Scarves - Carleton Stone - Shutups

Photo - Rachel Bennett

Scarves - Delicate Creatures.

Over the past few years, and through a few different iterations, Seattle-based math-rock emo-punks Scarves has established themselves as, “One of the city’s top notch rising acts,” according to KEXP. In that same paragraph, the words “jarring” and “abrasive” also appear so that starts to paint a picture of the dichotomy that has been at play for the band and its frontperson/founder Niko Stathakopoulos.

On “Delicate Creatures,” Scarves ponders human fragility through an ordinary day that changed in an instant. Inspired by a friend who maintained her composure after busting her lip open on a basketball court, “Delicate Creatures” conjures up the character of “Jackie,” a person who comes to embody the attempt to be strong within an unrelenting world.

“A regular moment can explode into blood so quickly.” Stathakopoulos says. “What does that mean for a human? What are we pushing against by existing?” As he paints the portrait of Jackie, a wild thing, Jackie, a switchblade on her shoulder, he fleshes out her out-frame-opponent through her struggles: “It’s hard to stay soft when you feel surrounded by such sharp teeth / It’s hard to stay calm when you feel just like fresh meat.”

Still, Stathakopoulos glimpsed an act of resistance on the basketball court that day, however small, and it is this such act that drives the track’s reluctantly hopeful closing lines: “We are all just tiny comets up against one big rock / And I hope you make an impact.”

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Carleton Stone - House In The Hills.

On his third solo album, the self-produced Papercut—armed with a couple lifetimes of songwriting and touring in his rear view mirror—Carleton Stone gets honest about the toll of devotion to craft while illustrating his mastery of it. Through sax-blasted Americana, power-pop laced with '80s synth, and dreamy, sophisticated pop melodies, the Nova Scotia songwriter blurs genres to explore a tumultuous few years and some of the scariest questions someone can ask: "What the hell have I done? What if I'd gone down some other path?"

His brand new song, "House In The Hills," encapsulates the feeling of accepting that we are enough with what we have in our lives. It feels like the media or internet is always trying to sell us something to help improve our lives or make us feel like we aren’t enough, and Stone is trying to counterbalance that feeling with this song.

With this song, Stone really wanted the lyrics and the message of the song to stand out so he kept the production as simple as possible with just enough to help support the story. When the song was written in early 2020, the pandemic wasn't even a thing that was on most people’s radar at that point. The pandemic only highlighted the feelings in the chorus of this song and reminded us what is truly essential in our lives.

Jones & Co · Carleton Stone - House In The Hills

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Shutups - Endless Heaven.

Bay Area indie-punk band Shutups are proud to share “Endless Heaven”, the lead single from their new album, titled I can’t eat nearly as much as I want to vomit. The full album was mixed and mastered by Grammy nominated engineer / producer Jack Shirley (Deafheaven, Jeff Rosenstock, King Woman), and will be released via Kill Rock Stars on October 21st, 2022.

“Endless Heaven” is a four and half minute crash course on the songwriting style of Shutups, who combine catchy indie punk melodies that share similarities with bands like Mannequin Pussy and PUP, filtered through the go-for-broke ambition of a band like Foxing and the experimental genre swirl of Spirit of The Beehive.  Describing his intentions behind the single “Endless Heaven”, the band’s songwriter and vocalist Hadley Davis says “I wanted to write a song that mirrored the feeling of letting out all your air and laying on the bottom of a pool. The crushing comfort of calm water. Every time I worked on this song, I pictured that. It’s a summer song, but for the more mundane moments of summer (sitting in hot cars, power outages, sunburns, days lost to the void). It’s about dissociating and returning mid sentence”. Meanwhile, bassist Bud Armienti said about the song – “I played the gong”.

Beginning as a duo of Hadley Davis on vocals and guitar and Mia Wood on drums, Hadley recruited childhood friends Eric Stafford (Guitar/Synth) and Bud Armienti (bass / synth) from his hometown of Livermore to round out the full band roster. The influence of Weezer on Shutups is immediately apparent – something that Mia and Hadley bonded over early on in their friendship. Songs that contrast distorted guitar tones with disarmingly pleasant pop melodies are not exactly a reinvention of the wheel – in addition to Weezer, they cite bands like The Pixies as inspiration for their own take on the classic quiet-loud-quiet-loud 90s alt rock sound – but the way they assemble these songs is truly unique. “There’s also a good amount of inspiration pulled from mash-ups, as a compositional tool.” Hadley says. “I was and still am obsessed with Girl Talk’s Night Ripper. I worshiped that album in high school as it satisfied my need for non-stop hooks and changes. It also taught me the value of juxtaposition in texture. When I write now I’m thinking about cut and paste techniques more so than typical song structure. This album feels like a mashup of our songs.”

Twain - girlpuppy

Twain - The Priestess.

Twain announces a new album called Noon, out October 21 via Keeled Scales. This week they share the softly rollicking new song, “The Priestess.” Songwriter Matthew Davidson offers, “I thought I was writing this song to a friend and later found out it was directed towards myself. It is about allowing the heart to speak, and being direct.”

Davidson elaborates on the new song, “‘Rugby’ is a street in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn and ‘the Odyssey’ is my old van. The inner landscape of the song, the place it takes me and where it was written, is Las Trampas, New Mexico, and I think about the cold nights and sleeping on the ground under wool blankets, taping up holes in my sleeping bag with duct tape, Folgers coffee in the blue cardboard can, and hearing the elk song for the first time.”

Twain’s fourth release on Keeled Scales, Noon, is a collection attempting to balance soul-fantasy with self-scrutiny, to erode the barrier between those two places, and to find the liminal state between the spirit’s ambition for itself and the often harsh truth of the present. Says Davidson, “Sometimes the facts of life make dreams difficult to protect. Twain is my effort to reconcile those two states… to forget that they could ever exist in opposition.” Noon was recorded by Twain’s longtime collaborator Adrian Olsen at Montrose Recording in Richmond, VA and features bass by Ken Woodward and drums by Austin Vaughn. From Noon, Davidson previously shared “King of Fools,” an offering that compelled Under The Radar to praise “a songwriter of uncommon emotional weight.”

“Noon is where I am, more-or-less, in my natural life span and in my creative life span. I picture noon being at the very bottom of a bowl… the resting point of a pendulum… not the apex of an arc, or the crest of a hill. Arriving at noon for the first time in my life, I sense everything reversing and the possibility to change and cure and heal is real for the first time. This album is a prayer from noon for the rest of the day.”

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girlpuppy - Wish.

Last year, girlpuppy (aka Becca Harvey) released her debut EP Swan. made with producer Marshall Vore who is known for his work with folk dynamo Phoebe Bridgers, the five song collection, found a supportive home with Royal Mountain Records, and drew remarkable acclaim for a debut EP, earning praise from outlets like NPR, FADER, Paste, Under The Radar, Coup De Main, Office Magazine, i-D, Line of Best Fit and NYLON who called her "one of indie folk's most promising newcomers."

This week, girlpuppy is back and announcing her debut LP When I'm Alone, which will be out October 28th on Royal Mountain. To mark the announce she is sharing the album's lead single "Wish".

“On 'Wish' I was thinking about when friends leave your life and you're not entirely sure why," Harvey explains. "It's a pretty universal feeling, I think. And, the thing is—even if you managed to live in the walls of that person's apartment and were able to figure it out, their reasons might not make total sense. This song is me living with that feeling, when loss just doesn't quite add up. This is the first shoegaze rock song I’ve made and I did that intentionally—the emotions in the song go from anger to sadness to nostalgia and all the other emotions that you feel when you go through a “friend breakup." I imagined it being really cathartic to play it live.”

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Tuomo & Markus - Pearl Diver

Tuomo & Markus - Highest Mountain.

After returning in recent months to deliver their highly-praised single ‘Wishful Information’, their first piece of new material since the release of their stunning debut album ‘Dead Circles’ in 2018, Finnish outfit Tuomo & Markus are back to announce the details behind their eagerly-awaited sophomore LP ‘Game Changing’, alongside the vibrant new single ‘Highest Mountain’.

Throughout their tenure, the pair have always looked to bridge the gap between psychedelic and folk-inspired soundscapes, and ‘Game Changing’ aims to continue that broad and adventurous spirit. With the record cut in the studio of Jonathan Wilson, best known for his production work with Father John Misty and Angel Olsen, and after the stellar reception to the record’s lead single ‘Wishful Information’ earlier this year, ‘Highest Mountain’ makes for an airy and more atmospheric listen. Sitting in the same vein as Nick Drake and David Crosby, it revives more of that smooth and tranquil quality they are known for, this new offering makes for the perfect introduction for what to expect from their upcoming full-length.

Speaking about the inspiration behind ‘Highest Mountain’, they said, “Highest Mountain was inspired by the political polarization and dogmatic thinking that our societies have been faced with in the last 5-6 years, starting with the elections that lead to Brexit and Trump presidency, resulting with the US Capitol attacks, the overturn of abortion rights in the US and in parts also the current war in Ukraine. Some of these can be attributed to the tribalism that the age of social media has created - the idea that ”we believe what we need to believe” and our confirmation bias.”

Tuomo & Markus are a new musical project from acclaimed Finnish soul/jazz artist Tuomo Prättälä and singer/songwriter Markus Nordenstreng of The Latebirds. The duo’s music has been described as Nordic Americana and indie-folk with distinct jazz, soul and prog-rock influences. Their haunting harmonies complement each other much like in the cases of Simon & Garfunkel or Crosby Stills Nash.

Tuomo & Markus · 5 Highest Mountain

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Pearl Diver - Heaven Help Me.

Written by Pearl Diver’s Matt Sage following an intense psychedelic experience which saw him feel an epiphanous sense of connection with the natural world, the lead singer reflects of “Heaven Help Me":

“Heaven Help Me came to me in the woods on strong mushrooms.  It’s about the way in which it sometimes feels as if nature is luring us to rejoin it, to remerge, to allow ourselves to be subsumed.  It’s almost like a poetic death wish in slow motion.  It’s the same impulse that sometimes makes you want to serve into oncoming traffic, or leap over the edge, but you don’t: some grace manages to save you at the last minute and you continue to cling to life, at least for now.”

Through a labyrinth of casually trippy guitars and tightly knotted riffs, wormhole backing-vocals and lysergic lyrical couplets; Sage’s sentiments like “came upon a fallen tree, I thought it was a throne so I took my place. No one there to witness me, or record my fall from grace” make “Heaven Help Me” a listen that is as tightly intricate as it is wholly immersive.

The new single is a glittering entry-point to the ‘Look For The Light’ EP (out now on all streaming services); a record which sees the trio of Matt Sage (vox/guitar), Josh Rigal (Bass), and Joel Bassuk (drums) deliver 4 original songs of a finessed calibre far beyonds its debut credentials. Nodding to the classic works of Radiohead, Pink Floyd and The Beatles, the release finds a band spiralling through psychedelic portals (“Look For The Light”) and taut post-rock jams (“Heaven Help Me”), sleepy reflections (“Give It All Away”) to soulful 70s-inflected grooves (“You Can Bring Your Darkness”).

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Franklin Gothic - Chris St. John

Photo - Victoria Escobar

Franklin Gothic - Slow Down Bang Bang.

Franklin Gothic, the solo project of musical artist Jay DiBartolo based out of Portland, OR, announces his debut record titled Into the Light, out August 19th via split release with Very Jazzed and Pleasure Tapes. The record was made in collaboration with producer Erik Blood (who has worked with Shabazz Palaces, Pickwick, Tacocat, and more).

Into the Light draws inspiration from musical influences that stem back to Jay’s early ‘90s childhood. It showcases a variety of styles, from shoegaze to Americana, challenging the expectation that a band, record, or song is bound to any specific genre.

The 12-song LP follows the ups and downs of the singer/songwriter’s experience, as he struggles to leave behind an old cynical view of the world to make room for a more openhearted one.

 
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Chris St. John - Walk Between The White Lines.

Chris St. John has been on a roll these last two years, having written dozens of songs which have appeared on two separate albums. His first album, I’m Dreaming, which was released in 2021, gained critical acclaim and commercial success. The album had four chart-toppers on the World Indie Music Charts and the Euro Indie Music Network, including “I Called You Rose,” which climbed all the way to No. 3.

Recently, Chris was in Nashville, working with legendary producer Stephen Wrench, as well as some of the finest session musicians in Music City, to record his upcoming album Fly Away. During the production of the album, Chris released the song “Hey Siri,” which quickly hit No. 1 on the World Indie Music Charts and the Euro Indie Music Network and remained there for five weeks. “Hey Siri” has a playful, rolling African groove reminiscent of Paul Simon’s Graceland. This clever, lively, and thought-provoking song focuses on the drawbacks of modern technology. Stylistically, it’s an outlier of sorts, scratching only the surface of the deep and impactful artistry Chris showcases over the course of 13 tracks.

The diversity of the songs makes it very hard to fit Chris’ music into any one genre. His voice is velvety and clear on the album’s ballads, and heartfelt and rocking on the up-tempo songs. His tenor voice has remarkable range and clarity, and his different vocal stylings on each track make it hard to believe it’s the same singer throughout the album.

Chris St. John Music · Walk Between The White Lines

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Elf Power - Derek Hoke - Marcus Man - Lilly Winwood

Elf Power - Clean Clothes.

Last Friday the Athens, GA-based psychedelic folk band Elf Power released their new album Artificial Countrysides via Yep Roc Records. Also released the same day is an official animated video for the new song “Clean Clothes” created by Michael Rostig. Elf Power are currently in the midst of a summer tour that will make stops in Philadelphia, New York, Atlanta and more.

Artificial Countrysides has been praised by Stereogum, Under The Radar and BrooklynVegan, who said “It finds their unique psychedelic pop/indie rock fusion sounding as great as ever.” FLOOD Magazine proclaimed, “Elf Power are far from running out of ideas nearly 30 years into their time together as a psych-folk unit,” while MAGNET Magazine said, “The songs themselves are some of the catchiest and most structurally sound Rieger has written in quite some time.”

With Artificial Countrysides, singer and multi-instrumentalist Andrew Rieger and his Elf Power bandmates — drummer Peter Alvanos and guitarist Dave Wrathgabar, with contributions from keyboard player Laura Carter — have created some of the band’s most expansive musical terrain yet. Along with a blend of fuzz-tone electric and layered acoustic guitars, Moog keyboards and lively drums, the group experimented with the sounds of marimba, Mellotron, harpsichord, synth bass and distorted drum machine loops, taking a try-it-and-see approach to recording in the studio. Artificial Countrysides is Elf Power’s 14th album across their almost 30 year career.

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Photo - Alex Berger

Derek Hoke - Wild And Free.

East Nashville-based singer-songwriter Derek Hoke has announced that his new album Electric Mountain will be released on September 9 via 3Sirens Music Group, the first release from the Music City collective 3Sirens’ label arm. Hoke has also just shared his new single “Wild and Free,” a dreamy blend of acoustic guitar and synthesizers that arrives with a lively music video.

“‘Wild and Free’ is an acoustic song that I wanted to have build and build and build,” shares Hoke. “Originally it was about 10 minutes long and we edited the end off, as it just kept going which would be too much for some people. The idea was to start small with a chorus of voices. I think of it as driving through the desert as the sun’s coming up, as the idea.”

Hoke's forthcoming record Electric Mountain finds the East Nashville music veteran stepping back into the light following his previous release, 2017's Bring the Flood, which in contrast was a bit darker and moodier. Produced by longtime collaborator and childhood friend Dex Green (Elvis Costello, Allison Russell), Electric Mountain draws on influences that range from Appalachian folk music to Peter Gabriel classics to Bruce Springsteen demos, with plenty of futuristic instrumentals in between. Hoke’s previous records have featured such talents as Robyn Hitchcock, Jason Isbell, Luther Dickinson, Elizabeth Cook, Aaron Lee Tasjan, and more. On Electric Mountain, he keeps the local Music City love going: Prudent listeners will recognize vocals from Thayer Serrano and fiddle from Lillie Mae.

Hoke has spent the better part of the last two-plus decades making a home for himself in East Nashville, whether he’s hosting $2 Tuesday at iconic venue The Five Spot or spending a quiet night alone fiddling with Eurorack synthesizers. But his musical success has been hard-fought every step of the way. Raised in Florence, South Carolina, Hoke taught himself to play and write music by ear, mimicking the sounds he’d heard on records and through airwaves. Despite not having a musical family or a local community of players, Hoke found new influences – including '90s staples like Ben Folds, Wilco, and Drivin N Cryin – through his job at the town record shop.

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Marcus Man - Aspirations.

Marcus Man is a 23 year-old independent artist from Warrington (UK) who has just released the rather splendid song 'Aspirations' along with an engaging video. He tells us "I’ve been writing and performing music for several years now, and I’ve been releasing music for at least the last two. I started off performing in my local town, then moved on to Manchester & Liverpool, before finally moving to London. My biggest influences include Damien Rice, The Last Shadow Puppets, Amy Winehouse, Frank Turner to name a few. I particularly like music that has a lyrical focus and tend to write songs with that in mind."

Regarding the new single he continues, "‘Aspirations’ is about tackling the idea of whether or not someone’s aspirations or work ethic can affect their relationships. 

While trying to be quite fun and light-hearted lyrically, I think the song is bittersweet at its core. The track was recorded at Matchbox Studios in Warrington & is part of an upcoming EP due to be released at the end of summer. Musically, it’s sort of like soft indie-rock, and I like to think it’s the perfect soundtrack to putting your feet up at the end of the day, doing nothing, & being content with being lazy!"

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Lilly Winwood - Sleep Issues.

Leading up to the writing of her new album, Talking Walls, singer, songwriter, and guitarist Lilly Winwood had all but resigned herself from continuing her music career. Burned out after her last album cycle and in the midst of a pandemic, Winwood took a job to pay the bills—but she couldn’t stop writing. She knew she was on the cusp of something important. “I’d be working in a restaurant all day and then at night, come 3 a.m., I’d be pulling half-written songs out of my apron,” she recalls. “Then it all came together.”

When Winwood decided to get sober, the floodgates opened. Talking Walls captures that tumultuous period, with Winwood literally “talking to the walls” as she looked inward with new purpose. Penned over long sleepless nights, with clear eyes and a willingness to ask tough questions, each song takes a different tack into the introspective wind, backed by a minimalist-roots sound. 

The now East Nashville-based artist (and daughter of Grammy-winning British rocker Steve Winwood) simply wrote her story and brought it to her band at Nashville’s Trace Horse studio—no producer needed. The new single “Brighter Days,” is a swaggering, pedal-steel laden track showcasing Lilly’s soulful voice and the simple, organic feel that the band landed on in the studio.

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