’s the music she’s been listening to as she gets ready to record her third album. Full story »

Knoxville singer/songwriter/poet-about-town R.B. Morris is up to his usual tricks: writing poetry, short fiction, long fiction, two new plays, and a screenplay. He’s also working on the anticipated full-length follow-up to last year’s Empire EP and performing this weekend at the Alive After Five series at Knoxville Museum of Art. “Which is to say my life is falling apart as we speak,” he declares. “Music is always in the background, old blues, new Radiohead, Animal Collective, choice cuts from the Longbranch’s jukebox.” Here’s what he’s been listening to most recently. Full story »