Owen FitzGerald - The McKenzie FIX - Landon Lloyd Miller - Partner

Owen FitzGerald - Don't Give Me A Pet.

Themes of dissociation are some of the major conduits running through Owen FitzGerald’s work. Somewhere in the narratives and world-building vignettes the characters that inhabit the universe of A deep clean you can count on! start with or wander deliriously into a state of bewilderment with the relationship to their own bodies, the utterly de-centering experience of being head-over-heels in love, the secret language of animals and plants and the atomization that the grist-mill of modern life inflicts.

Blundering through existential crisis after crisis, FitzGerald’s gives us a few anchors that tie us back to the physical space: feeding the dog, the biomechanical synchronization of a lover’s breath, the office politics of forest animals and core memories of singing out loud with friends. Musically, FitzGerald invites us to follow the breadcrumbs in the labyrinth of his knotty, surrealistic and, often, very funny and very dismal brand of Country music.

Of the single, Owen states, ""My family attended the 10am Mass at St. Raphael's every Sunday while I was a child. "Our" seats were on the left, and towards the front, if you were looking at the altar. I always held the aisle. After taking communion, a Catholic is supposed to kneel in prayerful contemplation until everyone has had their turn. Each week, dozens of congregants filed past me to and from the Eucharist. I kneeled and clasped my hands. I bowed my head low so no one would notice my open eyes. I stared at their shoes and pretended to pray. At a rate of about one second per pair, I logged style, brand, color, material, and condition and rendered judgement. My entire brain focused on sorting the shoes into "cool" and "not cool" while I tried to keep my posture devout. Honest to God, I've never told anyone about this game of mine until now."

"Don't Give Me a Pet" is the third single from the new album A deep clean you can count on! from the Durham based Country artist Owen FitzGerald. Swimming in similar conceptual and narrative waters as outsider-poet country artists like Cass McCombs and Simon Joyner, FItzGerald's nine song album on Sleepy Cat Records create distinct vignettes that tackle the dissociative effects of strained relationships with our bodies, falling in love, getting sober and surviving the grist-mill of modern life. These songs are shot through with similar philosophical and existential questions asked by artists like Glenn Campbell, John Prine and Bill Callahan.

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The McKenzie FIX - Don't Feed On Me.

Ewan McKenzie has an eclectic collection of songs and releases behind his back. His music is kaleidoscopic and diverse - he is continuously finding new ways to express himself through a broad sonic palette.

Following critically acclaimed self released songs 'Alone' and 'The Shining', The McKenzie FIX have launched their first album 'Pandora’s Box' through new label Crystal Seven Records . The  12 tracks  explore a surreal mixture of Gothic dream imagery with a distinctly 80's pop flair. 

There is a supernatural quality to the entirety of the record. Songs blend together into a vast kaleidoscopic array of colours. A true ear for melody appears throughout as there is a unique gracefulness to the way that these pieces unfurl. Layer upon layer gets applied with such care as the sound at times veers into the absolute symphonic.

By far the highlight of the album, blending its dark and light influences is the soulful third single 'Martin & The Artist'. The build-up of the piece feels gorgeous, from the synthesised strings to the otherworldly storytelling.

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Landon Lloyd Miller - Bluebonnet.

Confirmed for release on 4 March 2022 via the Twin Mesa label, The Wall Chargers frontman goes it alone to release this strident first collection under his own name. In anticipation of the release Landon has shared its first official single "Bluebonnet"; a tender, raw, confessional track that finds the singer opening-up about the tumultuous relationship with his father, to overcoming the mental pressures he has experienced as a touring artist.

The follow-up to recent teaser track, “Light Is Growing”, a song praised by Americana UK as “an uplifting dose of positivity", new single "Bluebonnet" finds Landon in an altogether darker and more pensive space. “You were only lying when you said why you’d never go. That’s alright. Only love lied so I’d never have to know" sings Landon through gritted teeth here.

A stark portrait of his father and an uncensored reckoning of his actions, Landon recalls of the intimately personal events behind “Bluebonnet”: "There was a moment when I was a boy that he swore to me he would never leave us and that he would always love my mother,". It was only a few years later that his father walked-out on him and his mother for good.

A song that finds an artist unafraid to face his demons and to tackle songwriting subjects others may find taboo, “Bluebonnet” also finds Landon admitting to the depression he has experienced as a traveling musician; opening a dialogue for countless other artists who have undoubtedly experienced similar feelings while out on the road.

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Partner - Time Is A Car.

Partner are back with a new single and video "Time Is A Car". It is a new single for a new era as we enter 2022 and the youngest member of Partner (Josée Caron) enters her 30s. This single follows Partner's Never Give Up (You've Changed Records) and their break out debut album, In Search of Lost Time.

A Message from Partner: "This is a song that we wrote while reflecting on the years that have passed and the way that the passing of time offers fresh perspectives. Fittingly enough it’s ready just in time for us to present it to you on Josée's 30th birthday. Time sure does fly!!

We had a distinct idea for the visual accompaniment to this track and we knew there was one person who could bring it to light; our beloved and frequent collaborator Lesley Marshall. However, when we were informed that the time to make a video was upon us, it seemed close to impossible that we would be able to make the trip to meet with her. While she is close to our hearts, we were separated by 4580km (2845 miles for our USA/UK friends). However, Lesley and the team at MAVN thankfully remained undaunted by such concerns. The result is one of our very favourite videos to date." - Partner

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The Delines - Colatura - Onsloow - North Mississippi Allstars (featuring William Bell)

Photo Credit: Jason Quigley

The Delines - Kid Codeine.

Portland, Oregon based country-soul group The Delines share the third single and music video from their upcoming album, The Sea Drift, which will be released on February 11, 2022 via their new American label home Jealous Butcher Records. The new song, titled “Kid Codeine”,  has a 60’s pop feel and is more upbeat than previous singles; but the song captures the same weary world and deep, wistful emotions that musician and author Willy Vlautin has become known for. 

The song is accompanied by a music video starring The Delines lead singer Amy Boone, walking around the streets of the band’s hometown of Portland with her hair done up just like the song’s titular character “Kid Codeine”, who has a boyfriend who is a boxer and is described as always wearing a perfect bouffant hairdo “just to walk down the street”.

Speaking to the real life inspiration to the character of “Kid Codeine”, Willy wrote: “Years ago in Los Angeles, Richmond Fontaine was playing at a club downtown called Al’s Bar and after the gig the bartender invited us to a strip joint. She was maybe thirty-five and had a big bouffant and a twenty-one-year-old boyfriend who never said a word. Nothing. It was almost like she had him on a chain. She took us to a place where the dancers come to your table. 

The woman who came to ours was a friend of hers but a junkie and nodded out and crashed into our table. Drinks spilled everywhere but the bouffanted bartender got hers out in time and she and her boyfriend got up and she said, “I gotta run but bet the third horse in the fifth race at Hollywood Park tomorrow.” Man oh man, she was really wild and she drove the coolest car and nothing seem to phase her. I hadn’t thought of her in years but during the time I was writing The Sea Drift tunes I just woke up one morning and she came to me and I wrote the song.”

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Colatura - Team Sport.

New York City trio Colatura released their latest single, “Team Sport,” last Friday, to announce their debut album, And Then I’ll Be Happy, for an April 22 release. The band will celebrate that night in Brooklyn, at The Sultan Room.

Featuring the triple songwriting attack of Jennica (bass/vocals), Digo (guitar/vocals) and Meredith (guitar/synths/vocals), Colatura has been called, "Fleetwood Mac with shoegaze guitars," by Fadeaway Radiate, and described by Popmatters as, “Drawing on a range of influences from '50s female-fronted outfits to Manchester post-punk and all manner of noisy things, Colatura sounds both of and out of its time, delivering music that seems to have always been.” 

Sonically, their foot is in a number of genres, writing music that is sometimes dreamy, sometimes heavy, with pop-leaning melodies and post-punk atmospherics.

Discussing “Team Sport,” Colatura calls it, "A sad song that sounds happy. It's a feel-good tune until you start to listen to the lyrics… 'who knew drowning was a team sport?’. The song is about two people who try really hard to make a relationship work but can’t seem to, despite their best efforts. It explores the difficult reality that in many relationships both people want it to work, but can’t seem to get on the same page, and in trying to make the other person happy, both end up feeling like they’re drowning.”

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Onsloow - Unstoppable.

Onsloow's eight-track, self-titled album sees release digital release via How is Annie records on January 21, 2022. The Trondheim, Norway's band is a fresh, well-crafted indie rock band that creates rousing and dreamy powerpop sounds with nuances and nods to pop punk.

The sweet, feminine energy of Johanne Rimul's charming vocal work mixes confidently with the confident and ferocious playing of guitarists Mathias Nylenna, bassist Lasse Berg and drummer Morten Samdal, and finds the band in league with contemporaries like The Beths, Tigers Jaw, Girl In Red and Paramore, and even Superchunk, Weezer and The Get Up Kids.

It's no surprise then that among their fans it's easy to find aging parents of young children who long for the sweet nostalgia of their glory days as well as young hipsters who have embraced the aesthetics and charm of melodic guitars and catchy singalongs that wouldn't have been out of place in the '90s.

Onsloow was produced by Marius Ergo (Lukestar, Truls and The Trees, Insomniac Bears), and the album is proceeded by the album's first single, "Overthinking," which was launched to rave reviews in the British music press, a second single, "A Good Day to Forget," which is currently on heavy rotation with NRK-P13, Norway's BBC 6 equivalent.

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North Mississippi Allstars (featuring William Bell) - Never Want To Be Kissed.

North Mississippi Allstars will release Set Sail on January 28th via New West Records. The 10-song set was produced by Luther and Cody Dickinson and follows their Grammy Award nominated 2019 album Up and Rolling. Set Sail features an appearance by Stax Records legend William Bell on the album standout “Never Want To Be Kissed” (which Bell also co-wrote and co-produced). The album has already been met with critical acclaim with Uncut Magazine stating, "Bloodlines and geography figure into every NMAs album, but on Set Sail, Luther and Cody Dickinson make family and setting the conjoined theme..." in their 8 out 10 Star rated review.

The “Never Want To Be Kissed” video which was shot at William Bell’s recording studio outside of Atlanta, GA.  Luther Dickinson said of working with Bell, “He had the whole plot of the song conceptualized, as if it was a movie. I’ve never seen a song written like that before. Usually, for me, story lines unfold as they are written. We simply helped William turn the plot into lyrics and added music but we were truly only helping William realize his vision. We recorded a voice memo at the session and built the song up from there. Some of the audio on the record is from the original voice memo. It’s an honor to work with a living legend and soul music pioneer.” William Bell said, “Luther and Cody are my kind of people, locked in the tradition of Blues and Soul stories and songs. Pure perfectionists at their craft!” See the Cartter Fontaine-directed “Never Want to Be Kissed” Video HERE.

After 25 years, twelve albums, four Grammy Award nominations, and sold out shows everywhere, North Mississippi Allstars open up their world once again on Set Sail, welcoming other family into the fold. As sons of the legendary producer and musician Jim Dickinson, Luther and Cody Dickinson started the band in 1996 as a loose collective of like-minded second-generation musicians who shared a local repertoire and regional style. Over the years, the lineup has shifted by design, and with Set Sail, they mined the talents of Jesse Williams on bass and Lamar Williams, Jr., the son of Allman Brothers bassist Lamar Williams, Sr, on vocals. During the Allman Betts Band Family Revival, the Dickinsons first linked up with Lamar, becoming fast friends and collaborators, paving the way for Set Sail.

“The chemistry we have with this lineup is powerful,” observes Luther. “We are all second-generation musicians and share a telepathic, relaxed ease about creating and performing. I believe music is a form of communion with our loved ones and conjuring this vibe with members of musical families can be inspirational. Lamar and I are like-minded. I’ve never had the pleasure of working with a singing partner like Lamar. He has a true-blue quality in his musicality that will pull you in and break your heart. At the same time, Jesse grew up playing music with his brothers and his father—as did we. He plays like a sibling. I’m drawn to musical families, regardless of style. Playing with second- or third-generation players allows us an easy unspoken musical dialog. It’s not a big thing; it’s just what we do. We never had to figure out what it means and takes to be a musician. We all inherently know.” He continues, “Each generation has to reinvent itself and shed the skin of the elders. On Set Sail, we feel as if we’ve once again ‘broken the code,’ and know what we want and how to get it.”

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Kate Ellis - Piper Butcher - YOVA - This Coast Bias

Kate Ellis - Scars.

Scars is the new single from Americana singer-songwriter Kate Ellis, born in Louisiana, raised in New York and now based in London. The single is a dysfunctional love song about the fine line between love and hate in relationships. This quote from author Blakney Francis perfectly sums up that duality: “There are all different sorts of love.

It can even become hate… really, hate is just another kind of caring.” Scars is the fourth and final single from Kate’s much-anticipated sophomore album 'Spirals' due for release on 4th February 2022, on River Rose Records.

The songs on Spirals create a series of scenes, moments and moods, but where the previous single Wonderland constructed an emotional and ethereal space, Scars makes you feel like you've just walked into a rowdy bar where two lovers are arguing like cats and dogs, but eventually kiss and make up. “It’s a love song with attitude and I love the humour in it", Kate says. "Also, how even after the endless rinse and repeat cycles of stormy emotion, there's still love there in the end - summed up by the song’s closing line: "I guess this must be love, 'cos we can't get enough”.

The song was produced by John Reynolds who has recorded and produced some of the most iconic artists in the music world, including Sinead O'Connor, the Indigo Girls, Daniel Lanois, Brian Eno, Belinda Carlisle, The Cranberries, and Damian Dempsey.

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Piper Butcher - Long Road.

Newcastle singer-songwriter, Piper Butcher, has been kicking some huge goals in the last few months.

Not only did her latest EP, “September”, chart at #1 on the iTunes Alternative Chart and at #2 on iTunes All Genres Albums chart just behind Kanye West, but she’s been playing shows with artists including Diesel, Felicity Urquhart & Josh Cunningham and Corey Legge. Piper was also recently announced to open for You Am I and as part of the 2022 Dashville Skyline Cosmic Country Weekender line up in February.

This week also marks the release of the third single lifted from her #1 EP – “Long Road”. According to Piper, the song - co-written with fellow roots act, Cassie Marie - covers the long road of heartbreak.

“The lyrics provoke sorrow and frustration but proves that leaving unhealthy people behind is a difficult but prosperous journey”.

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YOVA - Haunted.

Reaching for a spiritual connection with their younger selves, “Haunted” imagines what words of reassurance and guidance about the ways of life YOVA would pass-on in light of what they know now.

“Listening to the voice within takes us on the right path in life” muses Jova Radevska. “The chorus lyrics tell of that life force, powerful voice as guidance to be followed: ‘There is something inside, wild & free it reaches out’”.

From its skeletal piano-based beginnings to the resplendent, lush string sections that blossom to life over the course of its five minutes, “Haunted” is very much a song for the winter months, but one that holds the promise of brighter times soon-to-come. 

Arriving with bespoke visuals directed by Maltese/British photographer, filmmaker and author Mark Arrigo, the evocative official video for “Haunted” was shot in one-take and captures Jova Radevska in traditional dress, lost amidst the breathtaking and barren landscapes of the Lake District (Eskdale) at the height of mid-winter.

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This Coast Bias - Best Kind Of Trouble.

“BKOT started out as a nonsense song I was singing in the shower. I loved the first melody of the chorus so much that I just decided to dry off and immediately start working on it. From the first mix to the final one, I’ve loved it. It’s the story of a toxic relationship that both people can’t stay away from, and I’m sure we can all relate on some level.”

This Coast Bias is the indie/bedroom pop project of Clay Milford; a songwriter and multi-instrumentalist based out of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. After multiple stints in rock bands, Clay decided to start writing and recording music on his own, citing frustration with the hassle of, “gettin’ a group of people together.” He began releasing music as This Coast Bias in May of 2019, and has since released nineteen original songs, all of which contain a vast smorgasbord of poppy hooks, lush walls of synth, and lyrics with a penchant for calling out past girlfriends. 

“I like to call the kind of music I write breakup pop. I always seem to end up writing music about things that annoy me in relationships, but don’t most people do that?” Clay cites Prince, Tame Impala and ABBA as his influences for This Coast Bias, but says his influences in music don’t stop there. 

“I grew up on a hefty diet of disco and funk from my mom and rock from my dad. I might listen to Led Zeppelin for a week and then be sick of them and only wanna hear Donna Summer for a month straight. I don’t think you should have to pick between genres as a listener or a musician, and these days, the lines are more and more blurred by the day anyway.”

this coast bias · best kind of trouble

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The Magnettes - The Warp/The Weft - Eric Brace & Last Train Home - VanWyck - Buzzard Buzzard Buzzard

The Magnettes - Monster.

”Uh,-oh, we created a monster!” Pajala’s finest pop trio The Magnettes has stumbled out of the studio, signed a new record deal, and return to form with new single ”Monster” – an upbeat, bass-driven bop blending doo-wop choruses, cut-throat horn stabs, new wave synths and a brushy street shuffle.

”Monster” is about that flirty, sexy, excruciating stage where it’s like ”will-they-won’t-they?”, singer Rebecka Digervall explains. You’re a nervous wreck, trying to downplay your feelings but they’re growing and growing.

We’ve definitely been there, adds Sanna Kalla. The gushing, blood rushing, tingly thing that’s partly sweet, mostly unbearable. The single will feature a 50’s small-screen noir video directed by Martin Åhlin, displaying their flare for playful retro looks and cinematic visuals

The Magnettes hail from Pajala, Sweden and have toured in 19 countries including performances at SXSW, Summerfest, Canadian Music Week, Golden Melody Awards, Eurosonic and Reeperbahn Festival.

Their debut album ”Ugly Youth” dropped in 2017 and featured the singles ”Sad Girls Club”, featured on Netflix’s ”Elite”, and ”Young And Wild”, one of the top-ten most played Swedish tracks on national radio that year. Their single ”American” was in radio rotation throughout the summer, fall and winter of 2020. As of 2021 they’re signed to K51, with ”Monster” being the first joint release.

 
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The Warp/The Weft - It May Not Always Be So.

The Warp/The Weft happily presents a musicalization of "It May Not Always Be So," an e. e. cummings sonnet that explores intense love and, with it, the need to nurture the other's happiness. It's lyrically beautiful and introspective: the type of meditation that could come from a band after two years of very limited contact.

The Warp/The Weft, active since 2012 in and beyond New York's Hudson River Valley, has earned praise for its uniqueness and song-crafting from casual and devoted listeners alike.

Blending traditional and avant-garde styles, the warmth of a good wool sweater and the sometimes-bleak cold of an upstate winter, the progressive folk and psychedelia that the band brings to bear is propelled by poetic lyrics and a "spirit-conjuring" lilting tenor that prompted psych-folk legend Tom Rapp (of Pearls Before Swine) to ask, "Can I have your voice when you're through with it?"

The Warp/The Weft · It May Not Always Be So

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Eric Brace & Last Train Home - Everything Will Be.

Sitting at home in isolation for much of this pandemic has forced us all to wrestle with all kinds of questions. One big one has been: "Why bother?" The question can be applied to most everything, but as performing musicians, we are compelled to wonder why we bother making music if we're not going to be able to get out and play music? To all of us in Last Train Home the answer came loud and clear: Because we love making music and we especially love making music together.

And so, 25 years after forming in Washington D.C., Last Train Home has spent much of 2021 recording an album in lots of different places -- Nashville TN, Alexandria VA, Doylestown PA, Franklin TN, Silver Spring MD, Herndon VA, Washington DC. We sent audio files back and forth, bouncing ideas off of satellites and through underground cables, and thanks to producer/engineer/guitarist Jared Bartlett's uncanny ease at layering myriad soundwaves into a coherent whole, we have album #10, Everything Will Be. 

Released today January 14, 2022, Everything Will Be marks yet another chapter in Last Train Home's ongoing audio explorations, with everything from sambas and New Orleans brass bands, Bakersfield picking and reverse guitar tapeloops, bodhráns and baritone saxes all brought into the mix to render seven songs of band leader Eric Brace's and four perfectly chosen covers.

When you tell someone "everything's going to be okay," you know you're lying, right? But if you steer yourself with open mind and heart toward the best things, the beautiful things, then you're going to capture and create moments that will make you glad to be alive, and, with some luck, you can share those moments. I love producer-mixer Jared Bartlett's layers of guitars and Kevin Cordt's bittersweet-yet-hopeful trumpet. Singing along is the sublime D.C. area singer/songwriter Laura Tsaggaris.

Red Beet Records · 01 Everything Will Be

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VanWyck - I Was Innocent.

Amsterdam singer-songwriter, VanWyck, announces the US release of her single, “I Was Innocent” today January 14. The single is off her fourth album, The Epic Tale of the Stranded Man, due out on April 8 through Excelsior Recordings. A David Lynchian quality permeates “I Was Innocent,” reveling in isolation at the crossroads of denying responsibility and deflecting through blame.

Setting the stage for the rest of the album, “I Was Innocent” tells the tale of how The Stranded Man will try to find a way out of his predicament. Written from the perspective of an imprisoned man stuck in a place of confinement, he tries to claim his innocence but at the same time lists his faults. We don’t know if he is guilty or innocent. We don’t know what his supposed crimes are. Is he a victim or a criminal? Is he imprisoned, or did he escape? Can he be saved, or is his end near? Americana-UK’s Jonathan Aird says, “There’s a real sense of mystery, and an intriguing confusion as to where the truth might really lie, an edgy unease only enhanced by the excellent support playing.”

VanWyck says, “I noticed that people often blame others for what went wrong. Criminals often do this when interviewed in prison, but also normal people, when they talk about their lives, so often it’s about what was inflicted on them, and not about their own role in that specific history.”

Enchanting, moody, and rich, the album vividly reflects these confusing modern times through whispered tones and cavernous themes. It’s a timeless album portraying the different ways in which modern man is lost, scared, stuck in his ways, and searching for a way out of his predicament.  Twelve songs that intertwine both lyrically and harmonically. Together they tell a story about a man who washes up on a wondrous island and doesn’t remember where he came from. Is he a victim or a perpetrator? Has he escaped, or is he imprisoned? Can he be saved, or is his end near? Luckily a woman enters the stage. Will she be able to save him?

The album also speaks of these times in a broader sense: we are living on the brink of epic transitions. We know that the old ways will lead to our destruction but can’t decide on the path forward. VanWyck says, “Sometimes it feels like we are trapped in our own prisons, in our inability to take good care of each other and this wonderful planet, like we are failing in our most epic of struggles, the survival of our humanity.”

VanWyck · I Was Innocent

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Photo - Lily Brown

Buzzard Buzzard Buzzard - Break Right In.

The most exciting new band to break out of Wales in recent years, Buzzard Buzzard Buzzard have just shared “Break Right In” — a new track taken from their heavily-anticipated debut album Backhand Deals, which will be released on February 25, 2022 via Missing Piece Records / Communion. The band will make their US debut at SXSW this March.

The video for “Break Right In” is the first part of a two-part film, and is the band’s second collaboration with director Will Clark - who also directed the Sunny Delight-inspired video for “You.” Speaking about the video, vocalist and guitarist Tom Rees says: “Nothing quite illuminates the unjust society we live in, riddled with bad actors and nefarious despots seeking to limit our freedoms and starve us economically, like four young men playing dress up in a massive mansion. All joking aside, Will Clark is a genius.” “Break Right In” follows the previous tracks “Yourself,” “You,” “Crescent Man vs Demolition Dan” and “New Age Millennial Magic.”

As presented on their 2020 debut The Non-Stop EP, the band – Rees, guitarist Zac White, drummer Ethan Hurst and Rees’ brother and bassist Eddie – draw from classic ‘70s rock with a distinctly 21st century twist, dragging the sounds of T-Rex and Steely Dan kicking and screaming into the 2020s. With Backhand Deals, Buzzard Buzzard Buzzard ripped up the rulebook – a rejection of rock music's more archaic ideals, their debut album plunges into Tom Rees’ exploration of honesty and authenticity, and untangles what it means to be a “rock star.” The key to this demystification is Rees’ sharp wit — using sarcasm and humour to keep the listener in limbo, and in turn, leading their audience to face their own thoughts.

“With the record we’re really obsessed with denying our traditional influences by overwhelming the music with contemporary references so we don’t sound like your dad’s cover band who are really good when they don’t overdo the Guinness and the lead singer remembers his lyric sheet,” says Rees. “We know deep down we love ‘70s music too much to just abandon it in pursuit of being considered relevant, so it seems like the right thing to do to use modern recording techniques and contemporary references to make something inherently new.”

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Julie Jurgens - Buster Baer - Allegra Krieger - Tomato Flower

Photo - Joe Mazza

Julie Jurgens - Appointed tasks (Album).

Julie Jurgens is a singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist whose fearless, empathetic songs draw upon an upbringing in rural Illinois fraught with experiences of poverty, mental illness and domestic violence, sung from the perspective of a survivor and advocate who is mad as hell and determined to stand her ground. Her clear and honest vocals evoke Patty Griffin and Gillian Welch, and her unflinching lyrics recall Townes Van Zandt and Warren Zevon at their most incisive.

A born performer, Julie began putting on talent shows in her driveway for visitors to her family’s melon stand. By the time she was in kindergarten, her teachers noted her frequent absences – until they discovered her singing in the bathroom, enraptured by the favorable acoustics. In college, a breakup left her with no other option than to buy a guitar and sing out her heartbreak. 

She began to hone her skills in Quad Cities coffeehouses like Theo's JavaClub, singing covers of Dylan, the Cure, and the Beatles (leaving all the pronouns intact because who needs the heteronormativity?), before steadily developing a repertoire of original compositions. Many of these early songs were collected on the LP A Small Affair, released in 2004 and recorded in a bedroom in Muscatine, IA in a single night fueled by a gifted bottle of Absolut Mandarin.

That year, having gone as far as she could in the QC music scene (and having fallen into a pattern of problematic drinking), Julie moved to Chicago. There, she found a community of like-minded artists at open mics at local watering holes such as Subterranean and the Gallery Cabaret, where she would eventually organize and emcee a series of multi-artist tribute nights. She has also lent her musical talent on guitar, banjo and pocket trumpet to such groups as ButterBean, Liz + the Baguettes, and the (now-defunct) Astrohillbillies. Her skills as a storyteller and raconteur have served her well on stage, and her banter game is second to none.

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Buster Baer - In His Image.

'In His Image' is taken from Buster Baer's brand new E.P 'Mock Twang' that is released this week. We featured another song 'Get Deeper' a little while back & the track we have chosen this time, further demonstrates Buster's impressive & pleasingly diverse musical compositions and arrangements.His ability to switch between emotions and the juxtaposition of serous and funny are at the very least fascinating.

Jovial yet intense, Buster Baer represents the nexus between many paradoxes. His demeanor, performance antics, and musical style balance on the tensions between opposites, often collapsing into clownlike comedy amidst deep grooves.

Born into a show business family that named him after Buster Keaton, the childhood Los Angeles influences of beach punk and low-rider doo-wop settle into eclectic blends, equal parts Beatles and Bob Dylan; Parliament-Funkadelic and Tom Waits; Black Flag and Otis Redding.

The songwriter’s new EP release Mock Twang, is a collection of four tracks all performed and recorded himself in a warehouse surrounded by three junkyards in Downtown LA. The songs are smooth yet raw, tender and flippant, easy and also deep.

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Allegra Krieger - Taking It In.

NY based singer-songwriter Allegra Krieger today announced her new album Precious Thing will be released March 4, 2022 via Northern Spy Records. On the wistful lead single/video “Taking It In,” Krieger grapples with losing something important to her after watching it fall apart, and she winds her soft vocals around a circular acoustic guitar melody. Strings swell as flashes of memories drift in and out, from laughing on a beach to driving in a fit of anger, yet Krieger’s voice remains comforting and ever so lovely.

In October 2020, Allegra drove across the country to record Precious Thing in Marin, CA with producer Luke Temple (Here We Go Magic, Art Feynman) and musicians Jeremy Harris, Kalia Vandever, Rob Taylor and Jacob Matheus who contributed organs, synths, bass and lap steel. Delightfully mellow but never bleak, Precious Thing is a soundtrack for the daily motions of our lives.

On Precious Thing, Allegra Kreiger tries to capture fleeting moments in a world that is sick from itself. With a voice that rings like a windchime signaling a storm coming, Allegra masterfully weaves together ephemeral moments as life barrels by her unforgivingly. From singing about sharing a gaze with a man on the train to Coney Island as the clock strikes 12 on New Years, to saying goodbye to a loved one, to processing the religious trauma of wine, Krieger portrays the particular pang of being a woman alive in a modern world.

At the heart of this album is a young, working woman asking “Do you see this right now? I can’t be the only one.” This is an album about looking, and Krieger fills up each lonely space she enters with her gaze. Krieger asks you to look, to really, really look, so that you can remember something, however small it is, when it’s all gone.  

 

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Tomato Flower - World To Come.

Tomato Flower Share "World To Come" Off Upcoming Debut EP 'Gold Arc', out 2/11/22 on Ramp Local. The lyrics in Tomato Flower's new single hint at nature's dominance, and hypothesizes humanities role within it. A poetic reflection on humanity's place in the world to come. "World To Come" is simultaneously an infectious psychedelic pop song and a dark glance at the future.

There’s a place for me
In the world to come
My garden cruel and beautiful
In the ways to come

In the hidden grove
There’s a riven bough
In hope forever at the sound
Of the ways to come

When the sun is so
That it burns the flesh
And holy tests our willingness
Of the world to come

About Gold Arc: How might a Utopia exist? If the goal is social harmony amidst free-thinking citizens, where do the moral sets and ideals come from? It might include existing peacefully and respectfully with the natural world—agriculture and industry on an equal playing field. Maybe, an earthly utopia might not be what we expect. It might not be constant, and it might only exist in minute moments. For the Baltimore quartet Tomato Flower, utopia exists in the compromise between escapism and intellectual inquiry, between conceptual philosophy and pop-rock bliss.

Their debut EP Gold Arc finds Tomato Flower at multiple crossroads. Their sonic curiosity plays with tension between sweetness and a destructive heaviness. Conceptually, Gold Arc hungers for an alternate reality. Sometimes that is a “sustainable paradise,” as drummer Mike Alfieri puts it. Or, on “Lovers Arc,” it’s a desire to be loved constantly. “It's not that all these songs are straightforwardly positive, though,” explains Austyn Wohlers. “I think all of the songs are about longing for a different world and a different future. But, they take various shapes,” she says. “The song ‘Truth Lounge,’ for example, has a lot of pain and longing for a different world. ‘World to Come,’ has maybe a cultish edge to it.”

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