By Grant Golden Cover photo: Hopscotch September 13, 2019 Few festivals can hold a candle to Hopscotch. It’s a perfect coalescence of so many different cultural corners that it’s hard not to spend the whole weekend with a smile on your face. The patch-donning, denim...
By Mitchell Franklin September 4, 2019 Songs to No One, the latest album from Charlotte folk group Elonzo Wesley, transports the listener from the very first notes of track one, “Human Bean.” The recording is intimate and close, with every violin swell and pick of...
By Shirley Griffith September 1, 2019 (Updated) Charlotte quartet Chócala (Latin slang for high-five) have cemented themselves in the local music scene as a jubilant force to be reckoned with. Despite only having a three-track demo tape, recorded in their practice space, the band’s sound and enthusiastic...
By Grant Golden August 29, 2019 Throughout the past ten years, the Hopscotch Music Festival in downtown Raleigh has proven to be one of the nation’s most impressive and eclectic annual events. Through the festival’s diverse, ornately arranged lineups, each of the 10+ venues at...
By Jose Mujica August 28, 2019 Summer on Central, Erick Lottary’s latest release, is an end-of-summer, Charlotte-centric follow up to his 2018 project, Look Both Ways. Lottary’s been hard at work in the studio and it shows in this five-track EP which demonstrates his development...
By Shirley Griffith August 27, 2019 PNC Music Pavilion hosted its own mini-festival Sunday night with a boastful lineup. Sunflower Bean started exactly at 6 p.m. and Spoon closed out their bouncy set as the sun lowered itself behind the horizon, leaving the night to...
By Shirley Griffith August 25, 2019 Summer is nearly over but Charlotte musicians have been hard at work releasing heartfelt albums and planting the seeds of new lineups and recurring parties to keep everyone in the Hornets Nest dancing, bopping, or thrashing well into the...
By Cameron Lee August 23, 2019 Snow Hill, North Carolina’s Rapsody has released the follow-up to her 2017 Grammy-nominated Best Album with her third studio full-length, Eve. The concept album that pays tribute to several iconic Black women, Eve is a 16-song poetic composition filled...
By Harris Wheless August 20, 2019 (updated) Legendary music journalist and A&R man Tim Sommer recently once said in an interview on The New York Times‘ Popcast: “If you want to know the story of American alternative music, you look at Winston Salem in 1975,...
By Cameron Lee August 17, 2019 Since 2010, the Raleigh-based Hopscotch music festival has hosted a multitude of musical acts from varying genres. Spread across several downtown Raleigh venues, the festival allows you to catch some big-name touring acts like this year’s headliners James Blake,...