- General Admission Standing Room
Day jobs and night classes. Talkin about the weather. Red roses and silver harps, the hum of the refrigerator and old Kentucky wine. A pool table and a wood stove, a bed in the back of the bar we can use. The dream you’re dreaming, doctor’s bills, days in motion and years standing still. This ephemeral life.
In college I came across an anthology of classical Chinese poetry translated by Red Pine. Flipping through the volume, poets’ names and biographies blinking by in two or three sentences, whole seasons wheeled past: three spring poems, one from late summer, two from the dead of winter. The speed at which life proceeds, the anonymity and eternity of the poet, is unmistakable at the distances of millennia.
Years Go Through Me Now, a new collaborative album by singer-songwriter Jake Klar and folk-rock trio Blue Ranger, is a quiet triumph of such glimpses. In its nine songs and two interludes, I hear the motions of weathered hands, the gentle rush of country roads, the laughter of old friends and the silence of rumination — the quilt of dreams and doings we call a life.
GoldFlakePaint describes Klar’s music as “An urgent meeting of folk, roots and good old rock and roll that carries with it an unbreakable spirit.” A fixture in New England’s folk scene, Klar has toured nationally, played festivals including Otis Mountain Get Down and FreshGrass, and supported the likes of Cut Worms, Antwaun Stanley, and Al Olender.
Klar has spent the past decade working as a letterpress printer, art store clerk, bartender, carpenter, illustrator, graphic designer, musician (touring DIY on his own and as a member of Prewn and Hannah Mohan), live sound engineer, merch guy, and custodian. His songwriting, from the misty-eyed title track to the down-home boogie-woogie of “Driving Home Through the Country” (here recast murmurously from an earlier electric version), dwells in a rustic realm borne by his crackling voice and hearthside acoustic guitar. “That Forever” is a haunted, fragmented road-movie that emerges from its dust like a lost Basement Tapes recording, while the last-call piano ballad “Louisa” wouldn’t sound amiss on After The Gold Rush.
Years Go Through Me Now is Klar’s first full-length since his 2017 debut, Until the Wild Fire Becomes Paradise — “No one ever slapped my hand for being too fast,” he smiles — with the interceding years seeing a steady stream of singles and EPs (including a pair of beautifully bare EPs, Witness and Masquerade). Klar brought the songs that would become Years Go Through Me Now to his friends Blue Ranger in early 2024.
The collaboration proved intuitive and ideal; painterly masters of a bittersweet Americana, the trio lent Klar’s songs their most mature and poignant accompaniment yet. Matt Griffin’s hazy drums seem to emerge from memory or wishful thinking, while brothers Josh and Evan Marré contribute a range of instruments, including bass, pedal steel, synthesizers, and sublime slide guitar. It’s all brotherly love; in one of the record’s most transcendent moments, the coda to the gorgeous “New Paltz”, the whole band joins Klar in rippled choruses of “Tell it like it is / Days go by”. After just a week of recording, the band and Klar mixed the record together.
As the great lathe of late capitalism grinds independent music into smoking filings, artists must ask ourselves — what is this for? What work is it mine and only mine to make? What’s worth preserving for the unimaginable future? For Klar and Blue Ranger, the answer is clear: a celebration of the real through which they and all of us drift, what Klar calls “the day’s constant mix of memories and the present.” In Years Go Through Me Now, he and Blue Ranger offer a paean to life as we live it.
-----
Cloudbelly is a Western Massachusetts-based indie-folk band known for their emotionally charged songwriting and expansive, chameleonic sound. Centered around Corey Laitman’s poetic lyrics and haunting vocals, the band draws from alt-folk, art-rock, and ambient textures to create music that feels nostalgic, cinematic, and raw. Their 2024 album i know i know i know earned national acclaim—named one of the Top Albums of the Year by The Boston Globe and nominated for Album of the Year at the Boston Music Awards. Most recently, they performed for a sold-out crowd at The Sinclair alongside Tiny Desk Contest winner Cure For Paranoia as a part of the NPR Tiny Desk On The Road tour. With a lineup featuring guitarist Sam Perry, drummer/producer Nate Mondschein, and guitarist/vocalist Ciarra Fragale, Cloudbelly delivers live performances that are both emotionally immersive and disarmingly playful. Their single “Oh, Antarctica!” (the first from their forthcoming LP) was released on August 21st, 2026.