Regarding his new album Cuchulain Kelly tells Beehive Candy "This album is an ode to the nonsense, chaos, and humor of my life. It's also a love letter to the band I had in Eugene, Oregon for four years, who shaped my sound immensely. I'm a new parent and recent transplant to Ithaca, NY, and a lot of that comes out in this music."
Cuchulain is a low-voiced songwriter with a wry wit. Featured four years in a row as the NPR Music Tiny Desk Contest "Desk of the Day," the multi-instrumentalist's duets album FEAT was called "an as-yet-unpublished portion of the Great American Songbook." Cuchulain's deep baritone and clever lyrics have drawn comparisons to Johnny Cash, Leonard Cohen, and Randy Newman. From the Kennedy Center to the Oregon Country Fair, from Club Passim in Boston to the Cobblestone in Dublin, Cuchulain's lyrics have brought laughs and tears to audiences across the US and beyond.
He has shared the stage with renowned folk acts including Ira Wolf, Jeffrey Lewis, Viv & Riley, Billy Keane, Upstate, Julianna Zachariou, Jenner Fox, R.O. Shapiro, and more. His Sing In The Shower single release tour took him to Europe in the summer of 2022, and his nationwide My Dog single release tour criss-crossed the US in summer 2023. His experimental album Minute To Win It, a visual album of 20 songs in 20 minutes peaked at 20,000 monthly listeners on Spotify; was screened at the Portland Festival of Cinema, Animation, & Technology and Portland Panorama; and won awards at the Oregon Short Film Festival, the San Francisco Arthouse Festival, and Minute Madness Toronto.
============================================================================
Spectator is a husband-and-wife duo from St. Louis, Missouri, featuring Megan Rooney and Jeffrey Albert. Their music draws comparisons to the indie rock and the dreampop styles of Mazzy Star and early Tennis. Their double-sided single, “Venus + Jupiter,” was released on Friday, April 3, 2026. Drawing from folk, soul, indie, and Brazilian bossa nova influences, the pair have cultivated a distinctive sound rooted in evocative melodies and heartfelt storytelling. This project began during the pandemic, developed and nurtured at home, and shows how creativity can flourish in unexpected times.
The two songs delve into themes of family, time, and parenthood, offering a window into the duo’s experience as musicians raising young children while sustaining their long-standing creative partnership. The new single marks their first release since the acclaimed 2019 album, Charlie, Baby. Megan and Jeffrey began collaborating in 2006, united by a shared passion for melody and atmospheric songwriting. They debuted with the EP In the Brick in 2012, followed by their full-length album, The Last Exchange, in 2015. Rooney and Albert describe their songwriting process as beginning with melody and fragments of language that slowly reveal the emotional core of a song. Their music often explores nostalgia, fleeting moments, relationships, and the contradictions between melancholy and hope.
“Venus” began as a quiet song that Megan and Jeffrey played for their daughter as a baby. The track became a dreamy meditation on memory and the passage of time, inspired by old photographs, family heirlooms, and the way memories resurface like scenes from a home movie.
The companion track, “Jupiter,” was written shortly after the birth of their son in early 2020 during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic. The song reflects both the wonder of watching a newborn grow and the emotional tension of welcoming a child during a time when the world felt simultaneously vast and closed off.
============================================================================
 |
| Photo - Freya Barber |
Manchester England band The Rolling People have released their new EP Outlier today 6th April. Marking a bold step forward in both sound and identity, the EP captures a band in the midst of reinvention - sharper, more expansive, and unapologetically themselves.The EP coincides with the launch of a new brand partnership alongside Pretty Green.
Outlier sees The Rolling People deliver on their already feverish hype. Produced by Richard McNamara (guitarist of Embrace, production credits including Basht., EEVAH), the six track release retains the raw energy that has defined their rapid ascent as both a live and recording band whilst bringing a more rock focused, driving and anthemic grit. McNamara’s influence brings clarity and scale to the band’s evolving identity, balancing anthemic indie hooks with atmosphere and depth to create an expansive and immediate, yet, emotional and reflective sound.
From the punching drums and a dense wall of guitars on opener ‘State Of Things’ and ‘Your Take’, to the melodic depth and expansive weight of ‘Soldered Souls’ the band showcase a completeness to their sound and a giant, intense stadium ready depth to their sound.
Speaking about the EP, the band explain: “Outlier is our most expansive work yet, addressing meanings and narratives that we previously haven’t explored. We utilised sounds that pushed our creativity forward, working with our producer, Rick McNamara, who really encouraged us to get the best out of each track. The EP is a deeply introspective account of the struggles and emotional challenges that we each face in life. Each song on the EP represents a different emotion that people may think is a vulnerability; however, they are actually normal, with everyone going through them at some point in their lives. The themes span across love, loss, intrusive thoughts, fear and more, which are all relatable to the audience’s own experiences in their life.”
============================================================================
‘Gil Carter’ off Poi Rogers’ upcoming sophomore release, ‘Whirligig’, tells the little known story of the longest home run in baseball history, hit on August 11th, 1959, by minor leaguer Gil Carter of the Carlsbad, NM, Potashers. It was documented at a staggering 733’ from home plate, thanks to reporters finding the peach it knocked out of a tree two blocks from the stadium. No replays, no videos, just documented by a single peach.
Nominated alongside Sierra Ferrell, Brennen Leigh and Melissa Carper for the 2023 Western Swing Female Ameripolitan Award, Poi Rogers' bassist Carolyn Sills has gained international recognition for her catchy and intelligent songwriting about atypical subjects. Her 2019 collaboration with Grammy Award Winning engineer Sylvia Massy (Johnny Cash, Rick Rubin), on her original, Marty Robbins based concept album, ‘Return to El Paso,’ earned her a whole new fan base.
Carolyn shares, “what I love about Gil Carter's story is the humbleness of it all... even with that colossal home run, his team lost the game that day, and he never made it to the Majors. He retired to Topeka with that legendary ball and bat; folks would visit like a pilgrimage just to see them and hear the story. He was inducted into the National Baseball Congress Hall of Fame just after he passed in 2015. It's one of the most impressive moments in baseball that hardly anyone saw or speaks of. I felt compelled to write a song about it.”
Poi Rogers recorded ‘Gil Carter’ as simply as they perform: Gerard Egan on the acoustic guitar he built while a luthier at Santa Cruz Guitar Company, Carolyn on her 1940s Kay upright bass. With the help of virtuoso mandolinist Tim Connell and drummer David Roda (Melvin Seals, Scott Law), they bring a classic, honest sound that listeners are longing for now more than ever. Poi Rogers' 2026 release - ‘Whirligig’ due out May 1st - is set to introduce this oddly original Americana duo to a much wider audience, as they continue their quest to keep music organic, intimate and real.
============================================================================
No comments:
Post a Comment