Music

Pretty on the Outside

Years ago, putting two tenor players onstage together would inevitably lead to a cutting contest, the saxophonists' equivalent of pistols at dawn.
If the name of her duo raises your hackles, just wait until you hear Aussie guitarist Kate Cooper sing about heat, hope and heartache. Surrounded by the smoldering ruins of a great civilization wrecked by monsters he once served, Richard Strauss wrote his farewell to music and life in 1948. Boston's Freezepop have been in the retro-'80s electropop game longer than most, but that doesn't mean they've ever bothered to grow up.
Open tuned and gently plucked, slack key guitar is one of the most tranquil musical experiences. Portland's Laura Gibson isn't going to knock you over with her music. How do you reinvent the inexplicable? That was the challenge faced by Philly prog-pop weirdos Make a Rising when the band imploded a few months back. Reef the Lost Cauze and King Magnetic somehow found time to make Shadyville, a mixtape with walk-ons by Brother Ali and Edo G. Snowstorm's shows typically last no more than 10 minutes or so, but the brevity is less a matter of "leave 'em wanting more" than a strategy of "leave 'em shell-shocked and dazed."