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| Photo - Bill McCullough |
Alex Dupree has announced his new album 'Talking to the Dog which is due for release on August 14, and this week shares "New Meaning" from the album. Quote from Alex: "Songs don’t often reach me fully formed, but this one did. I sensed the whole shape of it right away: bright and brassy and Big Star-ish. It had the tumbling feeling of coins spilling out of a slot machine. Then I just needed language with the energy to match. The song is essentially working its way up to a “come all ye” type folk lyric: “people gather round, I got new meaning…”
Hank Williams once said that writing a song is just talking to the dog. That little piece of absurdist wisdom has become a title and guiding principle for Alex Dupree’s latest LP. What does it mean? Hank was likely just promoting his then-hit single “Move It On Over” to a radio interviewer. But Alex’s answers veer quickly into the mystical and visionary. He is a poet of rare composure and grace, and maybe for the first time in his 20+ year career, he’s found the band, the chords, and the arrangements to inject an almost inconceivable richness of color into his musical ideas.
The result is a legitimate mid-career masterpiece that announces Alex as a talent capable of equaling the brilliance of Cass McCombs, Bill Callahan, Neko Case, Ryan Davis, Joanna Newsom, Will Oldham, and other leaders of modern song.
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| Photo - Corey Poluk |
Bay Area indie pop band Yea-Ming and The Rumours return with their fourth studio album, Residue. With Yea-Ming’s signature heart-tugging lyrics and Nico-esq voice, she continues to explore the rawness of human experience and emotions. While 2024’s I Can’t Have It All signified a time of change and transition for Yea-Ming, Residue embraces the reset and the examination of reality after a storm, grappling with the overbearing nature of memory (remembering and forgetting) while submitting to the coarseness of love, intimacy and regret.
With the help of long-time collaborator Eóin Galvin (Hoxton Mob, Readyville) on lead guitar and lap steel, Ryli colleagues Rob Good (The Goods, Ryli) on bass and Luke Robbins (Ryli, R.E. Seraphin) on drums, Yea-Ming takes us on a journey of regrowth, with songs like Paper Doll where she admits inauthenticity in a world where one has been taught to please everyone around them to survive. In Treasury of Loved Ones, Yea-Ming explores the permanence of memory, or what appears to be permanent even as time moves on and erases moments out of our lives.
It’s a sweet and sad ode to remembering our loved ones, especially those we have lost to in time and in death. In Fine Afternoon, we are confronted with the reality of a tainted rebirth as Yea-Ming sings “in this life renewed, you’re my residue” (here we find our album title) and we remember that resets are never clean. The Rumours explore a little bit musically this time as well, which you hear in uncharacteristic danceable numbers like in the catchy but vulnerable and sensuous St. Etienne-like single Sweet Opiate.
While Good served as the band’s skilled recording engineer, Yea-Ming mixed the album at home; her vision realized through exploring texture, rhythm and sound, making Residue a Yea-Ming production through and through.
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Forget Them Wendy are an indie pop/grunge duo made up of Newcastle-based songwriter Laura James, and Edinburgh-born producer and guitarist Oliver Price, now living in London. The band take their name from a line in J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan: “Forget them, Wendy. Forget them all. Come with me where you'll never, never have to worry about grown up things again.” Shaped by their shared love of 90s records from bands including The Cranberries, Smashing Pumpkins and The Breeders, the pair combine indie pop melodies with grunge influences and playful, self-aware songwriting.
Their latest single, “Wise Guy”, captures the duo’s humour, honesty and reflective songwriting style. Written on Olly’s birthday last year and released on it this year, the track playfully explores the idea of growing older without necessarily becoming wiser. “‘It’s your birthday, look at you, so grown up it isn’t true…’” Laura sings, before the chorus turns more introspective: “‘Then you act like a wise guy, cos you don’t feel smart, why do you act like a wise guy?’” The song acts as a self-deprecating tease while touching on insecurity, identity and the pressure to appear more certain of yourself than you really feel.
Sonically, “Wise Guy” starts subtle, understated and intimate before changing gear unexpectedly into a soaring finale. Laura’s delicate, soft vocals sit alongside melodic guitars and a slow-paced beat, giving the track a calm, relaxed atmosphere. Its muted instrumentation and playful lyrics keep things feeling warm and low-key, while still carrying the reflective themes running through the song, before erupting into a powerful crescendo that brings the track to an uplifting close.
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Alt-pop singer/songwriter Maddie Zahm announces her stunning sophomore studio album, Everything All The Time, arriving September 25, 2026, via MNRK Nashville. Rather than treating growth as a final destination, Everything All The Time embraces it as an ongoing process, one rooted in curiosity, compassion, and the continual journey of coming home to yourself.
Across the album’s 12 tracks, Zahm channels a warm, kaleidoscopic sense of wonder, crafting a record that is candid, funny, heartbreaking, and deeply human. She recalls growing up watching Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood – the show became a north star for Zahm, opening her mind and allowing her to simply be without self-judgment. She looks back on the freedom of this childhood awe, reminding herself to embrace the strange, beautiful flood of becoming yourself on your own terms.
Now, Maddie shares the title track and lead single, “Everything All The Time.” Through her transcendent vocals, she reminds us that tapping into the full breadth of the universe isn’t always easy. The track opens with delicate piano keys before cracking wide open to make room for sweeping acoustic guitar and thunderous toms, her voice rising to the moment, a totemic beam lighting through the clouds.
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We have the deeply moving new release from country singer-songwriter CattSue. Her new single, “A Whisper on the Wind,” arrives today June 12th and it’s already connecting strongly with radio listeners through its honest storytelling and emotional sincerity.
Inspired by the loss of her mother at just four-and-a-half years old, the song reflects on grief, memory, healing, and the quiet ways love continues long after someone is gone. Blending country, pop, and contemporary singer-songwriter influences, CattSue delivers an intimate performance that feels both personal and universally relatable.
Following the success of her debut single “Come Home to Me,” which earned UK iTunes chart recognition and Independent Music Network charting, CattSue continues to establish herself as an artist whose music resonates through authenticity rather than spectacle. “A Whisper on the Wind” is more than a song—it’s a tribute to family, resilience, and the invisible threads that keep us connected to the people we love most.
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“Rungs of Love” is an intimate folk song from my upcoming album In the Safety of the Light, produced by Noah Georgeson (Joanna Newsom, Devendra Banhart). I wrote the song on a 1976 Martin guitar after a period away from songwriting, inspired by the spiritual folk lineage of Bert Jansch and Vashti Bunyan. The song explores the idea that ordinary human love can be a ladder toward higher consciousness. Sonically it’s warm, spacious acoustic folk with subtle psychedelic textures and a devotional tone.
After more than a decade exploring psychedelic pop, jazz, and electronic textures through her project Sis—most recently as Sis and the Lower Wisdom—Jenny Gillespie Mason returns to the folk music she first began writing and recording as a teenager. Her new album, In the Safety of the Light (out 6/12/26 on Native Cat Recordings), was produced by Noah Georgeson (Joanna Newsom, Devendra Banhart) and recorded in spring and fall 2026 at a private studio in Los Angeles.
Sonically, In the Safety of the Light draws on the pastoral glow of 1970s British folk, with echoes of Catherine Howe and Fairport Convention, while sailing at times into atmospheric sounds inspired by the ambient music of Hiroshi Yoshimura and the more cosmic folk ballads of Beck. Most of the songs were recorded live as an ensemble, allowing the arrangements to breathe and shimmer around performances by Mason on acoustic guitar, Wurlitzer, and vocals, with Josh Miner Adams on percussion, Todd Dahlhoff on bass, Benny Bock on synthesizers, Gabe Noel on cello, and Alex Budman on woodwinds.
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