An exciting start to a new week with the first taste of the new Lost Ragas album This is Not A Dream. The cosmic country sounds are firmly intact on this superb track with a rhythm section that punches hard and tight beneath the spiralling psychedelic guitars of Matt Walker and Shane Reilly. Great production, … Continue reading
Andrew Phelan is an Australian who relocated to Canada (received a Canadian Folk Music Award nomination) and last week he released his new six song EP Everything Rattles When I Breathe. This one from it, ‘That’s How’ is a catchy and rousing folk dispatch about the perils of booze. He’s got a fine line in … Continue reading
Oliver Ray has a brand new album out now called Out Passed Nowhere. It’s his debut record and features Howe Gelb, musicians from Sugar Candy Mountain, The Myrrors, Xixa, and China, as well as a very special appearance by the poet laureate of punk, Patti Smith, who Ray has worked with as her longtime guitarist. ‘Ol’ … Continue reading
One positive to come from the recent lineup changes for The Felice Brothers is that we get to hear more new music from the talented members taking flight under their own names. Greg Farley was the fiddle player with the band for a decade and late last year he released his debut solo album Taker … Continue reading
The sound of The Doors, psychedelic blues, gothic country, Lee Hazlewood and even Julian Cope collide on this new song from Australian Jordan Merrick. Also a member of Brisbane band Fugitive & The Vagabond, Merrick has dialled into a swirling, pulsing, dark folk-rock vibe on ‘Low Country’, which bodes well for his forthcoming debut album. … Continue reading
Kate Vargas, the NYC-based, half-Mexican singer-songwriter, already has a few albums under her belt, including last year’s fine For The Wolfish & Wandering. Now, after a songwriting experience at the Holiday Music Motel (see below), she’s released the jazzier sounding ‘Nothing Turns My Lock’ single. Vargas’ appeal lies in her husky voice and her willingness to explore … Continue reading
Hailing from Nashville, TN, here’s a song about NYC from singer-songwriter John Burnette. It has the beautiful lines “New York City are you doing alright, do you taking your pills?” and “He lost her in a lucid spell he was trying to preserve. Now they’re standing on the salt flats, babe, disappearing at the edge … Continue reading
TOWNES VAN ZANDT SKY BLUE Fat Possum Records/Inertia Early in 1973, Townes Van Zandt visited his journalist and musician friend Bill Hedgepeth in Atlanta, Georgia, as he often would through his life, and recorded these stripped down acoustic songs in Hedgepeth’s home studio. Some are instantly recognisable TVZ classics while two are unreleased tracks, others … Continue reading
UK singer-songwriter Franc Cinelli has a new single out called ‘Horses’, a wonderfully warm and lush ballad that comes from his new LP Night Songs, out in September. It blends acoustic guitar, mellotron organ and mandolin in a magical way, topped off with a finely weathered voice that reminds me of Tex Perkins and NZ … Continue reading
Themes of loss of identity and belonging in the modern hi-tech society rise out of a gothic swamp on this track by Simon Paul Roy aka A Few Bad Men. He was a founding member and songwriter of the Australian psychedelic power pop group Bell Jar, working with Marty Wilson-Piper (The Church) and Ed Kuepper, (The … Continue reading
Here are some sweet folk sounds to kick of the new week, courtesy of songwriter Steve Marino who hails from Bloomington, IN. ‘Six Two Four’, from his new album Fluff, his first under his own name, is warm and freewheelin’ baroque folk that weaves a path through the kind of heavy lidded strumming of Evan Dando … Continue reading
Stripped back acoustic folk is the order of the day on this new track from Franklin, Tennessee-born Elaine Coles. Recorded with John Mailander (fiddle), Cory Walker (banjo), Jake Stargel (guitar) and mastered by Austin Lee in Nashville, the song has both a haunting musical backdrop and and rich and heartfelt vocal style that goes deep into both soul and … Continue reading
Authentic, organic, humorous, old school dusty floor honky tonk sounds from Pinto Bennett, the Idaho musician who made his first recordings at age 16 in 1964 with a rock band called The Fates before being seduced by Wynn Stewart’s Bakersfield country sound. By the 2000s, his hard living caught up with him in the form … Continue reading
Lo Carmen has released a brand new double A-side single with the tracks ‘Now You Know Nashville’ and ‘Half A Man’. Beautiful atmospheric authentic country music from the heart and soul. The first is a sweet honky tonk groove, while ‘Half A Man’ is draped in that heady and lonesome sound that bands like The … Continue reading
SONGS OF TRIBUTE For my Waitin’ Around to Die column in Rhythms I recently took a look at some of the outstanding releases in the field of tribute albums. Specifically those that fall under the umbrella of Americana and alt-country, whether it’s in recognition of an artist’s body of work or a fundraiser to assist them … Continue reading
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