RadATL Atlanta shows

Kelsey Wilson, Alexander, and Hot Trash play Railroad Earth on Thursday, May 29

Hot Trash. Photo by Deisha Oliver.

There is quiet power that comes from embracing the subtle nuances, the unheard dimensions of sound that arise when crafting analog textures and drones that fall in the gray areas between musical improvisation and composition. Kelsey Wilson, Alexander, and Hot Trash will dive headlong into this kind of delicate intensity at Railroad Earth on Thursday, May 29.

Hot Trash, finds longtime friends and collaborators Bill Taft and Brian Halloran of W8ing4UFOs, pushing further into realms of abstraction. Using heavy effects to draw out the natural tones of cello and guitar, the duo lets the ghosts of Smoke and Hubcap City echo through a loose and highly personal framework that allows for breath and spontaneous combustion. Some songs have lyrics, some do not.

Alexander. Photo courtesy David Shapiro.

Alexander is the stage name used by New Haven, Connecticut guitar player David Shapiro—an understated yet technically dazzling presence whose work bridges the line between American Primitive guitar and a broader, more introspective drone-folk sensibility. Shapiro’s fingerstyle technique is steeped in the traditions of John Fahey and Robbie Basho, yet his voice is his own—attuned to the spectral edges of memory and movement. Shapiro’s performances unfold like meditations with gravity and grace, each note a stone dropped in still water.

Kelsey Wilson

Bringing the evening to a close, Kelsey Wilson crafts immersive, slow-burning soundscapes built from cassette loops, field recordings, and improvisation. Drawing a throughline from William Basinski’s decaying ambiance to the lo-fi texture worship of early Belong and Concern, Wilson’s set promises to be thick with atmosphere—disintegrating, reassembling, and hovering just out of reach.

$10. Thurs., May 29. Music starts at 8 p.m. Railroad Earth, 1467 Old Oxford Rd. N.E.

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RadATL New music

Shane Parish unveils live ‘Solo at Café OTO’ LP

Shane Parish: Solo at Cafe Oto (Red Eft Records). Cover photo by Petra Cvelbar.

Shane Parish has unveiled details for an evocative new album, titled Solo at Café OTO, due out July 1, via his own label, Red Eft Records.

Captured live in London on November 14, 2023, the album showcases Parish in full exploratory mode, performing an instrumental fingerstyle electric guitar set drawn from a deep well of British and American folk traditions. The performance took place during a sold-out evening of solo sets the night before Bill Orcutt’s Guitar Quartet appearance at the London Jazz Festival.


The album’s first single, a rendition of Angelo Badalamenti and David Lynch’s “Sycamore Trees,” from the Twin Peaks soundtrack, sets the tone for a dark, drifting, and emotionally resonant album. Parish also leans into the melancholy and mysticism of folk ballads by Anne Briggs, Shirley Collins, and John Jacob Niles, reinterpreting them with his own idiosyncratic voice and a minimalist rig: just a Fender Squier Telecaster plugged directly into the house amp. It’s the same guitar he used for 4 Guitars Live at Le Guess Who? Festival in Utrecht the night before—a gift from Bill Orcutt, passed down when Parish joined the four-guitar ensemble.

Parish’s 2024 release, Repertoire (Palilalia Records) featured tight arrangements of outsider standards from various musical genres—Kraftwerk’s “Europe Endless,” Alice Coltrane’s “Journey Into Satchidananda,” Aphex Twin’s “Avril 14th,” John Cage’s “Totem Ancestor”—allowing their melodies and their vital essences to take on a gently glowing body via the resonating steel strings of his guitar. With Solo at Café OTO, Parish summons a raw and intuitive performance that’s closer in spirit to 2016’s Undertaker Please Drive Slow (Tzadik). Here, each melody becomes a jumping-off point for spontaneous invention, with Parish letting the songs drift, fracture, and reform as if guided by wind and water. The result is both intimate and expansive—an arresting document of a singular guitarist at the height of his expressive powers.

Click here to pre order Solo at Café OTO.

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RadATL Uncategorized

Guitar explorations with Tom Carter on Sat., Dec. 9

Tom Carter


American primitive guitarist, improvisor, and co-founder of psychedelic drone-folk trio Charalambides, Tom Carter makes a rare solo appearance in the intimate settings of a private home studio in Scottdale. All are welcome. BYOB.

Sat., Dec. 9. Donations of $5-$10 are greatly appreciated. Music starts at 10 p.m. 322 Patterson Ave. Scottdale, GA 30079

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Yasmin Williams plays Eddie’s Attic on Sun., March 27

Yasmin Williams


Woodbridge, Virginia native Yasmin Williams is a true innovator of acoustic music. 

With her 2021 album, Urban Driftwood (Spinster), Williams fuses elements of traditional country and blues fingerpicking styles with jazz, hip-hop, and indie rock textures to weave a lush, sweet ambience. She plays the guitar almost like it’s a piano while tapping her feet on the floor to create percussive rhythms. Songs bearing titles such as “Through The Woods,” “Juvenescence,” and “Sundshowers” create a spacious atmosphere that’s filled with baroque melodies, giving nods to everyone from John Fahey to Alice Coltrane, while settling into a singularly modern and ethereal sound.

$15. 5 p.m. (doors). 6 p.m. (showtime). Eddie’s Attic.

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RadATL New music

Didi Wray dances with a ghost in ‘Tango Halloween’

Didi Wray with El Chico.

Singer, composer, and tango music icon Carlos Gardel died in a tragic plane crash at the height of his career in the summer of 1935. 

To this day, however, there is a legend in the streets of Buenos Aires that Gardel’s ghost can still be seen and heard, dancing and singing at night, seducing women with his voice.

It’s a spectral tale that lies at the heart of Didi Wray’s latest offering, “Tango Halloween.”

The new song falls on the heels of her previous monthly single releases “One Step Beyond” (feat Señor Chancho), and her take on Bernard Herrmann’s theme from “The Twilight Zone.” It’s also the first song that she’s released under her name to bear her singing voice.

Those who are familiar with the Santiago, Chile-based surf rock guitarist’s work know of her other musical project, One Chica Gypsy Band, where her Spanish croon plays a prominent role. Never has it appeared throughout her surf rock recordings.

“This is something special for my fans,” she says. “As with many things I do in my career, I was motivated to sing for them. Some of my fans know my one-woman band and have asked several times that I sing a song in the Didi style — something in English. So there you have it.”

Wray handles everything from programming the drums to guiding the rhythms of her violín bass that she’s dubbed “El Chico.” And, of course, the atmosphere of her chilling guitar tones bring a thrilling, supernatural ambience to her surf-tango mission—haunted house horror with her signature flare for Latin rhythms and surfboard kerrang—produced by Francisco David, and mixed and mastered by Patricio Arias. Artwork is courtesy of Brazilian cartoonist Leandro Franco.

Keep an eye out for “Tango Halloween” to appear later this year on a new LP featuring 12 new numbers that she has in the works.

Until then, keep an eye out for Gardel in the streets. Trick-or-treat.

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