SMART CARS, COSMIC FOLK AND BIRDS Iron & Wine are returning to Australia where they’ll play the Opera House for the second time. The band’s sole proprietor, Sam Beam, talks with Chris Familton about writing and performing his new album Beast Epic. “I’m still in the past,” says Iron & Wine’s Sam Beam, down the … Continue reading
The Band’s Music From The Big Pink is generally considered a cornerstone of what has become known as Americana music. With it’s loose, ramshackle approach to country and folk music it served as inspiration for generations of musicians that followed and continues to amaze first-time listeners to this day. To mark the album’s 50th anniversary, … Continue reading
In less than two years since writing her first song, Tori Forsyth signed to Universal Music here in Australia and has more than lived up to expectations on her Shane Nicholson-produced debut album. Forsyth inhabits the corner of Americana music where pop pacing and high-rise melodies nuzzle up to shuffling country rhythms and darker gothic-tinged … Continue reading
THE SONIC DIARY OF SUICIDE SWANS Over the last six years the QLD town of Toowoomba has been been echoing to the strains of Suicide Swans and their fascinating blend of folk, cosmic country and psychedelic rock. On their latest album La Jungla they’ve expanded their sound into new musical terrain. Kyle Jenkins is the … Continue reading
Suicide Swans are seemingly a band on a mission. The dust has barely settled on the release cycle for their excellent Augusta album of last year and they’re already releasing it’s followup – the sprawling, psych, rock and cosmic country double album that is La Jungla. Recorded live in one day in an amphitheatre, the band … Continue reading
This the second studio album from Young’s collaboration with Promise Of The Real, the band centred around Willie Nelson’s sons Lukas and Micah. The Monsanto Years was a much straighter country rock affair while The Visitor sets out for wider and more eclectic terrain, making it his best album since Psychedelic Pill. ‘Fly By Night’ … Continue reading
Singer songwriter Cat Canteri has been slowly been building herself an impressive career that now numbers three solo albums. The sense of patience, self-determination and the evolution and refinement of her songwriting makes Inner North her most rewarding record to date. Canteri’s ability to drift between styles is a real strength and the way she … Continue reading
Marlon Williams, The Weather Station @ Metro Theatre, May 17th 2018 Five years of hard work, countless hours in airport lounges, nights on friends’ couches and in bars and clubs is paying off big time with Marlon Williams’ current Australian tour sold out in the largest venues he’s headlined to date. This time around he he’s brought … Continue reading
Blues & Alchemy: Remembering Chris Whitley’s ‘Dirt Floor’ 2000 was a particularly big year for me personally. I’d finished high school in rural NSW the previous year and had transgressed to the metropolis of Sydney. I spent the year between two share houses, one in La Perouse, the other in Petersham. I’d be embarrassed to … Continue reading
Sydney trio The High Ceilings have released a new single, the precursor to a full length album they’ve been working on, with the majority recorded in a community hall on the South Coast of NSW. ‘Poppy Won’ has a wonderful blend of the slacker delivery of Dylan, the weary, ragged strum and melancholic vibe of Neil … Continue reading
William Crighton’s debut album had him pegged as an Americana/gothic rock songwriter – all fire and brimstone and heart on sleeve emotion. Now, on his sophomore album, he’s expanded his stylistic palette into a whole range of sonic shades and textures. The intense and impassioned preacher is still railing from the pulpit but now you … Continue reading
“I like you honey, being with you is like being alone”. It’s a line in I’ve Hurt Worse that sums up the lyrical concerns of Courtney Marie Andrews’ sophomore album in two ways. The rocky terrain of personal relationships and the mental health issues of modern society. If her debut was an impressive introduction to … Continue reading
Lucero are back with a new album scheduled for release on August 3rd via Liberty & Lament/Thirty Tigers. Among The Ghosts will be their ninth LP and marks their 20th anniversary as a band. It sounds like they’ve gone for a tantalising blend of the big, live and loose sound based on ‘For The Lonely … Continue reading
The Gateway Drug to Americana Music Finding an entry point into a genre that you previously had little interest in, even disdain for, can be a revelation, a hidden door leading to a lifetime of new discoveries and musical obsessions. For me it was having my eureka moment with the godfather of Americana – Neil Young. … Continue reading
Rhino have finally gone and done what plenty of people have been calling for, for a long time now – remastered reissues of the Buffalo Springfield catalogue. On June 29th they’ll release What’s That Sound? The Complete Albums Collection comprised of 5-CD and 5-LP box sets of the band’s three albums as originally issued between 1966 and … Continue reading
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