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Seldom has there been such a proliferation of violins in non-classical music as this year. Chamber pop is everywhere as perhaps the perfect antidote to dance music. Who is Very Secretary to be left out of the turn to posh instrumentation? This is gentle, summer-turning-to-fall music, with just a hint of melancholy in the interplay between David Johnson’s breathy vocals and Rachael Dietkus’ ever-present violin that acts as a second vocalist. Standing In The Shade would rate a tad higher with a bit more melodic variation and the vocals mixed a bit louder, but the 10 songs form a coherent whole that ideally suits these late September days.

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Sarah Zupko is a former Executive Producer at Tribune Media Services, the media syndication arm of the Tribune Company, and a 10-year veteran of Tribune Company. Aside from writing novels and plays, she devotes most of her time and energy to running PopMatters.com and formerly PopCultures.com, as well as research in the fields of Slavic and German history, and general European cultural and intellectual history. Zupko studied musicology, film, and drama at the University of Chicago and media theory at the University of Texas, where she received her M.A. in 1995.


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