The Family Grave - Valerie Smith - Sébastien Tellier

The Family Grave - Daylight (Instrumental Version Remix).

The new single by The Family Grave is called Daylight, a dance-oriented remix of the track from their latest album 'Old Songs for Kids'. The band have also created a visual reel using the brilliant dancers of Ava Choreo. The Family Grave are an alt-folk outfit from Brighton (UK) known for "the quiet devastating power of [their] honest, intelligent songwriting" (Echo Rebel magazine) and whose music "proves that great songwriting is not just about catchy hooks - it's about baring your soul and sharing your truth" (Divine magazine). 

The original album version of the song Daylight is also being released alongside the remix. The song's lyric is about mental health and friendship: Dog barks late in the evening Man might howl at the moon The truth is gradually creeping Lighting up my gloom. The song will be released on digital networks (Spotify, Apple etc) from January 8th. There will be a Limited edition 12" single of Daylight and a CD, only available here. 

The remix of Daylight leans on the song's underpinning latin riff, to provide a solid beat that will welcome in another year with the upbeat emotional intensity that characterises the original album.  It takes the reflective nature of the original vocal and embellishes it with a rhythm that will make a listener beam with positivity.  Then it mixes in the thrilling jazz trumpet lines of Matt Ellis Devitt. 

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Valerie Smith - Maggie’s Journal (Album).

Renowned American bluegrass and roots artist Valerie Smith is celebrated for her powerful vocals and insightful songwriting. A Midwest native, she holds a bachelor's in music from the University of Kansas City and taught music in Missouri and Tennessee. This is something of an epic collection of songs and narrative, Beehive Candy recommends dipping into a good few tracks to get an overall feel, we are really impressed.

Maggie’s Journal is the story of my great-grandmother, Margaret Attebury Brooks-McCamis —based on her own words, written in a “Car Load Tablet” found decades after her death in an attic trunk by my cousins Kathy Jones Eads and Fonda Wells. Unveiling a life untold, the journal revealed Maggie’s early years in post-Civil War rural Missouri—married too young to a violent man, Maggie hid a kind and gentle soul beneath a hardened shell.  Her journal became the heartbeat of this 12-year labor of love. I set her raw, emotional entries to 14 original songs, blending folk, bluegrass, Americana, and roots—alternating them with readings from her journal with me voicing Maggie’s words. Her story, personal and unflinching, is a masterpiece of resilience, offering timeless insights into American history, women’s and children’s rights, education, and the enduring human spirit.

The project was produced by Donna Ulisse, who also partnered with me in writing many of the songs, along with writers Daniel Crabtree and Ann Miller. The instrumentation—featuring Cody Kilby (acoustic guitar, mandolin), Stephen Burwell (violin), Evan Winsor (upright bass), and Scott Vestal (banjo)—pulses with life, capturing the raw emotion of Maggie’s world, and the project was masterfully recorded and engineered at Tim Carter’s Tree House Studio in Ridgetop, TN, and Scott Vestal’s Digital Underground in Greenbrier, TN. David Lynch’s stunning CD design with a 32 page booklet and John Murray’s breathtaking artwork visually mirror the album’s emotional core.

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Sébastien Tellier - Parfum Diamant.

How far can a shared dream take you? French artist Sébastien Tellier stops by with a cinematic performance of “Parfum Diamant”, a synth-laced, dreamlike voyage lifted from his new album Kiss The Beast.

Today, Sébastien Tellier unveils his brand new track “Parfum Diamant” accompanied by a captivating, minimalist, color-focused COLORS SHOW, shot in Berlin. The studio version of the track appears on Kiss The Beast, the forthcoming album from the essential figure of the French Touch movement, set for release on January 30 via Because Music.

Reflecting on the inspiration behind “Parfum Diamant”, Tellier shares: “Recalling adolescent memories, naive first emotions, lying down gazing at the sky, sharing an ice cream… Capturing the magic of a man and woman united in quest beyond surrounding discord.”

From Paris to London, with Oscar Holter, SebastiAn, Victor Le Masne and Daniel Stricker, Kiss The Beast unfolds as an ambitious mosaic, carried by Owen Pallett’s strings, Nile Rodgers’ guitar, and the contributions of Kid Cudi and Slayyyter. An album where Tellier condenses and transcends his experiences: an extravagant love letter to pop, both intimate and universal. Alongside his new album, Sébastien Tellier announces his big return to the stage in 2026 with a tour in France and across Europe, with dates already selling out.

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Alicia Walter - Nobody's Girl - Vanessa Anne Redd - Valerie Smith

Alicia Walter - Prelude.

Having already gained enormous notoriety as the lead singer behind the Chicago-based art-rock outfit Oshwa, singer and songwriter Alicia Walter has now announced her plans for her first solo studio album ‘I Am Alicia’.

Showcased by the new single ‘Prelude’, ‘I Am Alicia’ looks to see her branch out from behind the confines of her previous outfit to explore a more multifaceted direction. Exploring a diverse array of genres including jazz, hip-hop, as well as her own distinct approach to alt-pop, her new collection sees her in her most adventurous guise yet.

The new track ‘Prelude’ perfectly sums up what we can expect from her forthcoming full-length. Expertly produced by Walter and Devin Greenwood (Sufjan Stevens, Steve Reich, Norah Jones), it sees her reach to the furthest corners of her creative minds and pull back something captivating from start to finish. The video, directed by Lisa Schatz, is a vibrantly colorful odyssey that sees Walter transcending different life forms on her path to self-actualization and enlightenment.

Speaking about the new album, she said, “I wrote my album I Am Alicia sequentially, starting with 'Prelude'! This song kicks off a wild journey exploring my identity, consciousness, and everything that makes me tick. 'Prelude' is about letting go of any inhibitions holding me back from evolving into who I want to be and remembering that sometimes real wisdom lies in not knowing, rather than assuming I do."

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Nobody's Girl - Promised Land.

“We always joke that it started out by accident,” offers singer-songwriter (and former Voice contestant) Rebecca Loebe when asked about the fortuitous aligning of stars that officially brought her and fellow Austin-based troubadours BettySoo and Grace Pettis together as Nobody's Girl. “Well, actually, Grace and I like to joke that we tricked BettySoo into being in a band with us ...”

Whether it was sparked by happy accident or some manner of sly master plan, the magic of that union was undeniable from the get-go. That three of the loveliest voices in Americana and contemporary folk music could complement one another so beautifully might have been a given, but it was the songs they wrote together — songs unlike any of them had ever or probably would ever write on their own — that really made Nobody’s Girl, well, sing.

The band played more than 100 shows from Texas to Ireland in support of a 2018 EP, Waterline, and released some singles during 2020 as the self-titled full-length album street date moved to 2021. The “power of three” they share is captured like bottled lightning on the trio’s strikingly fun and assertive Nobody's Girl, out on digital, CD, and vinyl through Lucky Hound Music on July 30, 2021.

The album was produced (at Lucky Hound’s own state-of-the-art Studios at Fischer in the Texas Hill Country) by Michael Ramos, the Grammy Award-winning producer who helmed Waterline. In addition to Ramos on percussion and keyboards and the formidable rhythm section of bassist Glenn Fukunaga and drummers J.J. Johnson and Conrad Choucroun, Nobody’s Girl features arguably the deepest roster of Texas guitar heroes this side of a classic Joe Ely or Arc Angels record: Charlie Sexton, David Grissom, and David Pulkingham.

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Photo - Paul Dixon

Vanessa Anne Redd - DC Drawers

British/German singer-songwriter and producer Vanessa Anne Redd shares the hazy summer’s day psych-folk single ‘DC Drawers’ and announces details of her forthcoming third solo album Sweet Way Around. ‘DC Drawers’ explores the joy of the parade, body image and expectation in the age of voyeurism, and is described by Redd as “A story of angelic youth’s highs and lows, struggles, innocence, confusion, beauty and glory” which is turned by Redd’s wonderful story-telling into an almost Biblical tale of temptation.

Over the course of her three solo albums, Behind The Wall (2016), Zumbo Waxes (2019), and the forthcoming Sweet Way Around, Vanessa Anne Redd has mastered her own very distinctive and irreplicable sound. Redd‘s music is one of enticing, often contradictory, intricacies. It’s playful yet serious, pastoral yet at times garage rock-tinged, vulnerable but strong, gentle but driven, lush and melodic but with jagged edges, and both languorous and fierce. It’s also wonderfully childlike, in the simpler melodies but mostly in Redd’s sweet unembellished voice, yet also simultaneously swaggering and seductive.

Comparisons have been raised to PJ Harvey, Leonard Cohen, Angel Olsen, Holly Golightly, Regina Spektor, Hunky-Dory-era Bowie and 1970s Scott Walker. Redd’s talent is in recalling many greats whilst musically creating something unique, propelling her into what Loud & Quiet has referred to as  the “singer-songwriter premier league.”

As with most good singer-songwriters, Redd tells stories. Her songs take the listener on a journey but not one that delves into her own private life, but one that opens the whole world up widely to the listener, from the esoteric and existential to life’s nitty gritty realities. Books, art, philosophy, religion, psychology, spirituality, life and death and nature – amongst a myriad of other subjects have all been explored on her albums (past and present).

The philosophical, the spiritual, and our connection to Mother Nature are at the forefront of Sweet Way Around. It is an album about finding the ‘sweet way’ in life, as Redd expands, “It’s staring through windows, at trees and listening to birds. It’s about empowering yourself. It’s about the beauty of seclusion and creativity, the power of touch and of one another. It’s rolling moment to moment on the wheel of time. It’s about death and not being afraid of it. Above all, it’s about happiness and getting there.”

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Valerie Smith - I Found.

Valerie Smith found her newest single in an odd place; a recording by an  indie rock band from across the pond in England.     I Found is the second release from Valerie’s upcoming album,  Renaissance. Her first release, From A Distance, stayed on the Bluegrass Today Grassicana Chart for over 13 months and debuted No. 2 on the Folk DJ Chart.       

Valerie recalls:“While driving along Tennessee Highway 82 to the recording studio I heard a song on the radio called I Found performed by an indie rock group known as Amber Run,” Valerie says “I was captivated by the melody, the passion, and the lyrics.”       

Her band, Liberty Pike, was skeptical when they first heard the original Amber Run version, but they decided to humor Valerie and her new song idea even though they were rolling their collective eyes.     “As we began to make it our own,” Valerie says, “We came to realize that it fit like a glove and we just had to record it.”     

Renaissance encompasses several genres while staying true to Valerie’s signature sound of strong vocals, an acoustic flair and a touch of bluegrass. The songs cover subject areas including love, finding love, acceptance, and regret.

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