All Things Blue - Garrett Owen - Jody & The Jerms

All Things Blue just shared 'Dicking Around' alongside announcing that their debut album 'Get Bit' will be out in October. The new song is stylish and atmospheric dream pop, however expect additional genres when the album arrives. === From Texas we have Garrett Owen and 'These Modern Times' which is released today and it's a lush indie folk piece with a superb musical backdrop. === Jody & The Jerms also have a new double A side released today with 'Deeper' and 'I Knew A Boy' both sounding really good as the bands timeless indie music once again delights.
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All Things Blue - Dicking Around.

Dream-punk band All Things Blue have announced their debut album Get Bit will be released 2nd October. Along with the album announcement, the LA-based outfit led by frontwoman India Coombs (or simply, Blue) and collaborator Jon Joseph, are releasing new single "Dicking Around".

All Things Blue traverse genres and sounds. One moment flirting with abrasive garage-punk, the next soaring psych-pop; debut album Get Bit finds the band weaving between the spirited psychedelia of Melody’s Echo Chamber, the timeless proto-punk of Patti Smith and the exhilarating alt-pop of St Vincent.

New single "Dicking Around" looks darkly inward as an all-too-casual narrator contemplates acting on their worst impulses. Sonically toying with the paisley underground sound of the 1980's but with a distinctly modern flair; "Dicking Around" utilises an expansive array of swirling guitars, psychedelic electronic flourishes and a potent rhythm section. Speaking on the new single, India Coombs said: "The phenomenon Edgar Allen Poe once coined 'the imp of the perverse' rang true to me as a strong parallel of the tone in Dicking Around. The mind can be surprising without what feels like the ability to help it. I wrote this as a wrap for thoughts of acting on my own worst impulses despite recognising they’re naughty hehe."

New single "Dicking Around" follows the previously released cut "Chad", and are both lifted from All Things Blue’s forthcoming debut full length album Get Bit, which will be self-released by the band on October 2nd. Covering everything from pensive love songs to directly addressing social issues and political ironies; India herself compares the album to Gabriel Garcia Márquez’s ever-relevant novel Love In The Time of Cholera. Indeed, the the band's new material promises love, however ethereal it may seem, at the end of a very dark tunnel, if not somewhere along the way.

India and Jon originally met in LA at the age of 18, having both independently moved to the city; Coombs driving across the country in her broken down pickup truck from Philadelphia, and Jon hailing from further south in California. The pair wasted no time becoming friends and firing out an eclectic assortment of demos. They did so namelessly for some time, but eventually settled on "All Things Blue”. The name itself was coined by India's late mother, who, when India was having trouble getting by in the rough and overpriced world that is Los Angeles, told her that she was just feeling blue and sometimes all things are blue for a bit but they'll get better.

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Garrett Owen - These Modern Times.

Garrett Owen, is a Texas troubadour who is pushing the boundaries of indie-folk with his forthcoming LP Quiet Lives, due out Sept. 18th. The album's lead single, "These Modern Times," is out today Friday, July 3rd.

Garrett's got an interesting perspective from which he views the world and writes his songs; raised in Africa by parents who were missionaries, Garrett's landscape teemed with the kinds of wild animals we have to pay admission to see.

When the family transitioned back to the States, Garrett struggled to fit into a culture he couldn't understand, which led to pain, confusion, and an attempt to take his own life. Now, he's strong and ready to share this collection of songs, his observations on the culture, with the world.

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Jody & The Jerms - Deeper / I Knew A Boy.

Oxford’s Jody and the Jerms return with not just one but two fiendishly catchy new tracks ahead of their much-anticipated debut album. With added support from Spanish radio giant RTVE and BBC Introducing, ‘Deeper’ and ‘I Knew a Boy’ are the crystallised indie-pop tunes which are just what the doctor ordered for your post-lockdown shindigs.

It’s difficult to believe that this time last year, Jody had never sung in front of anyone. Now with a band assembled around her, comprising former members of the band The Anydays, and who played with Radiohead and Supergrass in the 90s, hit the pages of the NME in it's heyday and gaining airplay on Mark Radcliffe’s show on BBC Radio 2, Jody is ready to take on the world!

Jody & the Jerms’ sound harks back to those untouchable days indie music enjoyed in the 90s, possessing seemingly effortlessness melodies and choruses which embed themselves in your head for days. If you detect an influence for some of the breakout bands from the power pop movement of the late 70s and 80s, you might be onto something, checkout their recent cover of The Only Ones ‘Another Girl, Another Planet’!

Lockdown has proved a fruitful time for Jody & the Jerms, not only seeing them sign a vinyl distribution deal but also recording a full album’s worth of tracks…as well as the cover version! The benefits of guitarist Niall Jeger being the husband of singer Jody certainly ensured work never stopped! With their ranks swelled from three (alongside drummer, Alex Bridge) to six to allow for a full tour of the UK and Spain in the New Year, Jody and the Jerms are a well-oiled machine and this summer looks set have their songs imprinted in the musical minds of audiences everywhere.

Jody and the Jerms · Deeper & I Knew A Boy - July 3

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Aaron Burdett - Ceder - Rex - Carmanah - The Highway Women

Aaron Burdett latest single 'Dirt Poor' has now had a video added, the song itself is a refined mixture of Americana and folk, the imagery adding even more to the story line. === Ceder has shared a new and dreamy song 'Closer' her indie pop sensibilities are superb as is the production on this track. === Rex have now released their self titles E.P 'Rex' comprising of five tracks, we have already shared a couple of them, the full collection living up to all the high expectations. === We have already featured two songs by Carmanah this year and now we have 'Stand Up' taken from their forthcoming album 'Iris', the melodic and beautiful vibes are once again present and wonderful. === The Highway Women have a brand new video for 'Shake The Dust' which came out a week or so back, the bands vocal harmonies and mixed vocals are simply stunning.
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Aaron Burdett - Dirt Poor.

Aaron Burdett has released a video for his song "Dirt Poor". The latest single from the award-winning songwriter, "Dirt Poor" is recorded with a lean, yet irresistibly rhythmic acoustic sound. It’s an authentic, clear-eyed but loving look at the distance between yesterday and today.

“This new video for ‘Dirt Poor’ is shot at my childhood home, where my folks still live. It includes old scrapbook photos of my family and their friends, interspersed with shots of my daughter playing in the same places and in the same way my brothers and I did back in the ’80s'. "To me, this song at depth is about nostalgia and aging and time. Things are totally different now, but also the same as they were way back when. As hard as it is to remember to do, we should all try to cherish the moment we’re in now, today. It may well be what we’re looking back on years down the road as the ‘good old days.’ Hope you enjoy it!”

Aaron Burdett’s lyrics are soul-touching, intelligent, witty, and poetic all at once, while his music style is a seamless blend of Americana, country, blues, bluegrass, and folk.

Aaron is listed as one of the Top 10 most important musicians of western North Carolina by WNC Magazine, alongside such greats as Doc Watson, Steep Canyon Rangers, and The Avett Brothers. He has also received critical acclaim as a songwriter, Most recently winning the grand prize in the folk category of the USA Songwriting Contest with “A Couple Broken Windows” from his latest album Refuge (2018). His new single “Rockefeller” is one of three finalists in the bluegrass category In the prestigious Chris Austin Songwriting Contest at Merlefest for 2020 (postponed until 2021).

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Ceder - Closer.

Ceder, 25, is a Swedish singer/songwriter and producer. She writes honest indie-pop with ear-catching melodies.

The ambient textures paired with her dynamic and vulnerable voice takes you on an emotional trip amplified by the creative arrangement and production choices.

"Closer" is a chill indie-pop song based on harmonies and emotions. It's about when you're seeing someone but the timing is off. You want that person closer, but if you do, you might fall in love. Written and produced by the Swedish artist and producer, Ced.

Ceder · Closer

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Rex - Rex (E.P).

Known for post punk, new wave and Spanish rhythms, the Amsterdam-based band Rex explore topics on the darker side of life. In a chaotic whirlwind of lost love, loneliness and companionship, the band are soon to release their self-titled debut EP ‘Rex’ which will be available from 26th June 2020.

Despite sharing the same influential interests from the likes of The Bad Seeds, Lou Reed and Leonard Cohen, the bands idiosyncratic sound stems from their own musical backgrounds. Frontman, and guitarist Jonathan Rex was born with flamenco in his blood, while Drummer Nout Kooij was raised as a die-hard punk, and Bass player Sara Elzinga was introduced to blues music before she could walk.

Opener ‘Palaces’ embraces love and death and the many facets in-between; the band say, “it’s the sorrow of loss and powerlessness you feel when someone close to you steps out, and how to continue on with your dreams.”

‘Lovers Like We Used To Be’ is a sensational blend of mellifluous guitar riffs and lead singer Jonathan’s robust vocals. Subjected around hopeless romanticism and resentment, they tell us “It’s a story that happens on a certain night, when you think it’s better to leave a person because all that you have done together is repetitive. You’re left feeling frustrated, but soon realise that it’s your own patterns that causes the friction.”

Elsewhere on in the record, focus post-punk track ‘hondje’ is a story told through the perspective of a dog and the bittersweet relationship that he shares with his companion. Discussing further, they say “The dog’s best friend has returned to him after time apart; someone he has really missed. Although the dog is glad to his friend, something is different. He follows his owner to the same bars and then a tragedy occurs. Together they want a change, but then he realizes it’s too late.”

Dark ballad ‘Dm’ deals with a troublesome male calling for his lost lover. Expanding on the story, Rex say “His lover tells him that they can only be together if he chooses to cross the ‘other side’ where she will be waiting for him. Knowing that he will have to cross the river to the land of the dead, insanity starts to creep in.” While ‘Punk por buleria’ wrestles between desire and aversion. Explaining further, the band tell us: “It’s like being trapped in a game; where you can only escape by playing it. There are no winners or losers, but you’re still attracted to it, whilst loathing it. It makes you feel a deep loneliness."

REX · REX- EP

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Carmanah - Stand Up.

Like the rainforests from which their name derives, the steady beat of the west coast can be found in the sound of Carmanah. The band’s first album, Speak in Rhythms produced two #1 CBC Music tracks, setting the tone for their west coast sound.

With one album behind them and one ahead, Carmanah crafts a vintage blend of the intuitive and the technical; a blend that lies somewhere among roots, rock and blues — all seamlessly woven together by Laura Mina Mitic’s soulfully luminous vocals.

The band just released a new single from their upcoming album, Iris. “Stand Up” is a kind of lullaby for anyone who sometimes feels like the world is weighing them down.

The track was intended to be a little cheeky, but the song was also written as a simple wish for love to prevail and for all the haters to just sit down and listen.

Carmanah · Stand Up

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The Highway Women - Shake The Dust.

The Highway Women release a new music video for their most recent single “Shake The Dust” which released on June 19, 2020.  The all-women band are following the release of their stunning single with an equally compelling video for their fans.

The music video for "Shake The Dust" is a triumphant call to action completing their 3 song trilogy of the Highway Women's music journey in the music industry. "Stand Up and Fight" inspires the listener to find their voice and courageously fight for what they believe in. "God Made Me Right" is a beautiful statement of victory that everyone is beautiful and perfectly made. "Shake The Dust" completes the message of empowerment and encourages action in making their mission and dreams come true.

“In the newly released music video for “Shake the Dust”, the Highway Women tell the story of how they have indeed, shaken the dust, and pursued the life they wanted. This video points out that following your dream isn’t always easy but it’s always worth it. The group showcases the reliance on faith they have to walk into the great unknowns as the lyrics “sometimes it takes a leap of faith” play over the image of them joining together in prayer. It is a beautiful visual addition that enhances the musicality and lyrics in “Shake the Dust”.

Shake the Dust is a call to action for every former prom queen, previous football quarterback, and anyone who has ever been apprehensive to follow a dream. In contrast to previous releases this song is meant to intimately come alongside listeners and gently say "you can do this". Featuring familiar acoustic guitar sounds and powerful electric guitar riffs this single blends musical elements that echo its lyrical message." - Aria Mae (Music Update Central).

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Westberg - Sam Valdez - Maps & His Mothball Fleet

Westberg have released 'Simple' today and the duo are powerful and hard to ignore from the opening moments with the clarity of their sound, along with a good few hooks throughout the track. === Sam Valdez has been featured here a couple of times in the past and her new song 'Clean' reminded me immediately of just why, her music exudes natural passion and addictive vibes. === Maps & His Mothball Fleet have also released a new single today with the charming 'Coastal Living' and it's a song that has elements of yacht rock alongside some deeper more emotional and absorbing features.
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Westberg - Simple.

Westberg, the Gen X duo of Ariel Westberg and Scott Bruzenak (aka Noisecastle III), wanted to get back to simple. That didn’t mean their usual experimentation was off the table: they collected melodic fragments and blended some of their hallmark eclectic harmonic detours that still ended up in several songs on the resultant album, Boomer Studies, due out Sept 18.

The first single off the album, coincidentally titled “Simple” is a generous reflection on aging gracefully, by a musical collaboration still a long way from being done creating surprises for their listeners. “Simple” is released today June 29.

Focused on pure, classic American songwriting, Westberg and RIAA-certified multi-platinum pop/electronic producer Bruzenak decidedly went “negative but nice this time around.” The former latchkey kids know how to raid their mental closets for musical shoebox memories. The conspicuous result on this album is the song, “Simple,” which features the multi ranging Westberg’s intentionally “bone dry” vocals strolling through a canopy of big guitar exclamation points that will be familiar to Tom Petty fans.

Though Westberg often surprises by taking on characters and tones in her songs as the music shifts gears, here she summons the easy strains emanating through the suburbs from a car radio in the 90’s to channel innocence and plain love of our time. Recognizing the duo’s inclination to complicate and layer, Westberg chose a quieter, lyrical intimacy to relate: In my younger days / I had a lot of things to say / And I’d do it all the hard way / Didn’t care if it was complicated/ Didn’t care if I was compensated.

Westberg · Simple

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Sam Valdez - Clean.

Sam Valdez shares, "Clean is a love song in a way but it’s more about being drawn to self destruction. It’s about finding comfort in uncertainty and appreciating the darker qualities in someone as well as the good."

Sam Valdez’s immersive indie-rock sensibility reflects her childhood growing up at the edge of the Nevada desert, and her formative musical experiences as a child violinist. The mystery, beauty, and haunting quality of desert life has shaped the LA-based artist’s sense of dreamy textures, and her flair for abstract but emotive lyrics. Classical music’s majesty has informed her imaginative arrangements, and cinematic sense of dynamics.

Sam has melded in an intriguing blend of shoe-gaze, Americana, indie-rock, and pop into a signature aesthetic. Select career highlights thus far include garnering rave reviews in Clash Music, Consequence of Sound, and Earmilk; earning heavy rotation from KCRW for multiple singles; and opening tours for Stella Donnelly, Cayucas, and Giant Rooks.

“I’ve always tried to write from the most genuine place that I can, but, lately, and with this record, I’ve been working on sharing more sides of my views and emotions,” Sam details.

A feeling of 1960s nostalgic balladry courses through many of thesongs on Sam’s debut. She says:”  Melancholic, comforting and thought provoking is what I look forin music and what I feel and hope comes across in mine.” The album’s first single, “Toothache,” is a reverb-dipped slow burner glowering with sensual vocals and a twist on a breakup narrative. Here, the feeling is a longing to reconnect with one’s sense of self post romantic rupture.

Sam Valdez · Clean

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Maps & His Mothball Fleet - Coastal Living.

Maps & His Mothball Fleet announces the release of the yacht rock single “Coastal Living” on June 29. The sun-drenched boy-girl harmonies flirt at summer romance within a melodic haze. “Coastal Living” is the first single off the upcoming album, GULF, due out on August 21 on Azteca Records.

Matt Wanamaker, the heart behind Maps & His Mothball Fleet wrote and recorded the vocals, percussion, and some acoustic guitar for a number of songs on a combination of his phone and handheld tape dictation while working overseas in Afghanistan in 2013. When he went back to sea again in 2018 he wrote over 50 more songs. “Coastal Living” is a warm sea salt kissed single born from those demos. Hayley Richardson joins Wanamaker in a bright call-and-response harmony telling the story of a beach hermit surprised with a love note from a lost love, urging him to take a risk and pursue her. Wanamaker paints a picture from a musical pallet shaded in sunset hues.

As the world tiptoes into a post-pandemic way of life, feelings of anxiety and hesitation are amplified by distance from family and friends. Wanamaker experienced all of these emotions in international isolation. While feelings of isolation might not be unfamiliar for those in the military, the feeling of trying to reconnect afterward is. He explains, “The album describes the feeling of physical separation I had while away and the distance that I was trying to deal with upon coming home.” The album is called GULF not only because it was written along the Gulf of Mexico and the Persian Gulf, but to describe that tangible separation and the ravine of emotional distance that come along with it.

The songs on GULF remain centered on a particular lo-fi aesthetic, prompted by the time and place for which it was recorded as much as by when it was embellished. These homespun nuances become an honest first-person account hidden by the melodies and stories that Wanamaker managed to produce all alone at night…once again adrift at sea.

Maps & His Mothball Fleet · Coastal Living

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Geoff Gibbons - Feng Suave - The Danberrys

Geoff Gibbons new song 'Keep On Driving' has just been shared, we have to go back to November 2017 for our last feature, however this is a wonderful reminder of his talented song writing and beautiful delivery. ===  Dutch duo Feng Suave have a new E.P 'Warping Youth' comprising of six wonderful tracks where timeless soulful moments and exquisite bedroom pop merge and create something very special. === The Danberrys make their third appearance here this year with the new single 'Undertow' ahead of next months album release and again the duos varied Americana, is simply gorgeous.
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Geoff Gibbons - Keep On Driving.

Vancouver-based Roots/Folk Rock artist Geoff Gibbons is a true storyteller, armed with that rare narrative combination of humility, compassion, and troubador wisdom. His songs are melodic and wholly relatable.

Much like Tom Petty or Bruce Springsteen's music, when Geoff Gibbons writes songs, they somehow seem destined for the open road. His new single "Keep on Driving", out now on all platforms, speaks on a theme that most of us have experienced.

About "Keep on Driving": In these times of uncertainty “Keep On Driving” is a longing for freedom. Caught in the well-worn circle of day to day survival… I wondered what would happen if I didn’t turn in the driveway and just kept going. It speaks to life in general.. The smallest move or gesture can completely change the direction of a life. We forget we have control over those moves every minute.. as fear and comfort often hold us where we are.

Geoff Gibbons Music · Keep On Driving

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Feng Suave - Warping Youth (E.P).

Dutch duo Feng Suave have just released their new EP 'Warping Youth'. The Amsterdam-hailing ensemble consisting Daniël Schoemaker and Daniël de Jong toe the line between Bill Withers-esque ‘70s soul and quarter-life crisis bedroom-pop.

2020 has seen the Dutch dyad release a string of impressive singles. "Toking, Dozing" and "Maybe Another Time" - the first two tastes of the new EP, secured support from Billboard, Complex, Notion and Lauren Laverne on BBC 6 Music.

Feng Suave are as well-versed with the greats as with current contemporaries like HOMESHAKE or Unknown Mortal Orchestra. Like a lens flare, these influences of the old and new refract and form their own heavily evocative and hazy marque of hypnagogic pop. Previous releases were championed by Iggy Pop on his BBC 6 Music show during their 2019 tour with Khruangbin (their self-titled debut EP in 2017 which featured tracks "Sink Into The Floor" and "Honey, There’s No Time", followed by standalone single "Venus Flytrap" in 2018).

Vaulting their original brand of bedroom-pop and arming themselves with razor-sharp wit on some of the themes on the forthcoming EP, Feng Suave are both lyrically intimate and sardonic. On the new EP, 'Warping Youth', the band said; “We aimed at distancing ourselves from the contemporary ‘bedroom’ sound of our first releases and tried to stay true to the music we like, listen to and admire the most; more organic-sounding, classic songs. Thematically, the songs are about coming of age and the directionless wandering through adolescence that comes with it.”

Feng Suave · Warping Youth EP

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The Danberrys - Undertow.

Nashville’s The Danberrys are somehow both charmingly old-world and very much of this moment. The married couple’s rich pastoral blues and muscly folk evoke the big-hearted storytelling of pioneering giants like the Carter Family but could only come now, as a mixed offshoot of roots music’s ever-growing family tree.

In 2009, the two recorded singer/guitarist DeBerry DeBerry’s original material together on a whim, and The Danberrys were born. More than a decade later, six Independent Music Award nominations, including two nods for best Americana album and one for best EP, punctuate their résumé. Their 2016 LP Give & Receive earned serious acclaim, and the pair’s fourth album, Shine, sails past the high expectations that ensued. Produced by ace drummer Marco Giovino (Band of Joy, Patty Griffin, Buddy Miller) and executive produced by Brian Brinkerhoff, Shine captures the Danberrys’ fiercely guarded independence––and revels in it. Singer Daniel Daniel’s commanding voice roars low and high––an ideally nuanced partner for DeBerry’s subtly virtuosic guitar playing. For the first time in their career, the two co-wrote every song together, pulling in the help of a third songwriter on a handful of the tracks.

Their unforced creative approach is on triumphant display on Shine, the twelve-song collection reveals a pair of artists putting years of passionate study in bluegrass, blues, funk, folk, gospel, and pop to brilliant use: conversational stories and metaphorical sketches of the natural world rest on beds of complex bluesy folk. “I’ve always loved music that makes you guess what it’s about,” Daniel says. “We want our songs to be vague enough that they could be interpreted to mean different things.”

“We could spell it out,” DeBerry adds. “But we’re bored with the obvious.”

The title track kicks off the album with moody, guitar-punched swagger. Darkness sets the stage only to give way to the light Daniel and DeBerry refuse to stop seeking. “The song is a reminder––a daily mantra,” Daniel says. “How do you get through today and continue to grow and let go of all the things from your past that want to keep you down and keep you from being who you really are in the world?” Beginning with only Daniel’s voice, which is soon joined by DeBerry’s somber electric guitar, “The Mountain” addresses similar life-affirming themes. The incomparable Darrell Scott adds backing vocals to the track, which grooves as it soars.

The Danberrys · Undertow

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