Truly great songwriters hit people in a particular way - for some it's the sound of Neutral Milk Hotel's Jeff Mangum or Palace's Will Oldham. Others hear that extraordinary something in Bob Dylan or Neil Young - it can't easily be defined and is a power possessed by only the rarest of songwriters. It is bold to say, but 26-year-old Matthew Houck is one of them. As with the illustrious names above, behind Houck's songs lies nothing but the raw compulsion to write and play them, the fateful, joyful yearning...   [ read more ]

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A set of dark, meditative songs that's all the more spiritual sounding for its restrained tone. These are poems uttered in an empty field, punctuated by shouts and hollers, as if from a singer either abandoned or possessed. The lyrics are Matthew Houck's strongest ever, wrapped in washed out choral etudes that could be channeled from a rural French chapel or a solemn African tribe in prayer.

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Brazos' Martin Crane wrote the songs on Phosphorescent Blues during a two-week span of peaceful euphoria. Writing on classic themes - transient love, friendship, communities - Crane evokes the loss of youthful illusion and the calm, uneasy accomplishment of that loss. Like the adapted Adrienne Rich poem The Observer, the album tries to break free from the constraints of the city it's grown into, escaping by turning inward. Brazos has had a solid two years worth of buzz in Austin since their first EP, openi...   [ read more ]

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