Latest news with #IfYouAskedforaPicture
Winnipeg Free Press
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
New music: Blake Shelton, Blondshell, Ingrid Laubrock, Elation Pauls
Blake Shelton For Recreational Use Only (Wheelhouse) Blake Shelton's 13th studio album opens with a fitting declaration for both his latest project and the current state of his career: Stay Country or Die Tryin'. It would be more accurately phrased like a question. At this stage, Shelton is a longtime veteran of Hollywood on The Voice stage with a pop superstar wife in Gwen Stefani, far removed from his Nashville roots, all while maintaining the position of one of the most high-profile country stars of the current moment. But if country is a lifestyle and an image beyond its musical forms — saying nothing of the opening track's arena-sized rock elements — is he staying true to some ethos? Is Shelton speaking diaristically when he sings, 'Boots ain't never seen easy street,' in the album's opening verse? Perhaps not. In 2025, he performs between worlds, but no matter. He's long dedicated himself to big country radio hits and returns to those roots across For Recreational Use Only. The songs here concern themselves with lived-in bars (Cold Can) and backroad acuity (Life's Been Comin' Too Fast.) Charms are found across the release, like in the honky-tonk happy Texas, and its cheerful reference to George Strait's classic All My Ex's Live In Texas, or the big-hearted and big-voiced ballad on God and grief, Let Him In Anyway. Collaborations are few and pointed. Shelton and Stefani harmonize beautifully on Hanging On; he does the same with Craig Morgan on Heaven Sweet Home, an affecting meditation of mortality. He taps Josh Anderson for the slow-burn closer Years. Shelton might live a very different life than the characters found in his songs, as is often true of any larger-than-life celebrity performer, but make no mistake, this is a giant pop-country record with limitless potential for radio ubiquity. ★★★ out of five Stream: Cold Can; Stay Country or Die Tryin' — Maria Sherman, The Associated Press Blondshell If You Asked for a Picture (Partisan) Sabrina Teitelbaum, who records under the band name Blondshell, is a longtime student of alt-rock. She knows a thing or two about all the ways in which a cutting lyric and thunderous guitar can rejuvenate the soul and soundtrack rage. On her sophomore album, If You Asked for a Picture, she builds from the success of her earlier work — 2023's self-titled debut and its haunting single Salad. Over the course of 12 tracks, Blondshell reckons with a woman's role in her various relationships, personally and societally. Those messages — gritty, real, existential and fluid as they are — arrive atop visceral instrumentation, hearty guitars and punchy percussion. Much of the album sits at the intersection of modern indie, '90s grunge and '80s college radio rock, like that of Event of a Fire. On the acoustic fake-out Thumbtack, instrumentation builds slow and remains restrained. Man is muscular, with its soaring distortion and layered production. On If You Asked for a Picture, relationships are nuanced, awkward and honest — her flawed and frustrated characters show how easy it is to succumb to the whims of someone who doesn't have your best interest in mind, to become someone else when you don't know who you are. If there is a main weakness it is that a number of the tracks bleed together sonically near the record's end, making it hard to distinguish a three-song run: Toy to Man. Fans will likely label it stylistic consistency rather than tiresome repetition. There's a lot to love here, though. T&A, Model Rockets and the palm-muted power chords of What's Fair warrant repeat listens. The swaying mellotron of Model Rockets things and might serve as a mission statement for the album — where identity and desire are malleable, influenced by relationships and the evolving nature of the world, made more complicated by simply being a woman in it. ★★★½ out of five Stream: What's Fair; T&A — Rachel S. Hunt, The Associated Press Ingrid Laubrock Purposing The Air (Pyroclastic) Ingrid Laubrock is a terrific saxophonist who is not playing on her second release; instead, she has written and produced one of the most unique and fascinating albums in recent memory. The album has 60 brief tracks called koans. A koan is defined as 'a story, dialogue, question or statement from Chinese Buddhist Lore, supplemented with commentaries, that is used in Zen Buddhist practice in different ways.' Laubrock has created 60 brief moods as koans, all fragments from the poetry of Erica Hunt. To present them, she has miniature phrases of the poems delivered by four duets: vocalist Fay Victor with cellist Mariel Roberts; vocalist Sara Serpa with pianist Matt Mitchell; vocalist Theo Bleckmann with guitarist Ben Monder; and vocalist Rachel Calloway with violinist Ari Streisfeld. This might sound confusing but the impact is extremely powerful. The range of moods and musical accompaniments is extraordinary. With each duo getting 15 koans, there is wide room for experimentation. From intense repeated words to humorous riffs ('Catch the ball and now I throw it') the surprises are endless. Most of the koans are several minutes at best and while perhaps wanting more, the whole mood is then spun out of shape with a totally different idea. The vocalists are very different and the duet partners are tied in beautifully. For example Koan 5 with Serpa/Mitchell makes 1:37 seem just the right length. Bleckmann's vocals, as the only male singer, make a different sense of the concept. Figuring out how to listen to this album is an important decision. It can sound different the second time through while initially captivating the listener. Cello, piano, guitar and violin work well with the poetic fragments Laubrock has chosen. To my ear, the least successful is the classically trained voice of Calloway. While beautiful, it seems to overpower the moods of the koans, but this is a small comment in an album of challenging and complex music. Expect a new experience. ★★★★½ out of five Stream: Koans 1, 16, 31, 46 — Keith Black Elation Pauls Sustenance (Spektral) Canadian violinist Elation Pauls celebrates her inaugural recording with Sustenance, a self-curated program on Germany's Spektral label featuring nine contemporary chamber works for solo violin and piano, including several commissioned world premières by prominent national composers. What becomes clear in this labour-of-love project born in the crucible of the global pandemic is its fearless sense of adventure. Pauls, who serves as the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra's assistant principal second violin, immediately displays her expressive artistry in such arresting works as Iman Habibi's Offering of Water. Another is Kelly-Marie Murphy's Fire-and-Ice-Bodied-Doubled-Up-Withdrawal-Anxiety, its driving moto perpetuo figures conjuring the (frankly) uncharted craziness of those unprecedented COVID-19 days. Particular highlights include David Braid's lushly lyrical The Interior Castle and Without Words, as well as Serouj Kradjian's deeply poetic Sari Aghtchig (Girl from the Mountain), derived from a folk melody from his Armenian homeland that enthralls, with Pauls joined by the two composers on piano during their respective pieces. For those who appreciate more narrative-based works, there is Karen Sunabacka's Jack the Fiddler, based on her maternal grandfather Jack's rediscovery and healing through Red River Métis culture, with the Manitoba-born composer also serving as storyteller. Cris Derksen's Country Food similarly features a thoughtful narration regarding Indigenous food sovereignty as a timely topical issue, punctuated by Pauls's dramatic flourishes. The ambitious album is capped by a second Kradjian offering, Tango Melancolico. The internationally renowned composer, now on piano, and Pauls hold nothing back in this passionate ride into the heart of tango; the highly stylized dance fuelled by lyrical passagework and syncopated rhythmic accents seemingly mirroring the intense emotionalism of those gone-but-never forgotten pandemic years that changed us all forever. ★★★★½ out of five Stream: Sari Aghtchig; Tango Melancolico — Holly Harris
Toronto Star
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Toronto Star
Blondshell alt-rock finds new nuance on ‘If You Asked for a Picture'
Sabrina Teitelbaum, who records under the band name Blondshell, is a longtime student of alt-rock. She knows a thing or two about all the ways in which a cutting lyric and thunderous guitar can rejuvenate the soul and soundtrack rage. On her sophomore album, 'If You Asked for a Picture,' named after Mary Oliver's 1986 poem 'Dogfish,' she builds from the success of her earlier work – 2023's self-titled debut and its haunting single 'Salad.' Over the course of 12 tracks, much like on her first album, Blondshell reckons with a woman's role in her various relationships, personally and societally. Those messages — gritty, real, existential and fluid as they are — arrive atop visceral instrumentation, hearty guitars and punchy percussion.
New York Times
29-04-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
How Blondshell Became an Alt-Rock Supernova
With songs about addiction and sobriety, praise kink, friend breakups, familial strife, body dysmorphia and, as she put it, 'choosing to be in relationships with bad dudes,' Sabrina Teitelbaum has quickly earned a reputation for putting it all out there. But for a while, the singer and songwriter who records as Blondshell kept her career ambitions under wraps. A born-and-raised New Yorker, Teitelbaum, 28, spent her high school years stomping around downtown Manhattan, singing original songs at open mic nights under a slew of aliases. Her musical life was 'kind of private,' she said, waxing nostalgic during a walk along the High Line on a brisk but sunny March afternoon. 'I didn't really talk to people in my family about it. I didn't talk to my friends about it.' In town from her current home in Los Angeles, and braced for the elements in a zipped black anorak and Saint Laurent shades, Teitelbaum flew under the radar amid throngs of tourists in Chelsea. Her era of performing anonymously, however, at venues like Pianos and the erstwhile incubator Sidewalk Cafe, is over. In 2022, her first single as Blondshell generated buzz that hearkened back to an earlier, blog-fueled era of indie-rock, and her subsequent self-titled debut earned fans and spots on many critics' 2023 year-end lists for its grungy rock and frank, self-implicating lyricism. Now, on the cusp of releasing her second album, 'If You Asked for a Picture,' on Friday, Teitelbaum is working out just how much more of herself to reveal to her growing audience. 'All the things I was saying in the songs were things that I didn't feel comfortable saying to people in conversation,' she said. 'And I think that's kind of still the case.' Teitelbaum's music leans heavily on '90s alternative aesthetics and her lyrics can be impressionistic or straightforwardly narrative, but they're consistently ruptured by off-kilter imagery or flashes of deadpan humor. This is part of the singer's balancing act: She counters the weight of her material with wryness; the bluster of vintage rock (she loves a guitar solo) with unguarded intimacy. Teitelbaum grew up in Midtown at the tail end of the early 2000s rock boom and was granted a long leash to explore. She fondly recalled listening to bands like Vampire Weekend and the National and getting her fake ID confiscated at the Hell's Kitchen venue Terminal 5. Her father, to whom she credits her education in classic rock, is the former chief executive of the e-cigarette giant NJOY. Her mother, who Teitelbaum has said was absent during her childhood, was the daughter of the hedge fund mogul Randall Smith. (She died in 2018, and Teitelbaum deflected questions about their relationship.) Mothers and daughters are a recurring motif on 'If You Asked for a Picture,' though. They're at the center of 'What's Fair,' a sweet-and-salty assessment of familiar maternal faults ('You'd want me to be famous so you could live by proxy / You always had a reason to comment on my body'); and '23's a Baby,' a cheeky reckoning with the knowledge that parenthood does not confer maturity. The album's emotional centerpiece is 'Event of a Fire,' an imagistic slow burner packed with childhood vignettes and oblique references to generational trauma. While she avoids specifics, Teitelbaum says this subject matter isn't so distant from the themes of her first record, which dealt more with fraught romantic relationships. 'Even if you're not explicitly talking about being a kid and being in dysfunction, I think it's inherently there,' she said — nodding to attachment theory, and how bonds with our parents become templates for relationships throughout our lives. For Corin Tucker of Sleater-Kinney, '23's a Baby' exemplifies the strength of Teitelbaum's songcraft in both its gravity and its stickiness. 'It's not very common for songwriters to be willing to go that personal or that raw,' she said in an interview. 'That's a really strong craft, to be able to write about motherhood and parenting, and the consequences of it, and the relationship that you have that lasts a lifetime. And she also made it a really catchy song.' Teitelbaum's formal education in songwriting came from the University of Southern California's Thornton School of Music, which she attended for two years before dropping out because of her aversion to the school's core curriculum requirements ('I was taking oceanography,' she noted dryly). While enrolled, she adopted the artist name Baum and recorded booming, brooding electro-pop in the vein of Halsey or Bishop Briggs. Colored with sass and a pop feminist perspective ('Don't call me Barbie / Does it look like I own a thing in pink,' went one song, with an added expletive), the tracks garnered modest attention online before Teitelbaum retired the project around 2019. In hindsight, that body of work reflected Teitelbaum's strong songwriting point of view, but a weaker sonic one. 'Production-wise, I was just working with people I was hanging out with,' she recalled, 'and felt more willing to chase what I thought other people thought was cool.' Around that time, she was also doing rounds of what she termed 'music speed dating,' meeting with a revolving door of collaborators for one-off writing sessions. For a while, nothing was clicking. But it was on one fateful 'date' that she met Yves Rothman, who has gone on to produce both of her records. Rothman got his start making bruising music with the Midwest punk band Living Things, and is a collaborator of the experimental artist Yves Tumor. He's also worked closely with a handful of singer-songwriters in addition to Teitelbaum — including Aly & AJ and Stella Rose — who straddle rock and pop. Rothman shepherded Teitelbaum's rebrand, helping to realign her sound in a way that more authentically reflected her taste — retaining the dark tint of her Baum output, but grounding it in grungy live instruments instead of synths. Applied to 'Olympus,' a bleak song about destructive love that ultimately became Blondshell's debut single, that treatment gave Teitelbaum's caustic writing an edge it had previously lacked. She sings the final version like she's dragging around a ball and chain. When she first played Rothman the song, 'That's when he said, 'We need to make an album,'' she recalled. Since she became Blondshell, Teitelbaum has frequently been likened to female rock luminaries of an earlier generation — particularly Courtney Love, Dolores O'Riordan and Liz Phair, who took her on tour. While apt, such comparisons feel overly eager to situate the young singer in a sort of feminist matriarchal lineage. The press materials for 'If You Asked for a Picture' cite a different set of sonic references (Red Hot Chili Peppers, Queens of the Stone Age) that suggest a desire to complicate gendered readings of her music. 'T&A,' the album's sardonic and wrenching lead single, which Teitelbaum performed on 'Jimmy Kimmel Live!' in a suit, was loosely inspired by 'Little T&A' by the Rolling Stones — the archetypal dude band. (Though perhaps this is itself a subtle nod to Phair, whose own 'Exile in Guyville' responded to the Stones' 'Exile on Main St.') 'I think, in some ways, talking about female musicians through the lens of feminism has been a way to minimize the complexity of them as musicians,' said Teitelbaum, choosing her words carefully, and then hedging: 'It can be.' She's similarly ambivalent about calling her — admittedly confessional — songwriting 'vulnerable,' a word that minimizes her agency in the process. Laser-focused and assertive in conversation, she rebutted a characterization of her songs as 'insecure,' in reference to their themes of body dysmorphia: 'For me, it's a form of security or confidence to be able to talk about things that feel shameful,' she said. Her posture was understandably defensive: Public-facing Sabrina was protecting songwriter Sabrina, so she could save all her sensitivity for her craft. She has yet to hold back a song for fear of overexposure, she said. The singer-songwriter Samia, who got to know Teitelbaum when she was still going by Baum, also pointed to the confidence behind her friend's confessions. 'I think it's brave to speak so plainly and trust that people will understand the context,' she said in an interview, adding that Teitelbaum had 'encouraged me to make some riskier decisions.' Teitelbaum has built and rebuilt her confidence over time. She recalled her first night opening for Phair in 2023, after a string of her own headlining shows: 'We soundchecked, and the pace was so much faster than I was used to,' she said. 'I remember talking to my band after, and being like, 'I was so comfortable before, and now I feel like the new person in the room.'' The experience was motivating, not discouraging: 'I was like, 'I'm going to get better.'' With another big tour on the horizon, Teitelbaum is eager to continue growing as a performer — but not to give too much of herself away. 'I don't have to have some story going from this section of the show to that section. I don't have to come up with banter,' she said. Not everything 'has to be 'tee-hee,'' she's realized. A number of years ago, Teitelbaum set a goal for herself to book the Fonda, a famed theater on Hollywood Boulevard. In her next run of shows, she'll check it off her bucket list. But her favorite place to tour is on the East Coast, and hometown crowds are particularly special. Being back in New York is 'emotionally charged,' she said, as opposed to Los Angeles, which can feel 'monotonous.' She's contemplating a move back home. (Another reason: A true New Yorker, she never learned to drive.) In the meantime, Teitelbaum's visit stirred something. She brought up Sharon Van Etten's music video for her song 'Seventeen,' in which the singer visits personal landmarks around New York, shadowed by a teenage look-alike. The video captures the potent intersections of place and memory — the junctures where past and present selves collide. Teitelbaum wondered aloud if she was being corny. She wasn't; this was the stuff of great songs yet to be written.
Winnipeg Free Press
28-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
Music Review: Blondshell alt-rock finds new nuance on ‘If You Asked for a Picture'
Sabrina Teitelbaum, who records under the band name Blondshell, is a longtime student of alt-rock. She knows a thing or two about all the ways in which a cutting lyric and thunderous guitar can rejuvenate the soul and soundtrack rage. On her sophomore album, 'If You Asked for a Picture,' named after Mary Oliver's 1986 poem 'Dogfish,' she builds from the success of her earlier work – 2023's self-titled debut and its haunting single 'Salad.' Over the course of 12 tracks, much like on her first album, Blondshell reckons with a woman's role in her various relationships, personally and societally. Those messages — gritty, real, existential and fluid as they are — arrive atop visceral instrumentation, hearty guitars and punchy percussion. 'Oh well you're not gonna save him,' she reminds listeners in 'Arms.' Much of 'If You Asked for a Picture' sits at the intersection of modern indie, '90s grunge and '80s college radio rock, like that of 'Event of a Fire.' On the acoustic fake-out 'Thumbtack,' instrumentation builds slow and remains restrained. 'Man' is muscular, with its soaring distortion and layered production. On 'If You Asked for a Picture,' relationships are nuanced, awkward and honest — her flawed and frustrated characters show how easy it is to succumb to the whims of someone who doesn't have your best interest in mind, to become someone else when you don't know who you are. That's clear on 'Change,' where she sings, 'It's not my fault it's who I am / When I feel bad I bring it back and leave it all at your door.' And the anxious complications compound: 'A parting gift / Kiss me back / I'm sorry for changing.' If there is a main weakness in 'If You asked for a Picture,' it is that a number of the tracks bleed together sonically near the record's end, making it hard to distinguish a three-song run: 'Toy' to 'Man.' Fans will likely label it stylistic consistency rather than tiresome repetition. During Elections Get campaign news, insight, analysis and commentary delivered to your inbox during Canada's 2025 election. That said, there's a lot to love here. 'T&A,' 'Model Rockets' and the palm-muted power chords of 'What's Fair' warrant repeat listens. 'Why don't the good ones love me?' Blondshell asks on 'T&A,' with its dreamy guitar tone 'Watching him fall / Watching him go right in front of me.' The swaying mellotron of 'Model Rockets' ends the album. 'I'm a bad bad girl / Bad bad girl,' she adds to the closer. 'Life may have been happening elsewhere / And I don't know what I want anymore.' It might serve as a mission statement for the album — where identity and desire are malleable, influenced by relationships and the evolving nature of the world, made more complicated by simply being a woman in it.
Associated Press
28-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Associated Press
Music Review: Blondshell alt-rock finds new nuance on 'If You Asked for a Picture'
Sabrina Teitelbaum, who records under the band name Blondshell, is a longtime student of alt-rock. She knows a thing or two about all the ways in which a cutting lyric and thunderous guitar can rejuvenate the soul and soundtrack rage. On her sophomore album, 'If You Asked for a Picture,' named after Mary Oliver's 1986 poem 'Dogfish,' she builds from the success of her earlier work – 2023's self-titled debut and its haunting single 'Salad.' Over the course of 12 tracks, much like on her first album, Blondshell reckons with a woman's role in her various relationships, personally and societally. Those messages — gritty, real, existential and fluid as they are — arrive atop visceral instrumentation, hearty guitars and punchy percussion. 'Oh well you're not gonna save him,' she reminds listeners in 'Arms.' Much of 'If You Asked for a Picture' sits at the intersection of modern indie,'90s grunge and '80s college radio rock, like that of 'Event of a Fire.' On the acoustic fake-out 'Thumbtack,' instrumentation builds slow and remains restrained. 'Man' is muscular, with its soaring distortion and layered production. On 'If You Asked for a Picture,' relationships are nuanced, awkward and honest — her flawed and frustrated characters show how easy it is to succumb to the whims of someone who doesn't have your best interest in mind, to become someone else when you don't know who you are. That's clear on 'Change,' where she sings, 'It's not my fault it's who I am / When I feel bad I bring it back and leave it all at your door.' And the anxious complications compound: 'A parting gift / Kiss me back / I'm sorry for changing.' If there is a main weakness in 'If You asked for a Picture,' it is that a number of the tracks bleed together sonically near the record's end, making it hard to distinguish a three-song run: 'Toy' to 'Man.' Fans will likely label it stylistic consistency rather than tiresome repetition. That said, there's a lot to love here. 'T&A,' 'Model Rockets' and the palm-muted power chords of 'What's Fair' warrant repeat listens. 'Why don't the good ones love me?' Blondshell asks on 'T&A,' with its dreamy guitar tone 'Watching him fall / Watching him go right in front of me.' The swaying mellotron of 'Model Rockets' ends the album. 'I'm a bad bad girl / Bad bad girl,' she adds to the closer. 'Life may have been happening elsewhere / And I don't know what I want anymore.' It might serve as a mission statement for the album — where identity and desire are malleable, influenced by relationships and the evolving nature of the world, made more complicated by simply being a woman in it.
