Esther Rose - Nathaniel Bellows - PD Martin - Tom Jenkins

Esther Rose - Chet Baker.

Esther Rose has signed to New West Records and will release Safe to Run April 21, 2023. The 11-track set was produced by Ross Farbe in New Orleans, LA and Placitas, NM and is the follow up to 2021’s acclaimed How Many Times. Alongside longtime collaborators Farbe and Lyle Werner, Safe to Run also features the acclaimed New Orleans based band Silver Synthetic on many songs, Cameron Snyder of The Deslondes, as well as Alynda Segarra of Hurray for the Riff Raff on the title track, a gorgeous duet that directly merges the personal with the global, superimposing feelings of spiritual displacement onto the larger, looming dread of climate grief.

Safe to Run is the quiet culmination of years spent fully immersed in a developing artistry, and presents Rose’s always vividly detailed emotional scenes with new levels of clarity and control. Her songwriting transfigures the chaos and uncertainty of a life in progress, but here she introduces a newfound pop element that attaches unshakably catchy hooks to even the darkest stretches of the journey. The album’s production takes a giant step forward. Across all of the tracks, the open-air, live-in-the-room sound she tended towards in the past was exchanged for an exploration of multitracking and overdubs.

Of the song, Rose says, “Someone sent me a DM, asking ‘do you remember me.’ I was transported into a decade-old memory; a weird weekend with a crew of dangerous college preps, a car crash. What came out is this short study of my townie life in Ann Arbor. As I was writing this song, it occurred to me how lucky I was to have survived that time of willful recklessness. I wanted to empathize with my younger self, like, ‘it’s alright, you were 23. You were out of control. I got you now. You’re okay.’”

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Nathaniel Bellows - One Small Thing.

“One Small Thing” imagines an internal and external space of reprieve, peace, and calm, away from our present day’s environments of tension, challenge, and turmoil. The song asks the question: If such an idealized place seems out of reach, what are the “small things” we can do today to make such a space feel possible?

Bellows selected the musicians who performed on “One Small Thing” based on his appreciation for their subtle, artistic approach, and their ability to connect to–and express–the emotional core of a song. Nova contrasts Bellows’ low, gravelly voice with soaring, angelic vocals. Malcolm Burn’s nuanced bass lines organically cleave the melody, singing in a beautiful, thoughtful way. Steve Decker’s open, impressionistic, even jazz-inflected drumming breathes new life into the architecture of the song through a varied series of textures and undercurrents.

The contrast of growing up surrounded by the quiet beauty of the natural world in rural New England and now living in New York City’s urban landscape creates tension in Bellows’ music. The songs are an ongoing dialogue between internal, reflective wonder and an external sense of outward, urgent searching.

Bellows works in three creative fields simultaneously–writing, music, and visual art– exploring a cohesive artistic point of view among the three mediums to undergird his songs. He says, “I explore emotional terrain with these various creative outlets in an attempt to understand–through different vantage points–what matters to me.” He writes about memory, affect, family, legacy, the natural world, human frailty, injury, redemption, and resilience. He says, “I’m interested in unresolved images and fragments of unfinished thought and dialogue.” The engine of most of his work–writing, music, and artwork–is the constant process of reconciling the past while existing, in an ever-changing state, in the present day.

Nathaniel Bellows · One Small Thing (feat. Shara Nova)

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PD Martin - Strip It Down.

PD Martin and his band hit the trail as a straightforward blues-trio. But twelve bars ain’t enough and soon they are leaving the main road. 

Gig by gig, song by song, they make their way through a wetland of blues and funk, ever groovin’ to the rhythm of the almighty Soulbeat. The record you are discovering here is a report of this exciting journey. “Soulbeat Incarnate” is a diverse collection of eleven original songs. 

From the raw blues of “Artificial State of Misery”, over the funky hooks of “Come to Bed” to the extremely danceable groove of “Strip It Down”, this album, produced by JB Biesmans (Travellin’ Blue Kings), is compelling from beginning to end!

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Tom Jenkins - It Comes In The Morning, It Hangs In The Evening Sky.

Welsh Singer-songwriter Tom Jenkins has revealed a brand new video for “It Comes In The Morning, It Hangs In The Evening Sky”, the title-track of his spectacular latest solo album (out now). The official video arrives as Jenkins confirms a string of live fixtures for the new year ahead, including support shows with Cardinal Black, Frank Turner and Bastille as well as sold out headline shows in Cardiff and Trowbridge.

A sprawling and cinematic track that unfolds like a great epic told in three parts, “It Comes In The Morning, It Hangs In The Evening Sky” pins together tender vocals with cascading drum rolls, unhinged guitars and meteoric instrumental flourishes.

Of the new song, Tom explains: “”It Comes In The Morning, It Hangs In The Evening Sky” is probably the most epic track on the album, and had to really live up to the name. The song draws influences from the likes of Jeff Buckley, Daniel Johns of Silverchair and Big Thief. Lyrically, it focuses on the feeling of dread and how it creeps up on you.”

The title-track of an equally expansive and exploratory new studio album (out now, via Xtra Mile Recordings), ‘‘It Comes In The Morning, It Hangs In The Evening Sky’ is the singer-songwriter’s follow-up to 2019 solo debut ‘Misery In Comfort’.

Recorded in the depths of lockdown, Tom started tracking the album in a disused barn on an old laptop with just one microphone and a 2010 version of GarageBand. Realising he was completely out of his depth, he turned to lifelong friend and producer Todd Campbell and the pair began to turn the collection of songs into a full-length album at his studio in South Wales.

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Nathaniel Bellows - Allison Lorenzen - Hannah Schneider - Derrero

Nathaniel Bellows - Well Water (feat. Shara Nova).

My Brightest Diamond’s Shara Nova joins Nathaniel Bellows on the single “Well Water,” just released through Harmon Blunt Music. The pairing–built upon multiple past collaborations– creates a conversation between the two contrasting voices, which in turn captures texture, contrast, atmosphere, beauty, and surprise.

“Well Water” swims in introspection while inventorying “the self” in moments of challenge, ambiguity, indecision, or indirection. Simply put, the message is: The search for one’s place in the world–or in one’s life–is ongoing, as long as you’re willing to participate. Bellows says, “I wrote this song throughout the pandemic, and in the wake of my father’s death, all the while reflecting on the question: What makes us who we are?”

The contrast of growing up surrounded by the quiet beauty of the natural world in rural New England and now living in New York City’s urban landscape creates tension in Bellows’ music. The songs are an ongoing dialogue between internal, reflective wonder and an external sense of outward, urgent searching.

Bellows works in three creative fields simultaneously–writing, music, and visual art– exploring a cohesive artistic point of view among the three mediums to undergird his songs. He says, “I explore emotional terrain with these various creative outlets in an attempt to understand–through different vantage points–what matters to me.” He writes about memory, affect, family, legacy, the natural world, human frailty, injury, redemption, and resilience. He says, “I’m interested in unresolved images and fragments of unfinished thought and dialogue.” The engine of most of his work–writing, music, and artwork–is the constant process of reconciling the past while existing, in an ever-changing state, in the present day.

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Photo - Jake Stephens

Allison Lorenzen - The Fourth Cycle.

As the weather is starting to cool down a bit we proudly bring you this appropriately autumnal single release of "The Fourth Cycle"  by Denver based Allison Lorenzen. A staple in her live shows, "The Fourth Cycle" centers Lorenzen's prodigious and classically trained piano and features a particularly tasty pop hook that is difficult to shake once it gets it's hooks in you.

Lyrically, it seems that Lorenzen is turning her face towards the other side of the cathartic nature of the critically acclaimed Tender released last year on Whited Sepulchre Records. Lorenzen states that "The Fourth Cycle", "explores themes of intimacy and change, and the spectrum of emotion -  from grief to empowerment - that arise from facing and allowing said change." If Tender charted a way out by going through the crushing span of personal tragedy, then "The Fourth Cycle" stands on the other side of it, looking back a bit more wisened and grateful.

Recorded, mixed, and co-produced by Mark Anderson in Colorado in 2022. The song was written on piano and then the recording was built around a live drum take which was sent through analog machines such as Space Echo, Binson Echo Rec, and spring reverb to create counter rhythms, bringing the track to life.

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Hannah Schneider - Ocean Letters (album).

From the beginning of her career, Hannah Schneider has established herself as a unique musician on the Danish scene. With her love of strong melodies and well crafted lyrics, she constantly treads new artistic paths, carrying the weight of contemplation as a companion. On her new album Ocean Letters, the classic piano composition and the evocative electronic elements form a seamless kinship and create a picture-saturated tale of time.

Ocean Letters is Hannah Schneider's first solo album in 7 years. Behind her, she has 3 highly acclaimed solo albums in her own name, while in recent years she has been busy in the electronic duo AyOwA, and the performance project Philip I Schneider. Hannah has been nominated for several Danish music awards and has performed all over Europe, the UK and the US with her captivating solo performances, where she live samples, loops and creates playful soundscapes on stage. In addition, her voice has appeared in several films and TV series, including the national DR TV series Ride Upon The Storm.

With Ocean Letters, she seeks out new landscapes again. The songs create an intimate connection between the neoclassical and the modern, the near and the universal, and emphasize her cinematic, evocative expression with strength and a human humility. The pandemic as a new worldwide condition became the beginning of the new songs. The album is inspired by the book Havbrevene  (The Sea Letters) by Siri Ranva Hjelm Jacobsen - an exchange of letters between the sister oceans the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean who write together about life in the sea and on earth. 

Central to the songs are the piano and Hannah's spherical and evocative vocals, while the productions create budding hopes with flickering electronic elements. And while it's still the strong melodies that are the focal point for Hannah Schneider, the record marks a new sonic path, with a cinematic sound that creates strong images in the listener's mind.

After the years in the internationally recognized duo AyOwA, where Hannah has written and sung in Danish, she again wanted to write in English with the new songs. But the way of writing - in more direct, minimalist lines, which come from the spoken language has stuck with her ever since. “You write in a different way in your mother tongue. And even though my father was American and I grew up with English as my second language, I had to go around my mother tongue to find my own way in the English lyrics”.

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Derrero - High Side.

Celebrated Welsh band Derrero continue an unstoppable 26-year trajectory with their new album Curvy Lines. Recorded back in Nov 2021 the album sees Derrero exploring new ways of working to expand upon their sonic palette and distinctive use of cut and paste song writing. Many ideas were traded across the web and new material was rapidly realised during 4 days of marathon studio sessions.

Maintaining a resolutely DIY approach to music making Curvy Lines demonstrates a strident and confident band who remain steadfastly unafraid to swim against the tide and self-produce and self-release uncompromising music outside of the mainstream

The members of Derrero all met at Falmouth Art college in 1993: after studies, they evolved in Brighton before settling in Newport, Wales. There they released their debut single Tiny Shoes on Size 8 Records in 1997 and also their debut LP later that same year after signing to Big Noise records in Cardiff.

Since the bands foundation Derrero have released 4 critically acclaimed albums and toured with the likes of Super Furry Animals, Catatonia, Sebadoh and Granddaddy as well as collaborating on the film ‘Beautiful Mistake’ with John Cale. The band also recorded three sessions for the legendary John Peel.

Derrero · High Side

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