The One A.M. Radio
This Too Will Pass
Dangerbird (2007)
On The One A.M. Radio's 2004 full-length, A Name Writ in Water, songwriter Hrishikesh Hirway surprised critics and listeners alike with his apprehensive brand of esoterically compact and personal lo-fi composition. Falling somewhere in the dark crevice between electronica and singer/songwriter melancholia, Hirway demonstrated an almost uncanny ability to be both rhetorically personable and musically reserved. The vaguely metropolitan musical architecture swirled fluidly and cohesively, melding bleak overtones with concretely analeptic musings. Fast forward a couple years: mired, perhaps, in the ubiquitously universal mid-twenties sense of displacement, Hirway, a Yale grad, travels to Mumbai, India to draw up the blueprints for his next release. Surrounded by the pulsating mass of bodies and heat that defines the world's second most populous country, Hirway maps out his skeletal ideas on a laptop and a microphone. Those skeletal ideas would become the basis for The One A.M. Radio's latest release, This Too Will Pass. Darker and less confrontational than his previous efforts, This Too Will Passis lyrically imaginative, evocative, and, ultimately, more personal. Hirway has, if nothing else, mastered the ability to ethereally chart the enigmatic blue and grey territory that rests between passive torpidity and, well, happiness. On This Too Will Pass, … Read more
Building Better Bombs
Freak Out Squares
Init (2007)
Init Records is one of the most underappreciated record labels releasing music today. Documenting some of the Midwest's most important … Read more
Johnny Vomit
Extreme Championship Drinking
NGS (2006)
Disclaimer: Don't read this review if you are offended by four letter words and genital slang. Thank you. Some bands … Read more
