Sound Cloud Sunday – April 15, 2018
Sound Cloud Sunday April 15, 2018 Episode #11
It’s always a pleasure receiving new music in our collective inboxes (inboxi?) here at Laurel Canyon Radio. In preparation for each week’s Sound Cloud Sunday ep… (this one is #11) we start the week thinking, what possible new music is STILL LEFT to discover? What artist is still possibly not already on our collective radar? However as we filter through our Sound Cloud account, our Bandcamp account, music festival lineups, You Tube recommendations, our radio tipsters breathlessly hype-induced emails, and tweets from our own personal musical docent Gary Smith at Laurel Canyon Music in London, somehow we manage to fill up another hour of hopeful, yearning, smart, funny, imaginative independent-minded music that could as easily be on top of the music charts as what is on top of the music charts. Please, please, please, listen to these artists! Go see them! Buy their music and merch (we do!) Spread the word. No one with as much creativity as the fourteen artists featured this week have should be left unattended!
Episode #11 is below…..
Ralway Bell – Caught In The Crossfire
Hometown: West Australia
Album: From their debut album “Dear Friends” (available on Bandcamp)
Review Snippet: Rich guitar tones and sweet pedal steel licks colour their sturdy denim rhythms.
Web Site: https://www.ralwaybell.com/
Western Centuries – Earthly Justice
Hometown: Seattle and New York
Album: “Songs From The Deluge” (out April 6 on Free Dirt Records)
Review Snippet: “If it seems crazy to compare any band today to giants like the Band and the Flying Burrito Brothers, then call me crazy, but Western
Centuries is the country supergroup we’ve been waiting for: three first-rate lead singers, each of whom writes solid, heartwarming and heartbreaking country songs, together in one band
Next Time in LA: How about today at the Brick and Mortar in San Francisco? That’s the closest these boys will get to us.
Website: http://www.westerncenturies.com/
Wellington Folk – Softer Still
Hometown: Calgary, Alberta
Album: From their 2015 debut EP “Counting The Steps”
Review Snippet: Warm and multi-faceted blend of folk, blues, and rock.
Website: http://www.thewellingtonfolk.com/
Carousel – My Father’s Son
Hometown: Southend on Sea, UK
Album: Single on Bandcamp
Review Snippet: Harmonies worthy of bluegrass, lyrics of the most bittersweet nature, with tunes of intricacy and panache.
Website: https://www.carouseluk.com/
Larkin Poe – Preachin’ Blues
Hometown: Nashville via Atlanta
Album: From the 2017 album “Peach” on Trickie-Woo Records
Next Time in LA: May 18 at the Teragram Ballroom in Hollywood and May19 at the Doheny Blues Festival in Dana Point.
Review Snippet: The group’s recent studio release, Peach, is a collection of stunning tracks that combine the visceral depth of blues with the immediacy of rock and garage. Peach is the band’s first release since 2016’s Reskinned, showcasing Larkin Poe at their most edgy and charismatic! The album is particularly striking due to the stunning rendition of timeless blues tunes, as well as the band’s great original compositions, which add even more personality and drive to this stunningly executed release.
Website: http://www.larkinpoe.com/
Sherman Ewing – Prodigal Son #22
Hometown: Brooklyn, NY via Minnesota
Album: 5th album “Come And Meet Me” (self-released in February)
Review Snippet: “A Triumphant Storyteller with a Soulful Brand of Pop-Friendly Rock That, at Times, Channels a Sound Similar to Early Folk-Period Dylan with an Upbeat Twist”
Website: https://www.shermanewing.com/
Hannah Read – She Took A Gamble
Hometown: Brooklyn via Scotland
Album: From her debut album released February “Way Out I’ll Wander” on Hudson Records.
Review Snippet: There’s a dominant roots fusion in Hannah’s original music, which combines British folk with “yearning Americana” (The Guardian), indie and contemporary sounds. With comparisons to Sandy Denny, Joni Mitchell and Feist, Hannah seamlessly weaves in her influences from both sides of the Atlantic. Her songwriting is largely influenced by the people, places and landscapes she has encountered along the way, musings of home and travel, love and loss.
Website: http://hannahread.com/
Brian Pounds – Falling To Pieces
Hometown: Austin, TX
Album: “Southern Writer” (self-released) available on CD Baby
Review Snippet: The Austin-based singer-songwriter, whose credits include a finalist slot in the Kerrville Folk Festival’s New Folk songwriting contest and an appearance on “The Voice” a few years ago, leans more toward country than folk on the nine-song set.
Website: http://www.brianpounds.com/
Lachlan Bryan And The Wildes – Afraid of The Light
Hometown: Melbourne, Australia
Album: From the 2015 album “The Mountain” on ABC (Australian Broadcasting Company) Records.
Review Snippet: Lachlan Bryan is probably in the top five of Australian country music songwriters of all time. Every song is considered. He has a way of making you feel when you really don’t want to, making you think when you do want to.
Website: https://www.lachlanbryanandthewildes.com/
Phoebe Hunt and The Gatherers – Take Me Home
Hometown: New York
Album: “Shanti’s Shadow” (her 3rd album)
Next Time in LA: How about Big Sur Fiddlecamp on June 9, 250 miles up the road?
Review Snippet: Phoebe Hunt is a remarkable artist and this album underscores that fact. The song writing, performance, and production are all well done and engaging. She is one of the very few artists I know whose intensity when performing live can translate to a recording. This is a wonderful album which effortlessly moves among genres without the faintest hint of confusion. Great work.
Website: https://phoebehuntmusic.com/
The Cordovas – I’m The One Who Needs You Tonight
Hometown: Nashville
Album: This is a new single available on Soundcloud from the forthcoming album “That Santa Fe Channel”
Next Time in LA: All over the world but nowhere near the West Coast
Review Snippet: I’m The One Who Needs You Tonight” is striking in its simplicity. The songwriting and production would be at home on Jackson Browne’s Late For The Sky, and, like Browne, the band ably splits the difference between a Western ease and a Southern twang. The song sounds practically unproduced by contemporary standards — the quiet, articulated drums sit at the back of the mix in a steady groove with band founder Joe Firstman’s bass, a dry pedal steel and a roomy piano. The front of the mix is the province of three of Cordovas’ four members, locked into a tight harmony for almost the whole song. Kenneth Pattengale, of The Milk Carton Kids, produced the album with an intentional spareness. There is no hiding on this arrangement; it is boldly unadorned and, at under three minutes, bracingly direct. More than any tape machine could, this mix and the aesthetic priorities it telegraphs situate the band squarely in 1970s Southern rock.
Website: http://www.cordovasband.com/
The Shackletons – Minnesota Girls
Hometown: Minneapolis, MN
Album: From their self-released ep “Second Attempt”
Review Snippet: “Imagine Conor Oberst with a John Belushi attitude, fronting the Hold Steady.”
Website: https://colincampbellandtheshackletons.bandcamp.com/
Sam Morrow featuring Jamie Wyatt – Skinny Elvis
Hometown: Los Angeles
Album: From the just released new album “Concrete and Mud” (on Forty Below)
Next Time in LA: June 3 at the Echoplex, July 14 at the Love Song Bar
Review Snippet: Though LA’s country scene isn’t packed to the gills, it does boast a small but talented group of new artists making good on the state’s Bakersfield history. Alongside Sam Outlaw, Jade Jackson and Jaime Wyatt, Houston-born Sam Morrow started putting out bluesy, boot-stompingly traditional records a few years back. His newest, Concrete and Mud, finds him merging classic rock, southern soul and funk in there, too (in fact, a friend of Morrow’s dubbed it “countrified funk”). Making use of a vintage Neve 8068 console, Morrow recorded the LP, out March 30th, largely live and ventured to replicate the intimate intensity of catching him in concert. Morrow, who is now sober, has overcome some major hardships and Concrete and Mud is less about the sunny side of his home state and more about those wandering the streets with a past that lingers like a faded tattoo. “I’ve been through concrete and I have been through mud,” he says, “but all these experiences make me what I am.”
Website: https://www.sammorrowmusic.com/
Pat Reedy And The Longtime Goners – Nashville at 3AM
Hometown: Nashville via New Orleans
Album: From his just released 3rd LP “That’s All There Is (And There Ain’t No More) on Muddy Roots Records.
Review Snippet: Makes honest honky-tonk music for the modern world, mixing twang, blue-collar songwriting, working-class pride, and an unconventional backstory into albums like 2018’s That’s All There Is.
Website: https://www.patreedymusic.com/
