I’m going to get to a list of notable releases from local bands, but I want to start off with what will be the latest in a busy year’s worth of albums, SHELLS 2…Â
Shelley Salant is one of the most ardent supporters of the Ann Arbor & Ypsilanti music scene. In fact, that competition may be over…
She started as a teenager in the local music scene and was booking shows at the Neutral Zone early on… You likely know her as the voice and host of WCBN’s The Local Music Show, where she curates diverse playlists of releases from artists around the region, as well as coordinates some excellent and intimate live in-studio performances.
Along with that, she’s been behind the counter at Encore Records, hosted shows at her original Ann Arbor home, played in bands with Fred Thomas, Charlie Slick, Amber Fellows, Autumn Wetli, and many (many) more, and tirelessly updated a monthly calendar of statewide music events headlined by home-bred talent with her Michigan Happenings blog.
But if you haven’t been listening to Salant’s solo instrumental guitar project, SHELLS….now’s your chance.
SHELLS 2
Newest album by Shelley Salant
Release PartyÂ
Friday Night
Trinosophes
Detroit
featuring Bonny Doon and Kathy Leisen
What Salant does with her SHELLS project is a bit of fitful meditations via interwoven guitar patterns, looped and delicately delayed with a moderate amount of echo effects. Sort of like a sonic spyrograph, she begins a piece with an amorphous, improvisational traipse that starts to double back upon itself with subtle melodies, until the patterns start to mesmerize the ear with surprisingly expressive, colorful layers. Like melodic mantra, and pulse-slowing tempos, still able to roil up into occasional crescendos of clutched ferocity.
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Here’s my top 15…Not ranked; just collected…
Starting with, as you just read:
SHELLS 2
But also:
CJ Rene –Â Love Hotline
Best Exes –Â Cactus
Cig Butts –Â Greenlite EPÂ
Patrick Elkins – Beating Heart of a Crew
Stormy Chromer –Â Live Recordings
Talking Ear – Talking Ear
After Hours Radio
Louis Picasso – Gold
Chirp – Live at Willis Sound
Desmond Jones – Desmond Jones
Tanager – Burn Out The Night
Cold Tone Harvest – After YouÂ
Chris Dupont – Live in A2
Joe Hertler & The Rainbow Seekers –Â PlutoÂ
Jeff covers music for Current, posting weekly show previews and highlighting new bands in the area.
