Local label Autobus Records is teaming up with a few local blogs and businesses to put together a musical showcase of many of the artists associated with the label. It's all happening at Stubb's BBQ (inside) Saturday evening. more ›

With Bright is the Ring of Words, Mark David Ashworth has made a hall of mirrors in album form. It’s opulent, but a lot of what’s actually offered is a reflection of other projects, from the Robert Louis Stevenson-penned title to “Sometimes it Turns Dry and the Leaves Fall Before They Are Beautiful,” a William Carlos Williams poem that Ashworth has scored. He even paraphrases “Keeping Things Whole” by Mark Strand- for an entire track. But the problems presented by Bright is the Ring of Words are not questions of originality; to even hint at faulting an album for being broadly based on a swath of other artistic works is ridiculous and, maybe even worse, beside the point. With Bright is the Ring of Words, Mark David Ashworth has made a hall of mirrors in album form. It’s opulent, but a lot of what’s actually offered is a reflection of other projects, from the Robert Louis Stevenson-penned title to “Sometimes it Turns Dry and the Leaves Fall Before They Are Beautiful,” a William Carlos Williams poem that Ashworth has scored. He even paraphrases “Keeping Things Whole” by Mark Strand- for an entire track. But the problems presented by Bright is the Ring of Words are not questions of originality; to even hint at faulting an album for being broadly based on a swath of other artistic works is ridiculous and, maybe even worse, beside the point. The problem is that there is no one-to-one formula for the translation from poem to song; they’re written in different languages. It’s difficult even to translate the same musical phrases from one band to another- that’s why cover songs work best when they are less reenactment than homage. On Ashworth’s Bright is the Ring of Words, you can hear this babelfish sort of effect on the tracks that are primarily references. As a result, roughly the first half of the album seems stoic and pageant-like; it’s only during the second half that we hear much of the tactile, organic Mark David Ashworth. more ›

Listening to Sunset’s Gold Dissolves To Gray, the fourth full-length album from Austin’s Bill Baird, invites to mind that brilliant line from Noah Baumbach’s Kicking and Screaming: “I’m nostalgic for conversations I had yesterday.” The best thing this effort has to offer is its terrifically timely and magnetic aesthetic of nostalgia for the new. At its high points, Baird seamlessly cobbles together a fresh sound that is both reminiscent (of 60s glam and 70s psychedelia) and of-the-moment, nodding to albums like Department of Eagles’ In Ear Park, dating all the way back to last year. (But yes, we were missing it already.) more ›