Gillian Welch is set to release Vol. 2 of her Lost Songs series of unreleased recordings. In the meantime you can hear ‘Beautiful Boy’ and ‘I Just Want You To Know‘ The second instalment of the newly unearthed and celebrated cache of home demos and reel-to-reel recordings from the vault of Gillian Welch and David Rawlings was recorded between the making of Time (The Revelator) and Soul Journey.

Caitlin Harnett & The Pony Boys have released yet another gem of a soulful alt-country single in ‘5am’. Check out the video too, great to see clips of this standard coming out of the local scene.

Catherine Britt has a brand new single out, the first from her new album due out early in 2020.

Of the song she says… “It came from a conversation with my best mate over in Nashville. She’s like a Southern belle – gorgeous and hilarious. She was my best friend when I moved over to Nashville at 17. I used to call her Mother Teresa as she’s a bit older than me and she looked after me and took me in. “

“We went over for Americanafest and her husband had just died. She’d been married a few times and the husbands had been abusive. The third one was an alcoholic and he was out fox hunting and fell off his horse and it rolled on him and he was in a coma and then disabled for a year and then died. We got there just after it happened and so it was great we could be there with her. On the way from the airport I asked her what was new on the radio in Nashville and she said  “Oh girl, I don’t even listen to the radio. I am a country song!” I had to write it down and had it in my phone for a few years until I was writing with someone in Newcastle and said I had the title but didn’t know how it would go. I travel so much in the outback and meet all these country people who live the country life, hardcore people – I had them in mind when i was writing it. They live country music. They don’t need George Jones to tell them how to life their life.”

Melody Moko today releases here new single, ‘Like Hank Would’. It’s a hard and heavy sway of a country song that references the icon himself. Great track! It comes from her wonderful new album, Two Kids & A Radio, also out today.

Lucero release a new single today. I’m not sure if this is a standalone or the first taste of a new forthcoming album from the alt-country legends. Either way, it’s a great song.

Sydney songwriter Buddy Glass (Bruno Brayovic from the band Peabody) releases the third single from his second solo album, Wow & Flutter, which is also out today via Bandcamp and streaming services. You can pick the album up on vinyl too. Beautiful track.

Melbourne alt-country/folk quartet Team Love this week released the third single from their new self-titled album which is officially out on Friday Sept 18th. Receiving its world radio premiere on Double J and online premiere with Rhythms Magazine, the latest single, ‘Education‘, finds Team Love taking their harmonies and vocal interplay to a place of heartache and reflection. Over gently strummed guitar and lightly melodic piano, Ruby McGrath-Lester sings, with a keening and pleading quality, about the question of learning from one’s mistakes and actions.

We’re huge fans of Califone and the way they mix the arcane with weary folk and weathered alt-country sounds. They’ve got a new two song release out this week. ‘Needle In The Hay’ is a cover of the Elliott Smith song, plus they’ve also covered John Prine’s ‘Crazy As A Loon‘. Magical and mysterious as ever.