Tobias Carroll

Widowspeak's Molly Hamilton discusses how a Brooklyn band goes country:

Widowspeak's sophomore album, Almanac, was recorded in the country, far from the band's Brooklyn base, and reflects their interest in getting out of the city, sonically. 

Bio: Tobias Carroll lives in Brooklyn and writes frequently about books and music. His writing has appeared in Yeti, The L Magazine, Dusted Magazine, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. He is an editor at Vol.1 Brooklyn, makes his home at The Scowl, and can be found on Twitter at @TobiasCarroll.

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Widowspeak's Molly Hamilton discusses how a Brooklyn band goes country

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The cover of Almanac—which places Hamilton and Thomas in a decidedly pastoral setting—takes its cue from yet another place in time. “For me, visually, the ‘70s are the biggest thing,” Hamilton explained. “A lot of the record cover was influenced by that. What people might think is just kitsch—people in a meadow or people in the woods—there were so many record covers in the ‘70s that were like that. I liked the idea of that being a canon, that you shouldn’t be so formal. Putting yourself on a record cover is kind of like owning up to the fact that you made it. I actually made this thing, and we were in front of this waterfall that was 15 minutes away from where we recorded it. It seemed like such a ridiculous idea, but it was also true, sort of.” More

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By Tobias Carroll

on January 22nd, 2013 3:22pm

 
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Brooklyn-bred band the Babies seek inspiration from way out west

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The Babies' interest in in-between-ness could have something to do with the group’s origins as a side project. Ramone and Morby are probably best known for their work with the bands Vivian Girls and Woods, respectively. But the slow-burning, fuzzed-out pop music they make as the Babies—along with bassist Brian Schleyer and drummer Justin Sullivan—gets inside your head in weird ways, from Morby’s David Lowery-esque vocals to the nimble soloing heard throughout their body of work. Morby and Ramone alternate lead guitar and lead vocal duties, and the result is a jangly sound that possesses more than a little alt-country influence. More

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By Tobias Carroll

on November 13th, 2012 12:31pm

 
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Franklin Foer and Marc Tracy discuss the genesis of new anthology 'Jewish Jocks'

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“I love that we have David Bezmozgis’s stubbornly Russian essay about a Soviet weightlifter alongside Etgar Keret’s piece about a crazy Israeli soccer star next to the piece about the competitive eater from Brooklyn,” explained Franklin Foer, who, along with Marc Tracy, edited the book. “It’s this alchemy that could only come about from casting an extremely wide net and pursuing writers and letting them go off and indulge their exceedingly esoteric interests.” More

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By Tobias Carroll

on November 5th, 2012 10:55am

 
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Author Paul Elie on the persistent urge toward 'Reinventing Bach'

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The book that resulted centers around several renowned musicians and conductors: Stokowski, Casals, Glenn Gould, and Albert Schweitzer, all known for their interpretations of Bach. “When I saw that their careers lined up in a rough way with the leaps forward in technology, that suggested a structure,” Elie recalled. “When I read Lawrence Dreyfus’s book about Bach and the patterns of invention, and the notion that Bach was himself an inventor of a kind, it all started locking together. Bach was an inventor of a kind; these people were reinventing Bach; they were doing something by using the inventions of audio pioneers.” More

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By Tobias Carroll

on October 9th, 2012 1:45pm

 
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Beattie, Moore, Eggers, Gaitskill, Eugenides, Lethem and others publish a master class in the short story for 'Paris Review'

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“Our initial concern was maybe that the stories selected would be too well-known, and that it would be a sort of greatest-hits collection,” Stein explained. “Those fears were pretty quickly laid to rest by the range of stories that were selected.” And while some of the writers’ writers featured here are not exactly obscure—Raymond Carver, Denis Johnson, Jorge Luis Borges—the density and stylistic variation of Object Lessons proves Stein’s point. S More

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By Tobias Carroll

on October 4th, 2012 11:47am

 
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Victor LaValle discusses returning his fiction to Queens and to the question of manhood

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Finishing Big Machine, LaValle explained, “gave me the courage to depart from Queens, from autobiographical Queens. The first two books are very autobiographical and, strictly speaking, pretty realistic stories. But I was tired of that. I wanted to give myself the freedom, but I didn’t think I could do that right away. I had to go to Oakland and Vermont and Cedar Rapids, Iowa to give myself that.” While his latest is not an overtly realistic tale, it’s far more grounded than its predecessor—no secret organizations, no large-scale demonic infestations. But it is every bit as sinister. More

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By Tobias Carroll

on August 22nd, 2012 12:09pm

 
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Nathan Larson's noir novels imagine a city and a memory in ruins

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In the case of The Nervous System, that involves a corrupt conservative Senator, an unsolved murder hearkening back to the days of a more intact city, and a sinister group of paramilitary contractors led by a ex-cop named Nic Deluccia. Deluccia repeatedly implies a long history between himself and Decimal, and, over the course of the novel, offers an ominously plausible explanation for both Decimal’s current condition and for New York’s devastation. The married Senators at the center of the book allow Larson to riff on New York City machine politics, conservative homophobia, and the underside of populist politics—and it can’t be coincidence that one has the last name of Koch. More

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By Tobias Carroll

on July 5th, 2012 11:58am

 
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Brian Evenson writes great horror fiction by boldly defying the conventions of horror writing

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In late 2011, Astrophil Press reissued his collection Contagion And Other Stories; last month saw the release of his post-apocalyptic novel Immobility. Now comes Windeye, the sixth collection of his short fiction to appear in print. His fans may need some time to catch up with such productivity (and they can catch up with him in person tonight as part of “Laughter in the Dark: The Comedy of Noir” with Tim Horvath and Bradford Morrow at McNally Jackson bookstore). More

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By Tobias Carroll

on May 31st, 2012 11:47am

 
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In 'Sound,' T.M. Wolf's experimental debut novel, dialogue that reads like musical notation

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Sound, T.M. Wolf’s debut novel, out this week from Faber & Faber, takes a formally inventive approach to evoking those spaces and stutters and ums and ers and likes that form the rhythms of everyday conversation. He sets the dialogue on the page as though it's musical notation. It’s a bold choice on Wolf’s part, and one that fits in neatly with his overall style, a densely written prose that creates an immersive sense of place. In the midst of all of this is a comparably conventional plot—a mid-twenties coming-of-age narrative laced with some traces of low-level criminal activity at the margins—but the stylistic risks that Wolf takes and his ability to create a vibrant sense of place more than compensate for the moments where the novel's central action feels mundane. More

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By Tobias Carroll

on April 27th, 2012 12:58pm

 
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On their latest album, Howlin Rain presents classic rock revivalism with a knowing wink

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There's a sense that Miller strives to blend classic-rock moments with meditations on the same. Howlin Rain’s is a rock sound that wouldn’t have been out of place in 1970—think Cream, Sabbath, just a hint of Joe Cocker—merged with a modern and self-aware sensibility. More Southern rock than proto-metal, Miller’s vocals bearing a ragged soul influence. It’s a tour of classic rock styles and more a strange amalgamation of them. That's the band's MO: juxtaposing styles to achieve something majestic yet disconcerting. More

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By Tobias Carroll

on February 16th, 2012 12:05pm