Lucy Francesca Dron - James McMurtry - Lindsay Jarman - Pollena - Simone

Lucy Francesca Dron - Leftovers (E.P).

Brisbane-based songstress Lucy Francesca Dron has been turning heads with her genre-defying style and compelling storytelling, her most recent singles ‘What Is Next?’ and ‘Liquid Numbing Pain’ paving the way for highly-anticipated EP ‘Leftovers’ (out now).

Combining her enchanting fusion of indie-rock and lo-fi folk with her feathery jazz-style vocals, Dron has delivered an introspective coming-of-age journey in ‘Leftovers’, each of the five tracks representing a different stage of her transition into adulthood. Dron further explains:

“Leftovers is like a musical journal of my experience transitioning from a teenager to a young adult. Each song represents a piece of the journey, exploring themes of curiosity, anxiety, love, heartbreak and acceptance.”

Similar to a journey of self-discovery, the five tracks making up ‘Leftovers’ were once thought of as outcasts, not fitting into any of Dron’s other album concepts, until finding their rightful place within this contemplative EP as it cascades through each theme with sonic finesse.

Lucy Francesca Dron · Leftovers

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James McMurtry - Canola Fields.

In James McMurtry’s new effort, The Horses and the Hounds, the acclaimed songwriter backs personal narratives with effortless elegance (“Canola Fields”) and endless energy (“If It Don’t Bleed”). This first collection in seven years, due August 20 on New West Records, spotlights a seasoned tunesmith in peak form as he turns toward reflection (“Vaquero”) and revelation ( closer “Blackberry Winter”). Familiar foundations guide the journey. “There’s a definite Los Angeles vibe to this record,” McMurtry says. “The ghost of Warren Zevon seems to be stomping around among the guitar tracks. Don’t know how he got in there. He never signed on for work for hire.”

The Horses and the Hounds is a reunion of sorts. McMurtry recorded the new album with legendary producer Ross Hogarth (Ozzy Osbourne, John Fogerty, Van Halen, Keb’ Mo’) at Jackson Browne’s Groove Masters in Santa Monica, California, a world class studio that has housed such legends as Bob Dylan (2012’s Tempest) and David Crosby (2016’s Lighthouse) as well as Browne himself for I’m Alive (1993) and New Found Glory, Coming Home (2006). McMurtry and Hogarth first worked together 30 years ago, when Hogarth was a recording engineer in the employ of John Mellencamp at Mellencamp’s own Belmont Studios near Bloomington, Indiana. Hogarth recorded McMurtry’s first two albums, Too Long in the Wasteland and Candyland, for Columbia Records and later mixed McMurtry’s first self-produced album, Saint Mary of the Woods, for Sugar Hill Records. Another veteran of those three releases, guitarist David Grissom (Joe Ely, John Mellencamp, Dixie Chicks), returns with some of his finest work.

Accordingly, the new collection marks another upward trajectory: The Horses and the Hounds will be McMurtry’s debut album on genre-defining Americana record label New West Records (Steve Earle, Rodney Crowell, Lucinda Williams, John Hiatt, Aaron Lee Tasjan, Buddy Miller, dozens more).

“I first became aware of James McMurtry’s formidable songwriting prowess while working at Bug Music publishing in the ’90s,” says New West president John Allen. “He’s a true talent. All of us at New West are excited at the prospect of championing the next phase of James’ already successful and respected career.” McMurtry perfectly fits a label housing “artists who perform real music for real people.” After all, No Depression says of the literate songwriter’s most recent collection, Complicated Game: “Lyrically, the album is wise and adventurous, with McMurtry — who’s not prone to autobiographical tales — credibly inhabiting characters from all walks of life.” “[McMurtry] fuses wry, literate observations about the world with the snarl of barroom rock,” National Public Radio says. “The result is at times sardonic, subversive and funny, but often vulnerable and always poignant.”

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Photo - Joelle Grace Taylor

Lindsay Jarman - Rue Collective.

Atlanta's Lindsay Jarman has announced an August 20 release for her debut LP The Gallery, and has shared the first single "Rue Collective" at Glide Magazine. The outlet praised the track as "a stirring whirl of throwback lounge-y jazz grooves and alt-folk soul...an imposing debut statement."

With Laurel Canyon folk vibes that mix and mingle with a Nora Jones-esque, jazz-influenced delivery and production, Lindsay Jarman’s music exudes a depth and maturity far beyond what one might be inclined to expect from a debut full-length album. But to hear her tell it, the songs are less creative endeavors and more a means of healing; of processing life’s painful moments and putting them out into the universe, enabling her to view them much like one admires the paintings on a gallery wall.

“There were extremely painful moments of my life that I was able to get some catharsis for through writing certain songs on this record … they definitely added to who I’ve become as a person,” Jarman says. “Patience is passion tamed, and the rapture that prevails the willful processing of trauma holds healing and gratification in its palm. This record offered that hand to me, and I took it. I found shelter there.”

The songwriter spent time in New York, writing jingles for a score house, before relocating to Georgia and enrolling in UGA, completing her studies in Arts, Entertainment, and Media Management several years ago. While she attributes much of her musical background to her father, she also nods to the value in self-discovery and individuality, enlisting the help of friends in the Atlanta music scene and connecting with producer/engineer Damon Moon to create The Gallery.

lindsayjarman · 06 - Rue Collective

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Pollena - Stand Up.

An acclamation of glowing piano, sparkling synths, spacious percussion and confident vocals. "Stand Up" premiered this week on BBC 6 Music as Lauren Laverne's While You Were Sleeping track is a powerful new direction from rising London-based talent Pollena with a message that demands attention. 

“This year more than ever we’re ready for real change. Stand Up is about giving people the confidence that they need to make that change happen. Don’t just accept things as they are, don’t just go ‘back to normal'. It’s about expecting something better,” says Pollena

Pollena is a vocalist/songwriter who cut her teeth touring Europe in 2018/19 with neo-soul outfit Girlhood. Since lockdown she’s been writing and releasing experimental new solo tracks, collaborating with rising producers.

"Stand Up" is her third solo single, produced by DJ and musician Footshooter (previous collaborators include Poppy Ajudha and Allysha Joy with tracks released by Rhythm Section International and Dance Regular Recordings) and follows ‘The Pool’ and ‘Glitter’ (feat. BBC Radio 1 / 6 / X-Tra / Apple New Music (editorial) / Spotify Fresh Finds Pop (editorial) et al).

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Simone - Love Lessons (E.P).

After revealing four alt-pop songs "Kissing Strangers", “Boy Of My Dreams”, “everything/nothing” and “Wine”, and with each release gaining new fans and praise, New York’s Simone is releasing her 6-track pure pop Love Lessons EP. Simone’s musically diverse songwriting styles from acoustic teary to pop bops. Even at the young age of 16, Simone writes with a very strong cinematic eye here, capturing the rough edges of modern relationships in vivid detail. Today, her Love Lessons EP is rounded out with “Girl Like Me” and “Who Do You Think You Are?”.

Simone says: “Every song on “Love Lessons” tells a story about a relationship that ultimately isn’t built to last. All six tracks are written from different perspectives about experiences with love and heartbreak. I wrote all of these songs by myself in my bedroom, touching on vulnerable and way too relatable emotions. I’m really proud of the versatility showcased in this project, from pop songs to rock songs to ballads.”

At 10 years old, her worldview opened up to become a performer when she sang 2 self-written songs at an open mic in Nashville, TN. Needless to say that from an early age, New York-based Simone has set her vision on sharing her love for music. “Kissing Strangers” arrangements are sonically rich to match, mixing radio-ready pop hooks with indie rock grit and singer/songwriter intimacy. “Kissing Strangers” is a buoyant, brilliant earworm exploring the rise and fall of young love in all its exhilarating, heartbreaking transience. About “Boy Of My Dreams”, she said: “it’s a song I wrote after ending a relationship that really damaged my perception of love.”

Simone · Love Lessons EP

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MARBL - Alicia Toner - Keegan Chambers - The Felice Brothers

MARBL - Never Get Out.

When you break up with someone you love fully, you can't really let them go. Apparently, it happens, but there's always a room in your heart, one only you know, where your lover still lingers in. I remember the moment I realized that he might never get thin enough to leave through the door to his room in my heart, and how I wrote it down immediately.

This song was written not long after the latter single "It's Always Our O'clock Somewhere", and it goes together with its message, that I think a lot about lately - love is the energy of life, the answer to our constant questioning, the merging point between the random and the sacred, so when it's over, it can't really be over, it has to go somewhere.“ - MARBL

The video by Tomer Levi shows a dark cloud following MARBL everywhere as a metaphor of not being able of letting go but finally disappearing in the end.

MARBL, who also works as a vocal coach in Tel-Aviv, was able to generate a great media response worldwide with several singles and her last EP "The Flight of the Hawks". In addition to countless reviews, some of her songs have been included in editorial playlists by Amazon and Spotify.

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Alicia Toner - Joke's On Me.

Alicia Toner has been immersed in various forms of music since she was young. From performing with the New Brunswick Youth Orchestra at Carnegie Hall to spending over ten years performing in Dora Award winning productions by Soulpepper Theatre and Mirvish Productions, music has always been a part of the singer-songwriter's life. Blending modern folk with a pop/rock edge, her unique sound is complimented by her incredibly strong songwriting skills and powerfully emotive voice.

A song about denial, "Joke's On Me" was written in the basement of Alicia Toner's Toronto apartment, inspired by a relationship she felt trapped in but continuously decided to stay. Influenced by the musical stylings of one of her favourite artists, Brandi Carlile, the singer-songwriter wrote the deeply personal lyrics to highlight the internal conflict she was facing. With its gripping melody and rhythm, "Joke's On Me" is instantly captivating and takes the listener on a highly relatable journey. The genre defiant song aims to remind listeners that sometimes they need to seek assistance in order to do what is best for them. The song originally started out as a folky-train song, and was brought to life with the help of well known Canadian producers Stuart Cameron and Peter Fusco, who transformed it into the riveting tune it is today.

”Joke's On Me" is about the part of you that knows you need to get out and the other part that tells you everything is fine. If anybody is listening and is in a relatable experience, one of the biggest things I learned is that you can’t get out by yourself without help. - Alicia Toner.

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Keegan Chambers - Out Of My Head (E.P).

The new EP from Keegan Chambers will have you wondering why you haven't heard of her yet. Appropriately titled "Out of My Head", the record features four original songs which Keegan says she's glad to finally get out of her head and into the world wide web. The songs have been through various demo versions over the years but with a little help from Factor Canada's Artist Development grant, she and platinum award winning engineer and producer, Daniel Tsourounis, have been able to finish them - defining her sound as an artist in the process.

The first track, "Look What You've Done" comes in guns a blazing with powerful soaring melodies over infectious pop-rock instrumentals. Directly addressing her past abusers, Keegan describes the ensuing aftermath of their actions - namely navigating her all-encompassing rage and thirst for revenge. Echoing that sentiment is "Catcalling", another pop-rock anthem, featuring a seething guitar solo byJonny Nesta of the Juno-nominated band Skull Fist. 

Her country roots start to show in "Devil's Kisses" which features slide guitar, harmonica, the banjo and a moody guitar solo by Spencer LeVon of Fatality and Brother Levon. It tells the age old tale of deal-making with the devil, playing a game that's been rigged from the start.

She closes the EP with "Love at First Sight", a ballad that was originally released on her acoustic EP in 2019. This rendition is laced with organs and string lines contributed by award winning composer, Asher Lenz. After getting you all riled up with the first few tracks, it's the perfect audible digestif.

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The Felice Brothers - Jazz on the Autobahn.

The Felice Brothers have announced their new album From Dreams To Dust will be released on September 17, 2021 via Yep Roc Records. They’ve also released the official video for "Jazz On The Autobahn," the second song to be released from the forthcoming album. The stop motion video was painted and constructed by Ian Felice and took over a month to complete. Ian Felice spoke with Consequence of Sound about the origins of the new song.

"This song is a story about two people on the run. They’ve left behind their entire lives in search of something but are haunted by a feeling of looming catastrophe. They are both using each other as a means of escape," explains Ian Felice.

The Felice Brothers have also announced a US tour to celebrate the release of the new album. The tour will kick off on September 16 at New York’s Bowery Ballroom and will make stops in Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, D.C. and many more.

From Dreams To Dust sees the continuation of the new lineup of The Felice Brothers that debuted with Undress, consisting of Ian Felice, who shares songwriting and vocal duties in the band with his brother James Felice, bassist Jesske Hume (Conor Oberst, Jade Bird) and drummer Will Lawrence. The album was written and produced by The Felice Brothers, and features Bright Eyes’ Nathaniel Walcott on trumpet and Mike Mogis, who mixed the album, on pedal steel.

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Pearl & The Oysters - Edouard Landry - Jennifer Lyn & the Groove Revival

Pearl & The Oysters - Treasure Island.

Treasure Island is the name of a beloved beach town on the Gulf Coast of Florida. The TI beachfront is home to a number of pretty iconic 1950s roadside architectural landmarks, like the Thunderbird Resort’s oversize neon sign, which we reference in the opening line of the song. It’s not a hidden-getaway type of spot but to us that beach always radiated a kind of magical healing energy. This song whose basic rhythm track was composed and recorded in a 10-minute span at Rockaway studio in December 2018 was our humble attempt at bottling Treasure Island’s atmosphere, in musical form. Featuring “the funkiest drum machine ever,” according to Shags.

Flowerland is the third album from French-American duo Pearl & The Oysters, available September 3rd, 2021 via Chicago’s Feeltrip Records.

With the band having recently relocated to LA, the album was intended as the final installment of Pearl & The Oysters’ ‘Florida trilogy,’ begun on their self-titled debut (2017) and continued on Canned Music (2018), a space age odyssey equal parts fawning over the Floweredland’s natural spectacles and mourning the peril that climate change has wrought on it all.

In comparison with previous releases, Flowerland reveals more of the inner workings of Davis and Polack’s minds, with the pair trading fantastical stories about zany characters for more personal narratives detailing worries of the everyday and universal variety. While the music remains primarily indebted to the escapist optimism of late-1960s soft pop, cloudier themes such as eco-anxiety, depression, and the stresses of finishing graduate school are all explored (somewhat cryptically) in the lyrics, although never in an overwhelming way. For Davis and Polack, Flowerland was meant as an attempt to channel crippling emotions into an uplifting listen, rather than a deliberately heavy experience.

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Edouard Landry - Be Here Now.

Ed released his first full-length English-language album, Be Here Now, a few days ago.

’Edouard Landry's songs are a mix of pop, rock, folk and catchy melodies. The Sudbury, Ontario artist was nominated for the ‘Best Male Performer’ category at the Gala des prix Trille Or (2017), ‘Francophone Artist of the Year’ at the Country Music Association of Ontario Awards (2020). 

His albums Pomme plastique II and L’escalade were nominated ‘Best Album by a Francophone Artist’ at the Northern Ontario Music and Film Awards (2017 and 2019).

Ed has released his first full-length English album, Be Here Now, about finding mindfulness and inner peace to live in the ‘now’ no matter where you are. The theme of the album is learning to live in the moment.

Edouard Landry · Be Here Now

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Jennifer Lyn & the Groove Revival - Nothing Holding Me Down.

On the plains of North Dakota, USA nestled between the tall grass and the open prairie sky sits a recording studio. The sound of over driven guitars with dueling lead harmonies and classic rock undertones rips through the air followed by vocals that reach you with a deep resonation in your soul.

This type of music, uncharacteristic of the area, is akin to a sound of decades past and Jennifer Lyn and her band, Jennifer Lyn & The Groove Revival, are determined to share their spin on this style of music with the world.

Her band's latest project, titled “Nothing Holding Me Down”, features music from a woman who clearly has a soul set a blaze like a person baptized in the river of Rock n Roll. Lyn was a child heavily influenced by the sounds heard while spinning her parents’ vinyl, and that influence led her to capture various genres on this release such as Rock, Blues, R&B, and a dash of roots music. 

This album is reminiscent 60s and 70s vibe Music melted into a pot of contemporary Blues-Rock.

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Josienne Clarke - Niloo - Rhys Evan - Reliant Tom

Josienne Clarke - Sit Out.

For the first time since her early beginnings, Josienne Clarke is flying solo. No label, no musical partner, no producer. Clarke is in complete control of her songwriting, arranging, producing, release schedule and musical direction. A Small Unknowable Thing, Clarke's second solo album will be released on August 13th via her own label, Corduroy Punk Records. Today she has shared the first taste of her new album and new sound in the form of defiant new single. 'Sit out' is frustration and defiance in sonic form. “All you stand for / Makes me want to sit out” she sings over thick, driving guitars and an almost Beastie Boys-esque drum beat. The heaviest moment on the album, ‘Sit Out’ sees Clarke fully let rip.

Despite writing a plethora of critically acclaimed songs, winning a BBC Folk Award, opening for Robert Plant on his European tour, playing prominent slots on some of the UK’s biggest festivals and even taking a leading role in The National Theatre’s revival of Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Our Country’s Good (after being personally chosen by Cerys Matthews no less), Clarke felt daily self-doubt as a result of an industry that variously gas-lit, put-down, questioned and othered. It’s an experience the vast majority of women making music today can identify with. A Small Unknowable Thing is, at least in part, about recognising there are still existing structures to keep women in their place – but it’s also about having the courage to break those structures down too.

“I realised that I had to be so explicit in explaining how much I’d done in order to get credit for it,” Clarke explains. “I started saying ‘No, actually, I did all of this, can we put my name on this thing?’ It’s really resisted – it’s as if I’m being an arrogant megalomaniac for wanting the credit for stuff that I did. Now, I just do it all by myself. If there isn’t another name on it, then there can’t be a misappropriation.”

After leaving her label, musical partnership and home (Clarke moved to a small village on the outskirts of Glasgow with her husband), she started afresh. Gradually, as she slowly began to write and record once more, the album’s narrative arc emerged and Clarke found herself again. “It’s an empowered narrative, not a weak and vulnerable one,” Clarke says of the album. “It was a conscious decision to walk away from my career as it was and there’s a positive message on this record: there’s a lot of reclaiming the narrative.”

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Niloo - Funny Face.

From Niloo talks about Funny Face -  I wrote it in 2018 and was originally hoping to release it with a band I had been playing with at the time, LOOELLE. But the song felt so personal to me and didn’t fit that project’s dreamfolk repertoire. I finally recorded it in February of 2020 at the beautiful Risque Disque studio, in collaboration with my friends Shilo Preshyon of Cartoon Lizard, Jen Yakamovich of Troll Dolly and Billy Young of Isness.

The sound of Funny Face is on the surface upbeat and vibrant with its driving beat, warm synth and catchy melody. Yet, the warping tape echo sounds and distortions throughout the track maintain an underlying sense of dreamlike darkness. In a similar vein, the lyrics of the song are about stumbling through your own path in life without taking yourself too seriously. It is about honouring your mistakes and shortcomings and striving for happiness rather than perfection in a world that’s far from perfect.

In keeping with this theme, the imperfect but inevitable timing of the pandemic forced us to get creative in making the music video. I teamed up with filmmaker Ali Calladine, who shot the video as a single person director and crew. The majority of the video was shot in the neighborhood of Fernwood, Victoria and features friends and community members in their respective ‘bubbles’. The visuals of the video capture the vibrancy and drive of the music, while the action follows the main character, who searches the neighborhood in hopes of finding the source of this strange music.

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Rhys Evan - Hailstones.

Recorded just prior to lockdown, multi instrumentalist 17 year old (then 16) Rhys Evan with fellow guitarist Josh Craig recorded in our Mid Wales studio.

Hailstones is an introduction to Rhys Evan, a beautify crafted song on the struggles of young life. A long song for a single we know, but we felt it best to leave it as it is. We have a trimmed version for radio plays only, that just bring the track in on the vocal missing the lengthy intro. We felt it best not to edit the main body of the song...although we tried!

Rhys is still studying at school in Aberystwyth and he is still developing as an artist. Currently he is finding musicians to perform live, but as everyone know, schools are in chaos with constant assessments due to Covid, so these are difficult times.

We hope you find time to listen to this great track and hope a space might open up for Rhys to get onto the airwaves with his very first recording. This release will closely be followed up by his second single , “Arcade Running” with his debut EP “Tiny House EP 1” for June 2021

First on board is The Guardian and NME writer Fergal Kinney, who has written an introduction to Rhys Evan on this his first release. We hope you find him just as interesting and hope we can all help Rhys go from a bedroom artist in rural Mid Wales to hopefully someone more widely known on the national stage.

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Reliant Tom - When We Were Young.

 The band’s new stand alone single that follows up last year's acclaimed album Play & Rewind, “When We Were Young” takes the band in more upbeat and pop direction. Written by singer Claire Cuny while visiting her partner Monte Weber’s family, it captures the vitality and nostalgia of reflecting on the past in the presence of family. The instrumentation features a thumbing energetic synth bass and an afro-rock drum beat that the band had been jamming to that summer.

In Claire's words, "The song started out as a sad, slow guitar ballad I wrote while visiting Monte’s family one summer. When we brought the idea back to Brooklyn, Monte transformed the song into the more uptempo, energetic tune it is now. We changed nearly everything about the tune apart from the key and the lyrics. 

The song was sped up, with a thumping energetic synth bass, and a beat which was a loose transcription of the opening measures of a Lafayette Afro Rock tune from the 1970’s that we had been jamming out to that summer. Monte’s new direction inspired me to sing more rhythmically than my original version and even inspired a simple but heart-felt guitar riff that opens the song and is looped throughout. It’s been a rough year, we hope this song makes you smile... even if you hadn’t felt good for a while."

Reliant Tom · When We Were Young

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James - Spud Cannon - Jen Fodor ft Nadia Vaeh - Seafoam Green - Megan Wyler - The Speed Of Sound

James - All The Colours Of You (Album)

UK alternative band James have released their new album All The Colours Of You. James will perform tracks from the new record and many more from their rich catalogue live this summer, across festival dates in the UK and Europe.

James’ sixteenth  studio album, All The Colours Of You was recorded in part before the Covid pandemic struck and is produced by the Grammy award-winning Jacknife Lee (U2, REM, Snow Patrol, The Killers). Matching the energy of the lyrics, Lee brought a fresh approach to James’ sound, working remotely from his studio with Booth (Lee’s Topanga Canyon neighbor) and liaising in a daisy chain with fellow band member Jim Glennie, reimagining their demos, and capturing the band in all their virtual glory.

The result is a record with the most fresh and festival ready tracks of their 39-year career, the sound of one of Britain’s best bands, deconstructed and reassembled by one of the world’s most renowned producers.

Since their breakthrough single in 1991, “Sit Down”, James have released fifteen studio albums, selling over 25 million copies in the process, and performed countless headline shows and festivals across the world. Many in the US will know James from their 1993 hit “Laid” which charted on the Billboard Hot 100, was featured as the theme song to the American Pie movies and has appeared numerous times in film and tv over the years. They continue to be a huge live draw, having sold 60,000 tickets for a UK arena tour scheduled for this November and December; a tour which has sold faster than any previous James tour. Their last US tour dates were a 2019 sold out, national run of shows with the Psychedelic Furs.

James · All The Colours Of You

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Spud Cannon - Lovely.

NY-based group Spud Cannon are sharing "Lovely," the final single off of their forthcoming new album, Good Kids Make Bad Apples. I was hoping you might get a chance to check it out and consider featuring it in some way.

Ari Bowe (keys, vox) shares, "When I wrote this song, I thought of it as the song I would write if my (then) boyfriend broke up with me. Funnily enough, I completely foreshadowed the end of that relationship -- my ex broke up with me barely a month after I wrote “Lovely.”

The verses are all about wanting to go back in time, not understanding how to move forward, and the what if’s that inevitably run through your head. The chorus came together pretty easily. During the writing process, Meg used the word “Lovely” as a stand-in before we had lyrics, and I ran with it.

That word inspired the song, and the bittersweet vibe of the instrumentals pushed me in the direction of a breakup song. But it’s also uplifting in a way: You’re going through a painful process following a breakup, and you feel consumed by the loss you’re feeling, but you know it hurts so badly because of how lovely the good times were."

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Jen Fodor - "Front Row" feat. Nadia Vaeh.

Howard Mordoh, 69, is a retired clinical laboratory scientist, a southern California native, and possibly the world’s biggest concert enthusiast. He has been a notorious fixture of the Los Angeles music scene for decades, attending five to eight concerts per week since the 1970s and always dancing to his fullest. Easily recognizable thanks to his long white hair and spirited dance style, Mordoh’s love of live concerts spans genres and venues just as long as he can keep dancing. "Howard Mordoh is a one-man dance party, always ending up in the ‘Front Row,’” Fodor explains. “This song captures the joy he exudes when dancing to live music.” With the cancellation of live concerts in 2020 due to COVID-19, Mordoh has had to get more creative to keep dancing.

The process for the song started in Henry Ingraham’s home studio because safety protocols were still in order due to COVID-19, but as the city of Los Angeles slowly reopens, they were finally able to get together with Mordoh to shoot a video for “Front Row.” The music video was directed by Jen Fodor, who also produced and directed the documentary alongside Scott Sheppard. For the music video, Nadia Vaeh, who co-wrote the song with Fodor and Ingraham, compliments the song's retro beat with her glittery gold tracksuit while she belts out catchy pop lyrics. The rest of the band is also decked out in 80’s flair, including Howard Mordoh, who dances his way to the front of the stage. As the song peaks, the band is joined on stage by Fodor and Mordoh, resulting in a full-blown dance party.

The “Front Row” music video is a reminder not to take life for granted. This is indicated by seeing how happy Howard Mordoh is throughout the video to finally be dancing to live music again. Nadia Vaeh and Jen Fodor want listeners to continue to remain hopeful and optimistic about the future of live music.

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Seafoam Green - For Something To Say.

Americana-folk-rock force Seafoam Green continue to impress with the third single from the LP, ‘For Something To Say’.

‘For Something To Say’, is the opening track of ‘Martin’s Garden’ and instantly pleases with fuzzy jam-band grit and sunshine harmonies, oozing with guitar solo twang and expansive organ vistas. It’s a rollicking journey through the band’s retro influences, flecked with their own unique twist that encompasses Americana influences and the band’s roots in Liverpool and Ireland with a nod to modern folk-rock bands like My Morning Jacket, Band Of Horses and Deadstring Brothers.

On the new single Dave O’Grady says, “For Something to Say is a glimpse of things we have seen/thought and experienced on the road; be it USA or Europe, a new story unfolds in front of us everyday and it's quite the adventure!”

“We are an old school “road band”, we love to travel and spread our music”, he explains “…plus it’s the only way we make a living…“Ive see the sun set twice today” is how it can feel when you’re on a 1,000 mile drive between shows but you've gotta to make it!”.

“I burn my feet for something to say”, - touring and travelling (especially squashed into a hatchback with gear for months) can be very hard on the mind and the body but we do it to gain and share our experiences through our music.”, O’Grady expands.

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Megan Wyler - Upside Now.

Singer/songwriter Megan Wyler has announced her first new album in eight years Upside Now, to be released July 9, 2021. Wyler has also shared the album’s ethereal title track “Upside Now” along with a video featuring dancer Indiana Woodward and directed by Goldmond Fong (Katy Perry, Maggie Rogers).

“This collection of songs is a cycle of seeking and finding - often with an unexpected outcome, but catharsis nonetheless,” says Wyler. “I am expanding/digging, coming to terms with untimely death, experiencing deepest love, emerging from heartbreak, lighting the fire of resistance, celebrating female solidarity, passion, fury, the cosmos. Lighthearted stuff like that."

A California native, Wyler released her 2013 debut Through The Noise while living in London. The album was praised by the likes of Nowness, Songwriting Magazine, Indie Shuffle who described her sound as “incredibly moving and luscious,” and Clash Magazine who called her music “subtle, delicate and very beautiful.” Closely following that album’s release, Wyler had a young son with a number of demanding medical needs. “It was my honour and privilege to make him my priority,” says Wyler. “Being a mother is and always will be my first job ahead of anything else.” During this time, Wyler found herself in a bit of a creative “freeze-over” as she calls it. “It was like I could see songs, ready to be born, but I couldn’t access them somehow.”  As things calmed down at home, however, her creative freeze began to thaw.

Now Wyler is returning in full force. Earlier this year Wyler shared Upside Now’s first single “The Calling”. The song was featured on a number of top Apple Music playlists including New Music Daily, New In Alternative, and Wax Eclectic, and was used as the opening title music of the new Amazon Original Series Tell Me Your Secrets.

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The Speed Of Sound - Replicant / The Melancholy Rose.

Now in their 4th decade, Manchester UK’s underground music veterans The Speed Of Sound return to the Big Stir Records Digital Singles, again displaying two vastly contrasting  sides of their own distinctive, distilled and deeply recognisable tones:

Replicant: Driven by acoustic guitar and exuding a joyous hip-swaying bouncing beat. Replicant playfully asks questions about the very nature of human existence. Offering a foretaste of the themes of the upcoming full length album. Here too, The Speed Of Sound draw heavily from their Science-Fiction influences. While Replicant seems to inhabit the same universe as Blade Runner it also carries another message from the corporate world. Where modern job interviews appear to have evolved into some kind of reverse Voight-Kampff Test; instead of designed to detect replicants, the purpose is to determine if the applicant has unfortunately retained any human characteristics, or will - as hoped - mechanically follow scripts and instructions. Do Androids dance to analogue music? We don’t know, but point your arm and shout along with the chorus.

The Melancholy Rose: Shimmering summer pop for shaded people; languid open and drifting, a gothically tinged piece of romanticism lies atop a sparkling guitar riff and a tale of the first rose of the year to bloom. Ahead of its time and alone, but merely the trailblazer showing the way and heralding the coming change. A celebration of the sudden bursting open of summer itself and an invitation to tune out from the background white-noise of civilisation and relax. To exist in the moment and enjoy the things around us. The Speed Of Sound are known for their power, yet this displays their soaring delicate side. Guest vocals are provided by one of pair a blackbirds that nested (and successfully fledged four chicks) among the dense honeysuckle and ivy of John A’s back garden during lockdown.

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Mazey Haze - Dakota Roundhouse - Bridget Caldwell - Mush - Nation of Language

Mazey Haze - Sad Lonely Groove.

Mazey Haze is the moniker of 21 year old Amsterdam-based artist Nadine Appeldoorn. Today she releases her debut single "Sad Lonely Groove". Dreamy guitar-driven indie-pop reminiscent of Beach Fossils, Alvvays, Jay Som and Men I Trust, debut single "Sad Lonely Groove" is an honest reflection on a moment in Appeldoorn's life where time felt like it was standing still.

"If I was further from you I’d get it all  / your face looks the same / as if I was floating around in dead air for months or days" Appeldoorn sings atop a wave of atmospheric synths, funk-filled bass lines and skittering percussion -  as she reminisces in the aftermath of a tough break-up.

Speaking on the track, Mazey Haze said: "The song is about me feeling the lowest and loneliest I’ve ever felt in my life. I hadn’t built lots of friend relationships yet and I forced myself to be alone with myself. It’s about missing the guy I thought I was in love with. It’s a stream of thoughts that were circling around in my head all the time. It was the first time that I realized I wasn’t able to be happy by myself and was very dependent in the past relationship. Suddenly I had to meet and get to know myself, something I had never done before. When I wrote this song I was still running away from it all."

A neatly delivered juxtaposition; sonically "Sad Lonely Groove" feels free and overwhelmingly positive, a cathartic reaction to the experiences that led to the initial idea for the song. Reflective, insightful, often wistful and always unashamedly honest - Mazey Haze's songs emerge from deep within, channelling an authentic expression that naturally surfaces with only the humble hope that the listener might feel less alone and more connected.

Growing up surrounded by music from ABBA, Tears for Fears, Talk Talk, Fleetwood Mac and The Bee Gees, Mazey Haze started writing songs at age 13 before recording full demos on her laptop by the age of 16 - experimenting with different genres, sounds, decades and production elements. Combining these influences with her ability to write songs that digest and express her deepest and darkest feelings, Mazey Haze is now ready to share her first creative offerings with the world.

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Dakota Roundhouse - Don’t You Say That You Love Me.

Background from Jon Fields: I'm a lyricist and producer originally from Kansas City, USA. I’ve been involved in music most of my life and have produced several CDs on my own over the years.

Dakota Roundhouse is my latest studio project. I'm working with other artists and studios remotely on an album. This single is one of the songs that will be on it. I hope you enjoy listening to this as much as I enjoyed writing the lyrics for and producing it.

What inspires my lyrics? Every good song starts with a good story and not all good stories are necessarily happy stories. I have a lot of stories to draw upon in my life.

 

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Bridget Caldwell - Pharmaceuticals.

Nashville-based indie-folk artist Bridget Caldwell has shared her debut single, “Pharmaceuticals”. The track comes from her EP, Kingmaker due out on August 6th.

While “Pharmaceuticals” takes an uptempo instrumental approach, lyrically it’s a sensitive examination of a fractured relationship.  Caldwell penned the track with songwriter Luke Preston, who was in the midst of a similar situation. What started as a conversation shared over a hardly palatable bottle of Barefoot turned into a song that speaks to the heartache of loving someone you can’t save. Caldwell explains, “We shared the feeling of despair watching these people in our lives that we loved so much just disintegrating, and thinking, ‘What can I do here?’ And coming to the conclusion of, ‘Well, not a lot.’” Caldwell continues,    “I think that's something that many people experience - but we wanted to write it in a way that didn't sound judgmental.” For the songwriter it’s the real life-observations from a relationship which taught her one of life's hardest lessons: no amount of love can will a person to change.

Bridget  learned about life’s unpredictable highs and lows growing up in Salem, Oregon. With a laugh, she describes herself as a “hammy, emotional, chaotic, child.” Cast as the lead in a school play, she got the musical theater bug early and went on to train extensively. But towards the end of high school, a severe bout of mono resulted in a surgery that significantly altered her singing voice.

Devastated but determined, Caldwell moved to Nashville to attend Belmont University and ultimately realized that her “new” voice was actually better suited for the new sound that she wanted to achieve. At the same time, watching her classmates encouraged her to expand her own skills beyond performing. “I got swept up with this group of ragtag kids, and everyone was writing songs,” she says.

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Mush - Peak Bleak.

Leeds art-rock outfit Mush share their new single “Peak Bleak” - the first glimpse from their new limited edition green 7” single that will be released as part of Record Store Day 2021, alongside the track “Clarion Call”.

Never ones to rest on their laurels, the new single "Peak Bleak" immediately follows up their hugely acclaimed second album “Lines Redacted" and sees the band further exploring the outer reaches of art-rock in truly bleak circumstances, as lead-singer Daniel Hyndman explains: “I had to buy an ebow to record this song, which left me skint for the month. The song was previously called 'peak good' but the title was changed to reflect the feeling engendered by having to spend £100.”

Mush’s new album “Lines Redacted”, which includes the BBC 6 Music playlisted single “Blunt Instruments”, received a wave of critical acclaim upon its release in February. Glowing reviews from UNCUT "One of the finest British guitar records of recent years", Pitchfork "Rallying against aggravating, absurd political realities with passion and humor", Dork "'Lines Redacted' feel as though it belongs precisely in the here and now" and more.

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Nation of Language - Across That Fine Line.

Having released one of the most acclaimed debut albums of 2020, New York City trio Nation of Language have announced their sophomore follow up, A Way Forward, and share the album’s first single, “Across That Fine Line.” Additionally, the electro-synth explorers will head out on their first U.S. headlining tour this September-October in support, along with previously announced appearances at Reading-Leeds Festival in the UK and Governors Ball in New York.

Discussing “Across That Fine Line” songwriter/vocalist Ian Devaney stated, “‘Across That Fine Line’ is a reflection on that moment when a non-romantic relationship flips into something different. When the air in the room suddenly feels like it changes in an undefinable way. It’s a kind of celebration of that certain joyous panic, and the uncertainty that surfaces right after it.

Sonically, it’s meant to feel like running down a hill, just out of control. I had been listening to a lot of Thee Oh Sees at the time of writing it and admiring the way they supercharge krautrock rhythms and imbue them with a kind of mania, which felt like an appropriate vibe to work with and make our own.”
A Way Forward is the follow up to Nation of Language’s debut album, Introduction, Presence, released in 2020 during the early stages of COVID’s merciless mayhem, naively pushed from early April to late May, with the hope that things would improve by the summer. 

While that turned out to not be the case, a flurry of raves for the album from journalists and radio stations around the world, as well as landing on year-end ‘Best of' lists from Rough Trade, Stereogum, Paste, Under The Radar, the NME, and glowing reviews from Pitchfork and the Associated Press, caused the album to reach more people than the band ever thought possible, even as they were unable to tour in support of it. “We’ve always been real believers in our live show as the best way to reach new people,” Devaney said. “When it became clear there wouldn’t be any touring, we were sure it was a death knell for the album.”

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Samantha Margret - SYBS - Jessiquoi - Sweet Crude - The Catenary Wires - Roscoe Roscoe

Samantha Margret - The Party.

Singer-songwriter Samantha Margret has released her spirited and carefree new single “The Party.” Mirroring old Hollywood glamour with a flirtatious demeanor, the track rings of seductive musicality. With subtle chirps of saxophone combined with hoppy lyrics, Margret delivers a playfully canny and sophisticated piece of music with a music video soon to follow. “The Party'' is now available to stream and download on digital music platforms worldwide.

“It’s so easy to get drawn into what everyone else thinks is cool or trendy, but that’s not really how we find joy,” says Samantha Margret. Finding affirmation on her own, “The Party” was written after Margret feared losing her voice and writing music for others instead of her own creative joy. Feeling a similar pressure, writer Juliette Reilly joined Margret in their first session, and “The Party” became a song about finding their own power and enjoying it even in the face of the judgement of others. “I don’t have to go to the party; I AM the party,” she states.

Produced by Samantha Margret and John Caviness, the song is all about doing your own thing in the face of expectation. The horns were recorded live to create a striking twist, and the song’s synth energy and gripping effects on the background vocals bring it to life. Originally jam-packed with tongue clicks and unusual percussion, Caviness took Reilly and Margret’s vision for a slow bridge and turned it into a unique, synth-horn lovechild. A product of her own vocal production, the arrangement and effects for “The Party” originated in Margret’s home studio. Once in production, the artistic touch of mixing engineer, Yang Tan, created the sparkle the single needed. The lead vocal overlaid with spoken words on each chorus makes for beautiful chaos where the spoken vocals overlap and split off from the descending melody. “Where the lyrics and sound collide, the vocals communicate a feeling and communicate power, joy, and fun,” says Margret.

Hailing from San Francisco, Samantha Margret is a songwriter, artist, and producer. Her music seeks creativity and originality while delivering authentic storytelling. Margret’s soulful ballads showcase the inspirational power of the female voice, with gripping lyrics about mental health, acceptance, and love. Her upbeat pop songs don’t shy away from a good time, and the diversity in singles shows her unique and captivating sound. Reminiscent of artists like Julia Michaels, Marian Hill, Sara Bareilles, and Andra Day, Samantha Margret blends unparalleled production with raw and intimate lyrics creating a fresh, fun, and original style.

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SYBS - Llygaid.

‘Llygaid’ is an exhilarating change of pace for a band whose adrenaline fulled anthems have made them one of Wales’ most exciting acts. Here Osian (Singer / Guitarist) and the band take us down a more reflective, jangly and at times bucolic and beautifully melancholic road.....plus it has Tubular Bells on it, an EXTRA reason to love it unconditionally!!

Osian explains the background to ‘Llygaid’: “I wrote this song during my first year of Uni, and was definitely a change of pace for me writing wise. A lot of the songs I was writing at the time where very dancey and energetic so it felt good to do a song that was more inward looking, and the lyrics definitely reflect this and generally encapsulate those last few weeks of my first year in uni.

It’s really weird listening back to this one because we recorded the final bits and bobs literally a day before I went home for lock down, a little over a year ago, which makes it even more nostalgic to me. Hopefully I’ll get to make some more memories playing this song live very soon!”

Libertino · SYBS - Llygaid

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Jessiquoi - Popstar.

Somebody help me ‘cos I wanna be a pop star! - With an unusual mix of satirical lyrics, pop-production and dark sound design on her new single Popstar, Jessiquoi examines the tribulations of all musicians willing to do whatever it takes to make it big in the music business.

"I wanted to slow down and remind myself not to take everything too seriously" says the artist. The result is a catchy and humorous take on fame-culture.

Jessiquoi is not exactly what you’d expect to emerge out of Switzerland’s underground. An Australian/Swiss producer, composer and performer, her live set looks and sounds like it belongs in futuristic Shanghai ca. 2048. Combining raw, physical energy and dance-driven beats colliding with audacious rap and resonant vocals, Jessiquoi won Demo of Year and Best Electronic at M4Music Festival, Zürich 2018. After well received performances at Gurten Festival and Zürich Openair, she progressed to international showcases in New York and mainland Europe and released her first album in October 2019, which included the award winning single The Sentry.

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Sweet Crude - Saint Patrick Park / Vertige.

New Orleans-based sextet Sweet Crude have shared two songs as part of the second installment of the band’s Dualité series. The series features double A-side singles - one in English the other in Louisiana French - released as a pair. The second installment includes “Saint Patrick Park” and “Vertige.”

“This song is named after the greenspace and baseball field in Mid-City, New Orleans,” says singer Sam Craft on “Saint Patrick Park,” “which has served as an outdoor escape from confinement for so many in the neighborhood over the last year and change. With a nod to 60's and 70's orchestral pop, Saint Patrick Park deals with the so-close-but-so-far-ness of COVID and is entirely in English. Alexis leads you in with ‘Is it just me or is there a wall where a window should be?’ and takes you on a bittersweet journey from there.”

“Vertige is French for 'vertigo' or 'dizziness', as in what happens to you when you are blindsided by crimes of passion,” explains Craft. “ In the chorus, I sing: ‘C'est pas ma faute, c'est bien la vot' si je vous garroche dans le bayou’ which is a little bit of local vernacular French for ‘It's not my fault, it's yours, if I toss you in the bayou.’ Vertige is a gritty, minor-key rhapsody and has a home in a Bond film based in Louisiana.”

“Tours? Nope. Money? Broke. Launch a blitz of bilingual bangers in 2021 because we can? Putain ouais (hell yeah, and pardon our Louisiana French),” says Craft on the origins of the Dualité series. “Through confinement and a lack of gigs, we’ve steadily built up a loyal Patreon following with whom we’ve been streaming and chatting on a regular basis. They’ve been inspiring us to keep going and to write like crazy. We show them brand new ideas, they give us feedback, and we are now self-producing and self-recording a whole new body of work for approximately zero dollars. Dualité is the result, or really the start, of this new frontier. We remain dedicated as ever to creating new avenues to celebrate our Louisiana roots.”

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The Catenary Wires - Face On The Rail Line.

A bit about the track / video from the band: "Face on the Rail Line" is set in a world where virtual connection is increasingly replacing physical connection. But where, all too often, the signal is unreliable.

It’s a love song at heart. The ‘face on the rail line’ is one of those icons on location apps – in this case an app tracking someone you desperately want to see. The icon inches its way along the line on the screen, but then disappears as phone reception is lost.

When we first played the song to the rest of the band, everyone started singing harmonies. It was impulsive, and very moving. We’ve tried to capture that feeling in the recording.

The video was made by Rob and Amelia.   It’s a kind of collage: quite abstract and mostly about shapes and textures. But there are phones and rail lines, and if you look closely, you can see Birling Gap in the background!

Indie pop comes of age. The Catenary Wires feature Amelia Fletcher and Rob Pursey, once of Heavenly and Talulah Gosh. These early bands, once denigrated for being ‘fey’ or ’twee’: the wrong kind of female, have been re-evaluated in recent years. Their songs, apparently sweet and fizzy, were always smarter and darker than they seemed, while the band were radically independent, and an influential part of the movement that became riot grrrl.

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Roscoe Roscoe - Jacobs Ladder.

With their explosive debut single, “Brain Retrieve” released during the height of 2020’s pandemic-tarnished summer, East London based five-piece Roscoe Roscoe return with their dreamy new single “Jacob’s Ladder,” out on Slow Dance / Missing Piece Records. MXDWN said the song “astutely mixes synth-driven modern indie pop with classic psychedelia.”

Psychedelic music has existed in many iterations, and Roscoe Roscoe are the latest to emerge from the prolific UK capital, initially noticed by many for their BBC televised performance at Glastonbury in 2019 despite having no released music. Guitarist Jacob Muna wrote the music for “Jacob’s Ladder,” “in a matter of minutes while I was playing around on the guitar watching TV. It almost wrote itself.” The simplicity and natural flow of the track is a merging of influences - the melody recalls The Beatles, updated with hazy dream pop and glimmering shoegaze. When frontman Charlie Read Clarke added lyrics and verses to the arrangement, it became apparent that there was something special there.

“The process between the very first idea and final form was a lot quicker than normal,” and the track is somewhere between a lullaby and an anthem, as celestial as the title implies. It was the obvious choice for following their debut, showcasing the band’s spectrum of sonic capabilities and serving almost as a counterpart to the heavy burst of “Brain Retrieve.” With warm, floating synths, feather-soft vocals and glowing guitars, Jacob’s Ladder reaches out like a caress, pulling us from lockdown and into a summer of love. It connects immediately.

The band met at The Brit School (following in the footsteps of Black Midi, who also formed there) and came together through a shared love of 60s counterculture and psychedelia. Rather than sheerly revivalist, however, their music comes from being part of a generation who have been able to take non-specific and widely drawn sources via the infinite bank of the internet. Other influences the band have cited include avant-pop groups Stereolab and Broadcast and there are evident echoes of Wand, Tame Impala, and Crumb in their music too.

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Trunky Juno - Meggie Lennon - The Weeping Willows

Trunky Juno - Serial Killer Vibes.

Trunky Juno warmly greets us with new single ‘Serial Killer Vibes’, a lovely slice of upbeat acoustic technicolour-pop crafted in his basement studio in the North East of England. The song expands on his already eclectic repertoire by dressing up an anxiety fuelled lyric with Trunky’s trademark charming melodic hooks and balmy tones.

Lyrically ‘Serial Killer Vibes’ is the musical equivalent of meeting a fist bump with a handshake, then calling someone the wrong name before accidentally insulting their mother whilst verbally digging a hole that seems to get deeper and deeper with every word. And even though this incident happened four years ago, its 3AM and you haven’t slept because you’re still thinking about it, asking yourself “why did I say that”. Distil all of that down into a song and you get ‘Serial Killer Vibes’.

Talking about the song, Trunky says: “'Serial Killer Vibes’ is a track that haunted me for a long time because I knew there was a good song in there, but I just couldn’t figure out how to present it in a way that allowed anyone else to see it too. It’s not really a song about serial killers at all, it’s about perspective, living inside your own head and trying your hardest not to be weird when you just are. It's an ode to painfully awkward exchanges, which is going to become very relatable once we all start trying to interact with each other again.”

Trunky Juno · Serial Killer Vibes

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Meggie Lennon - Night Shift.

Montreal-based singer-songwriter, Meggie Lennon is today sharing her new single, "Night Shift" which arrives as a radiant psych-rock intro to her debut album, Sounds From Your Lips – out July 9 via Mothland – which she's announcing in tandem. Lennon, who previously lead the award-nominated Quebec-based band, Abrdeen, is also sharing the Marielle Normandin Pageau-directed video for the new track – watch here.

The debut album arrives produced by Samuel Gemme (Corridor, Anemone, The Brooks) and features the guitar-playing of Elephant Stones’ Gabriel Lambert as well as additional contributions from her longtime friend and collaborator, Jules Henry (Super Plage). Seamlessly fusing the worlds of late 60s and early 70s psychedelia as she subtly harnesses the energy of artists like The Byrds and Tyrannosaurus Rex (later T-Rex), with early 2010-era acts such as Melody’s Echo Chamber, MGMT, and Beach House, the album, described by Lennon as "make-out dream-pop," oozes this glowing sense of optimism.

Tracks on Sounds From Your Lips flow with a breezy, laidback energy, marrying warm percussion with finessed bass lines to summon these tar-thick, sultry grooves. This lead single and album-opening track, "Night Shift", comes part-inspired by late nights coming home from bars in Montréal; sonically it works as a fitting intro for the record, demonstrating an equal balance of dreamy synth verses and a devastatingly beautiful crescendo towards the end.

Speaking about the single, Lennon says: "The first part of the song came to me while cycling home back from L'Esco after a wild night. I was on a Bixi and the streets were completely empty. I was riding fast through the night and it felt both meditative and exhilarating – this feeling is reflected in the dreamy verses and then heavier guitar crescendo at the end. When we got in the studio, I laid the lead track on the Wurli and it all came naturally. The second part, "take a glimpse outside," came while doodling on the synth. We were in the studio without windows but we both went outside and the sun blinded us, the lyrics were inspired by this."

First introduced to Quebec audiences as the leader of indie-pop/rock outfit Abrdeen, with which she released the Endless Dreams and Dreamlike Mornings EP (nominated at GAMIQ) in 2017, Lennon promoted her music throughout the province, sharing the stage with the likes of Good Morning, Elephant Stone, The Dears, Julie Doiron, Sugar Candy Mountain and Laura Sauvage. Alongside shows with up and coming names in music, Lennon performed at the likes of POP Montreal, M for Montreal and FME, as well as lending her soft voice for collaborations with Debbie Tebbs, Lucill and Super Plage.

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The Weeping Willows - Long Black Veil.

The Weeping Willows have long revelled in the darker musical traditions of the American South, populating their songs with figures desolate, desperate and doomed. It’s a penchant given its clearest outing yet with the pair’s glorious “Southern Gothic” EP.

Brand new original instrumental “Southern Gothic” is a brooding study in backwoods fiddle and dreadnought guitar, while sweetly sad lilt “Hangman (The Gallows Tree)” (featuring Bluesman Nick Charles) channels one of the tune’s most popular renderings by Peter, Paul and Mary. Gertrude ‘Ma’ Rainey’s immortal “C.C. Rider” – popularised by artists from Elvis to Old Crow Medicine Show – is an impassioned demonstration of The Weeping Willows’ vocal range and palpable harmonic sympathy. A signature tune for Lefty Frizzell, the mournful “Long Black Veil” showcases Laura’s exquisite falsetto, before “One Kind Favour (See That My Grave Is Kept Clean)” (written by Blind Lemon Jefferson) finds Andy wresting richly resonant tones from his guitar.Walt Aldridge’s “Ain't No Ash Will Burn” is a stirring country-folk plaint, while rounding out the EP’s dark proceedings is The Weeping Willows’ own “Black Crow” - an ominous tale of doom recorded with celebrated producer Ryan Freeland (Bonnie Raitt) at Stampede Origin Studio, Los Angeles.

The bulk of “Southern Gothic” was tracked, engineered and mixed by the inimitable Roger Bergodaz (Raised By Eagles), and features David Piltch (Willie Nelson, Don Henley) on upright bass, Luke Moller (Hayes Carll, Kasey Chambers) on fiddle and mandolin and James Church (Montgomery Church) on Dobro. Ranking among Australia’s foremost songwriters, The Weeping Willows took out the 2021 Golden Guitar for Instrumental of the Year. They’ve netted eight CMAA Golden Guitar nominations and have supported Americana greats from Iris Dement (USA) to Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real (USA).

Equal parts ornate and austere, “Southern Gothic” finds The Weeping Willows delving ever deeper into the Gothic grandeur of critically acclaimed second album Before Darkness Comes A-Callin' (2016) and serves as yet another unmissable glimpse into the duo’s highly anticipated third studio album, due out next year. “Southern Gothic” is our across digital platforms Friday 4th June 2021.

The Weeping Willows · Long Black Veil

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