Today we’re taking a look at two new releases: Ryan Groff’s People in the Midwest and A Shoreline Dream’s Coastal EP:

Ryan Groff - People in the Midwest

On his debut solo record, Ryan Groff is clearly a young man with a lot of ideas and talent trying to shape those virtues into a coherent voice. People in the Midwest is a collection of eight songs from the frontman of Champaign’s indie-folk act Elsinore, most of which hit the mark with an intimate, warm sound. Groff’s music is incongruous with a September release date; the sound is wintry as can be, exhaling a cozy propinquity, with even the cover photograph finding Groff standing in a snow covered scene, flakes nestled in his long black locks. Like the severe isolation fomented by icy landscapes, the tracks on this album are weighed down with the heaviness of longing.

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The Department of Homeland Clichés can say what they’d like, but I’m not sure too many people are flattered by imitation. Trademarks, copyrights, and the entire legal industry that fights to keep intellectual property sacred seem evidence that the adage has it backwards: imitation is the shortest route to a cease and desist letter.

Admittedly, things work a little differently in the arts and in music in particular, where any artist’s creations trace a clear lineage through the works which preceded them. It is inevitable and fundamental, a river of generic progression only flowing one way. Still, Ulrich Schnauss’ third and latest release, Goodbye, is such a near flawless fascimile of the records released by England’s Slowdive in the heyday of the early ’90s shoegazer movement that the band’s former members should be rounding up their legal eagles and suing for infringement.

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