Take Me To Town, the 3CD, 47 track compilation of contemporary Australian alt-country music is heading to Tamworth 2019, with a very special showcase gig featuring an all-star line-up of Ben Leece & Left Of The Dial, Katie Brianna, The Weeping Willows, Hana & Jessie-Lee, Lachlan Bryan, Jen Mize and Mitch Power. If you are … Continue reading
Hayesville caught our ear with this rich and stately vocal sound. He’s a Swedish singer songwriter now based in Cologne, Germany and he counts Songs: Ohia as an influence which instantly makes him a winner in our book. It’s a classic sound that he goes for, quite baroque at times, a gothic Americana of sorts … Continue reading
Here’s a great new (to us) voice – the six-piece James Edwyn & The Borrowed Band. Elements of folk rock, soul and country collide in this song that tumbles into a fine chorus before drifting back out into more reflective verses and shades of The Felice Brothers. The Glaswegian band released their second album High … Continue reading
This track caught our ears with its wonderful horns, and grand swoon of a sound. It’s the work of Sydney songwriter East Denistone and comes from his 2018 EP While You Still Draw Breath. It’s more on the indie rock tip, in the vein of The National and Grizzly Bear but it incorporate elements of … Continue reading
A really nice sound from San Francisco resident Eric Long on this sparse acoustic folk track. The fiddle works beautifully, as does Long’s weathered voice that keeps the song firmly in the soil and hot sun of an American countryside, as he searches for optimism. The song comes from his 2018 LP A Long Way … Continue reading
This is a really nice slow-burn of a song. It slowly unfurls and reveals itself on the back of sparse guitar, distant organ and shuffling drums. Mike Powell‘s voice is the clincher though, with just the right amount of grit and grain in his tone to convey the heavy emotion of the song. A plaintive … Continue reading
Yesterday we revealed our favourite 2018 local releases from Australia (and NZ). Today we go global with our 40 favourite albums of 2018. We were going to make it a list that excluded the local albums, seeing as we’ve already published those favourites, but as with previous years we decided we don’t want to separate … Continue reading
Here comes the break-up album. It’s a tried and true fallback for a million songwriters out there but only a small percentage really nail the heartache, despair, fallout and renewal that comes from a fractured relationship. Marlon Williams has taken an approach that doesn’t shy away from the bruises and open wounds, instead he presents … Continue reading
Delafaye is a singer songwriter from Louisville, KY who has a new EP out called Acid Tongue. It features an acoustic version of this song, ‘Time And Money’, which was originally released as a full band single in 2016. It’s a wonderful song, lilting guitar chords hanging in the air while Delafaye cuts to the … Continue reading
Kramies recorded the EP Of All The Places Been & Everything The End in an old castle with the help of Jason Lytle (Grandaddy), Todd Tobias (Guided By Voices) and Jerry Becker (Train). It’s a swirling, hypnotic dreamscape of a song that recalls Mercury Rev and a floating-in-space Perry Farrell-fronted Porno For Pyros. At its heart … Continue reading
Phillipe Bronchtein recently released Me And The Moon, his first album under his own name but not his debut solo LP, he’s previously recorded as Hip Hatchet. Bronchtein has lived all over the place, he was born in Montreal, raised in New Jersey, went to college in Vermont, and relocated to Portland, OR before settling … Continue reading
This track caught our ear this week as we trawled the internet to find some new and compelling music. Siobhan McCrudden is a Cardiff-based singer songwriter with a new album, Icarus Girl, coming out in a week’s time. Here’s a taste of it with the single ‘Following You’, a dark smoky folk song that has … Continue reading
Matthew Baird’s 2014 album, Fall, caught these ears as a great example of how to absorb influence from varying genres and scenes with subtlety. Now, on the followup Time, Baird has again subverted the obvious and recorded a set of songs that dig into a number of musical corners with darkly rewarding results. Many of … Continue reading
Small Feet is the moniker of Simon Stålhamre, a Stockholm based artist, producer and songwriter and Ice Storm is a recently released single that finds a wonderful place between the lonesome sound of Neil Young and the avant folk of Chad Van Gaalen and Sparklehorse. Expect a new full length in 2019. I started crying … Continue reading
Stripmall Ballads is the name that musician Phillips Saylor Wisor has been releasing music under for the last decade. He’s a founding member of the acclaimed old-time duo The Shiftless Rounders and touring banjoist for IBMA award-winning bluegrass group King Wilkie, Phillips as been working as Stripmall Ballads since 2008. There’s a wonderful weariness to … Continue reading
