Miles Kurosky

Miles Kurosky earned a certain dorky devotion as the leader of San Francisco's pop-symphonic Beulah, polishing his melodies with oblique lyrics and big, beaming arrangements. Albums like 1999's When Your Heartstrings Break have aged magnificently, and a staunchly obsessed few have waited on Kurosky's first solo album since the band's 2004 breakup. The Desert Of Shallow Effects finally came out this March, and it's at once a bizarro companion to and progression from Beulah's work. Kurosky still piles on the instrumentation and bittersweet hooks, but with a more breathable, chaotic finish. The more narrative lyrics of the new songs bear scars from six years of moves, multiple surgeries, and, as he says in the liner notes, "general douchebaggery."  

Updated 03/25/2010