Hayley Marsten - Reina del Cid - Miriam Clancy - Sarah Jane Scouten

Hayley Marsten new single 'Red Wine, White Dress' is a refined country rocker that exudes quality and feeling and is a very good indicator for her forthcoming debut album.

Reina del Cid has released 'Bernadette' the first song from her 'Morse Code' due out in October. This is my first listen to Reina and clearly I am a little late to the party, nonetheless what a pleasure it's going to be playing catch up.

Miriam Clancy has shared 'The Bells' the lead off single from 'Astronomy', her first album in nine years and it's a gorgeous rocker where the solid soundtrack and her gliding melodic vocals although seemingly opposites work fabulously together.

Sarah Jane Scouten striking new song 'Ballad of a Southern Midwife' mixes folk, country and rock together which is rather good in it's own right, however it's the determined passionate vocals that really stand out.
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Hayley Marsten - Red Wine, White Dress.

Hayley Marsten has just released her new single ‘Red Wine, White Dress’ and its accompanying video.  The release comes off the back of ‘Wendy’, Marsten’s most successful single to date, which received widespread airplay across Australia and peaked at #25 on the CMC charts. It was added to both ABC Local and  ABC Country playlists and has received over 185,000 plays on Spotify.  That’s the past and the future is ‘Red Wine, White Dress’ as well as Marsten’s upcoming debut album Spectacular Heartbreak, set for release on 30th August – pre order here.

Marsten co-wrote ‘Red Wine, White Dress’ with Brad Butcher, a Golden Guitar and QMA winner.  She’d fostered the idea for a long time to describe how someone can stain your life or make you feel a little ruined – the red wine on a white dress. ‘It wasn’t until I was going through a break-up that it felt like the relationship had stained Brisbane for me in a way that meant I could write it,’ said Marsten. ‘I felt like there was nowhere we didn’t go, nowhere I could escape the grief and confusion, and it brought up all my most suppressed fears.’

‘It was incredibly confronting to record,’ said Marsten, ‘but I feel like it embodies what the album is about, the strength to show your vulnerabilities. Luckily time is the best kind of emotional wine stain removal.’ The track was recorded in LoveHZ Studios in Sydney with Matt Fell, an ARIA and Golden Guitar winning producer, while the video was shot in Brisbane with Duncan Toombs from The Filmery.

Speaking about the video, Marsten said ‘I really wanted to shoot it in Brisbane because the city is so tied up in the song. Duncan and I wanted to keep the video dreamlike to represent the haze of a confused relationship, while we focused on the two sides represented in the song: the vulnerability of the white dress and the anger of the red wine.’ It was filmed at Can You Keep a Secret, a bar in South Brisbane. ‘It was the perfect backdrop because it literally looks like it’s stuck in time,’ said Marsten, ‘and instead of heading for the obvious visual of red wine on a white dress we wanted the video to be tinged red like a stain on my mind.’

The release comes just two weeks before Marsten releases her debut album, after which she’ll embark on her first headline tour while also supporting artists including Troy Cassar-Daley and Fanny Lumsden.  The tour will take her through Queensland, NSW, Victoria and Tasmania and with the new album under her belt, it’s sure to be a tour that fans will long remember.


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Reina del Cid - Bernadette.

Celebrated Minneapolis singer/songwriter Reina Del Cid has released "Bernadette," the first song from her new album MORSE CODE out October 4. Reina Del Cid's storytelling prowess shines on the song, which appears to feature a visitor from the artist's past. "It feels like I lost a friend, I find myself wondering, will she haunt my home again, oh my Bernadette."

Reina Del Cid notes that she was finishing up the album and the melody for "Bernadette" came to her and wouldn't leave her alone. "It was almost like a ghost named Bernadette was tapping me on the shoulder and demanding that her story be told.  So I booked an extra day in the studio, brough the band back in, and we recorded this one on the fly with no rehearsals."

MORSE CODE was recorded at The Library recording studio in Minneaplis with frequent collaborator Toni Lindgren (guitar), Andy Mark (bass), Nate Babbs (drums) and Matt Patrick (organ), who also serves as producer. Reina Del Cid has amassed a devoted and engaged fan base with her Youtube channel, Sunday Mornings with Reina Del Cid, which began in 2017. She has amassed over 30 million views and over 127,000 subscribers. Fans eagerly await her posts on Sunday mornings, which range from folk standards to obscure tracks to originals. Those fans turn out to catch her live as well as she performs in the US and abroad. A full list of tour dates is below, and additional shows will be announced soon.

Long before she adopted the moniker Reina del Cid and developed a music career online, Rachelle Cordova was a quiet bookish kid from Fargo, ND. In the summers she tended sugar beet crops with her dad, writing down lyrics and poems in a notebook on the long drives out to beet fields scattereed across North Dakota and Minnesota. As an honors student at University of Minnesota, she met Toni Lindgren, a skilled guitarist from Fond du lac, WI, and the two formed a musical bond that has spanned eight years, four studio albums, countless tours, and over a hundred Sunday Mornings videos.


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Miriam Clancy - The Bells.

New York and Pennsylvania-based, New Zealand-bred singer/songwriter Miriam Clancy returned earlier today with "The Bells," the leadoff single from Astronomy, her first album in nine years.

"With an evocative title like 'The Bells,' Miriam Clancy announces her return with noise and urgency," High Clouds editor Arnaud Marty wrote on "The Bells". "Sounding as a reintroduction and a reinvention... there’s both an evanescent beauty and a dose of strength and self-confidence to the track, a combo that makes it assuredly magic and elusive."

Although Astronomy is Clancy's first official full-length album stateside, the album will assuredly land as a reintroduction and a reinvention to her predominantly New Zealander fanbase. Its ten songs represent a cathartic fork in the road borne out of existential crisis, including moving her and her four children to the US earlier this decade.

Crafted over several years of sessions in New York City with producer Chris Coady (Beach House, Yeah Yeah Yeahs), Astronomy brings massive changes to Clancy's sound, specifically swooning electric guitars, wurlitzers, early 90’s drum machines and analogue synths.


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Sarah Jane Scouten - Ballad of a Southern Midwife.

Steeped in North American and British Folk music, Sarah Jane's music delivers a signature mix of vintage folk and country, with modern sounds and subjects.

Originally written for Sarah Jane's first album 10 years ago, Ballad of a Southern Midwife comes from the imagination of a young and naïve songwriter, cured with age, and once again released with more hell-fire than ever.

Raised in a musical family on Bowen Island BC, where harmony singing was more common than watching television, Sarah Jane commits to her roots, using her warbling voice and knack for storytelling to captivate and transport her audiences. Her songs run the emotional gamut, creating a world of characters who come alive in her often haunting and equally whimsical ballads.

Her upcoming fourth album "Confessions", recorded in Toronto with veteran producer Andre Wahl (Light Organ Records), is a further exploration of Americana sounds and song forms. It is a collection of revelatory songs -- a series of confessions -- which valorize, condemn and eulogize the most important relationships of her life to new harrowing heights.

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