Eugene Weekly

The members of Seattle’s alt-folk The Head and the Heart are growing up. According to drummer Tyler Williams, their approach to music is too. “When we first started out, music was our passion and it was a hope, a goal, that we would get to do this for a living,” he says. “And then when you start to travel around and tour it does become your job in a way, but that doesn’t necessarily make it a bad thing. We’re just more responsible people at this stage in our lives.” Continue reading →

Any discussion of Neko Case usually revolves around the voice — and a remarkable instrument it is: smoky, agile, delicate, strong, rich, expressive. Hers is a real sound that puts the fakers to shame.  Continue reading →

Over the past half decade or so, singer-songwriter Halie Loren has built an international reputation as a top-notch jazz chanteuse — an expert vocalist who is as comfortable sinking into the sultry croon of a classic like “My Funny Valentine” as she is reinterpreting a ’60s pop ditty like “Happy Together.” The Eugene native’s new album, Simply Love, released Sept. 10 in the U.S., has already pegged the top of the Billboard jazz charts in Japan and Asia. Continue reading →

When Gold Panda’s down-tempo electronica seeps into your ears, it can resurrect the feelings of being a small child sitting in the backseat during a road trip where your only possessions are a pair of headphones and the window-framed view of the world as it passes by in a whirl. The British producer, also known as Derwin, has distinguished himself from the hyper-amped electronic dance music crowd by producing mellow yet stimulating sample-based grooves — entrancing without the trance. Continue reading →

Of all the serendipitous moments in music history, Rob Garza wandering into Eric Hilton’s Eighteenth Street Lounge in 1995 is one that should not be overlooked. The happenstance meeting in Washington, D.C., propelled the two producer-musicians into an expansive Grammy-nominated career as globetrotting downtempo duo Thievery Corporation. Continue reading →