The College Knockout

posted in: Artist Features • Pop

Some brothers and sisters fight like cats and dogs, others make beautiful music together. Bethany and Kurtis Parks of Bethany and the Guitar clearly belong to the second camp. Though their songs were recorded in guest bedrooms and freshman dorms, they’re pitch perfect, patchwork melodies that blend strings, found percussion and other organic ephemera. As Long As I’ve Got You is sun-kissed folk-pop a la Colbie Caillat. More ambitious terrain can be found in Careful With Me, a layer cake of keys, violin, tambourines, handclaps and the female Parks’ sweet coo. Sparrow, with its analog crackles, warbling keys and softly strummed strings is lovely, as is In Need, where a Fender Rhodes tiptoes through the melancholia. Bethany and the Guitar’s music is full of dusty romance, a far nicer kind than you typically find in college dorm rooms.

“Sparrow” – Bethany and the Guitar