Posts

Papercuts - Primer - Brooks Young Band (feat: Ruth Clapton) - Basement Revolver

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Papercuts - I Want My Jacket Back. ""I Want My Jacket Back" started out as a bit of absurdist fun, as I was feeling at my wits' end during the end of the US election cycle." -Jason Quever Jason Quever has been releasing timeless guitar-based dream pop as Papercuts since 2004, impervious to trends or micro genres that have come and gone around him. In that regard, his contemporaries are artists like Hiss Golden Messenger, Fruit Bats, Andy Shauf or Kings of Convenience – artists who are more concerned with song craft and perfecting their sound, and less concerned with gimmicks or fitting into a specific scene. Past Life Regression is his new album and it's a journey into the dreamier reaches of psychedelic folk-pop that digs deep into influences as wide-ranging as The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, Spiritualized, Echo & The Bunnymen, Leonard Cohen and late 60s pop of various flavors. Crafted shortly after Jason's relocation back to the San Fran

The Gina Furtado Project - Blue Violet - Team Me - Cassidy Mann

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The Gina Furtado Project - It Wont Be Me. Drawing on the distinctive sound that earned her a third consecutive International Bluegrass Music Association Banjo Player of the Year nomination in 2021, Mountain Home Music Company’s Gina Furtado starts off her 2022 with a new single, “It Won’t Be Me.” Backed by her eponymous Gina Furtado Project, which includes two of her sisters, the singer-songwriter serves up a characteristic blend of engaging music with a powerful lyric theme. “It Won’t Be Me” mines the rich vein of Latin- and gypsy jazz-flavored sounds that has served Furtado well since her 2017 breakout hit, “Puppet Show” — and as it did there, the deft ensemble playing of sisters Malia (fiddle) and Lu (bass) Furtado, plus guitarist Drew Matulich, is deployed to support a woman’s declaration of independence from mistreatment. Delivered in Furtado’s immediately recognizable voice, the lyric works its way over minor chords from an opening uncertainty — “I could see the writing on the w

Clever Hopes - Dropper - The Inevitables - Crystal Eyes

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Clever Hopes - The Other Side. A few years ago, Andrew Shaver directed the musical, Once, in Montréal. Eva Foote walked in to audition for “Girl,” the female lead, and blew him away. Every night after the show, the whole team would drink whiskey and play songs in the dressing rooms until the wee hours – including Andrew and Eva.  This was the beginning of a beautiful friendship and musical collaboration. A few months later, Andrew’s girlfriend flew home from Paris to tell him to pack his bags. Tired of the fighting, he did. He hit the highway out of Montréal and called his buddy Matthew Barber (who produced the album). The two of them spoke for hours as Andrew drove to Toronto.  This was the beginning of a new chapter for Andrew, that would see him bounce around a few winter sublets before heading to Australia to – as a buddy so wisely suggested – flip his chi. Artefact chronicles the journey of that flip. Clever Hopes was born when he got back to Canada and played those songs for Eva

Amelie Tobien - Ben Sures - Flamango Bay - Pillow Queens - Mear

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Amelie Tobien - Ocean Girl  Untie the knot, set sail, run away - that's her plan. If it weren't for that hand that keeps pulling the rope back ... In her indie pop anthem ‘Ocean Girl’, gently kissed by melancholy, the modern Trobairitz Amelie Tobien sings about life jackets that are too tight and lifts anchors to the surface, entangled in seaweed. Ropes get cut like umbilical cords and the compass needle is poled to freedom, the longing for emancipation breaks through Amelie's lines like cold rays of sunshine between clouds.  ‘You can't come with me,’ she says, and yet she pulls us into a sensitive river full of interpersonal flotsam. A gentle ‘... this time’ adorns the horizon as a ray of hope without sinking into false promises. With ‘Ocean Girl’ Amelie Tobien presents a gentle ballad about letting go.  The singer-songwriter Amelie Tobien, born and raised in the mountains of Salzburg, developed her artistic work in the wine regions of Bordeaux and perfected her inimi

Dahlia Sleeps - Renata Zeiguer - Kindsight - Josienne Clarke

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Dahlia Sleeps - The Calm You Keep. London based duo Dahlia Sleeps release new track "The Calm You Keep", the latest cut to be heard from the band's debut album Overflow, out 8th April. A pensive, indie-rock track "The Calm You Keep" is the album's closing song and completes the record in cathartic fashion. A stunning examination into motherhood; vocalist Lucy Hill captures the poise of a mother supporting her child through mental ill-health, with the lines "I climbed into your bed, just like a child I laid and wept / You did not show your fear, you knew the sun was somewhere near". Filled with nostalgic electric guitar and live drums it paints images of a dreamlike world - "It's a portrait of a parent providing the calm within the storm; half a Dalí-esque soundscape from within an unwell mind, half a paradise of safety”, Lucy says of the track. Two years in the making and almost 6 years since their debut single, producer/writer Luke Heste