Tom Lynch

Will Oldham has played under countless names and has been involved with several different projects--most recently the collaborative record of covers he did with Tortoise last year--but nothing has served him quite as well as his Bonnie `Prince' Billy moniker. "I See A Darkness," his record from nearly a decade ago, still resonates as the best thing Oldham has put to tape--the title song itself is so devastatingly beautiful that it will live on forever, so much so that even Johnny Cash popularized it with his cover on "American III: Solitary Man." The dreamy, dirty indie-folk Oldham specializes in excels as the songwriter becomes more structured, and "The Letting Go," his record released just last month, proves that. Recorded entirely in Iceland and featuring ample strings and Dawn McCarthy's striking back-up vocals, the album is Oldham's most subdued to date, cold and windy, heartbreaking and sparse.

Bonnie `Prince' Billy plays October 16 at Portage Park Theater, 4050 North Milwaukee, at 8pm. $15-$18. (2006-10-10)

Also by Tom Lynch

Soundcheck
"My life as a gypsy continues," Ben Kweller says of his current tour, in support of his new, self-titled record. The album, his third full-length release under his own name--you'll remember that he was the leader of rock band Radish in the nineties, when Kweller was 15 years old--is quite different from his previous releases, less rock `n' roll and more sixties pop
(2006-10-03)

Passionate Painter
Mark Kozelek may be the most underrated songwriter in music today. Not that all the songs are his, of course
(2006-10-03)

Tip of the Week
"Putting the Days to Bed," The Long Winters' long-awaited follow-up to "When I Pretend to Fall" (there was the excellent "Ultimatum" EP between them), is not only the band's finest release to date but one of the best records released by the Barsuk label
(2006-10-03)

Tip of the Week
Pushcart Prize-winning author and Iowa State University English professor Debra Marquart has written one of the year's best memoirs in "The Horizontal World: Growing Up Wild in the Middle of Nowhere," her recounting of a childhood and adolescence spent in North Dakota
(2006-10-03)

Turn of the Century
(2006-09-26)

Tip of the Week
(2006-09-26)

Tip of the Week
(2006-09-26)

Brazen Bazan
(2006-09-19)

Tip of the Week
(2006-09-19)

Soundcheck
(2006-09-12)

Author Visit
(2006-09-12)

Only the Lonely
(2006-09-12)

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