Sound Cloud Sunday April 19 , 2020
Sound Cloud Sunday – April 19, 2020
If for nothing else, the coronavirus has given us the opportunity to really deep dive into music and artists these last couple of months. When was the last time you had enough time to listen, really listen to music? This has been a great boon for artists known and not so known to focus (for lack of anything else) putting their music out there, mass performing on the web (in some cases daily) and elsewhere. Some are monetizing it (on some level, I suppose, we aren’t) and some are doing it for the sheer musical joy. While nothing beats the chance for an artist to share in a room with an audience, you have to admit that the ability to have so much access to so much music in this era (including live performances) is a great artistic boon in our generation, whether we choose to recognize it as such or not. This week’s music collection, for the most part, has come out within the last couple of weeks, and we are as excited to bring you new music from veterans and first timers. Enjoy this week’s show (click below to listen if you didn’t hear it live on Sunday) and stay safe and sane!
Shannon LaBrie – Firewalker
Hometown: Nashville via Omaha, NE
Album: New single.
Review Snippet: Singer/songwriter from Nashville who’s soulful voice and honey-crisp highs bring to mind the late great Jeff Buckley.
Website: https://www.shannonlabrie.com/
Caleb Caudle – Wait A Minute (with Elizabeth Cook)
Hometown: Nashville via North Carolina
Album: From his 8th album “Better Hurry Up” released April 3 on Baldwin County Public Records.
Review Snippet: If you’re looking to create dark, swampy, groove based Americana, you can’t do better than taking notes from Leon Russell, J.J. Cale, Dr. John, Little Feat and The Band.
Website: https://www.calebcaudle.com/
Eliza Gilkyson – Peace In Our Hearts
Hometown: Austin via LA.
Album: From her album 20/20 released April 10 on Red House Records.
Review Snippet:
The Austin, Texas-based folk singer recorded the politically charged 10-tune set as an election-year call for solidarity against forces of division and hatred. As it happens, the album is being released in a moment of physical distancing, making Gilkyson’s singalong anthems of unity and community even more powerful.
“2020” rides an undercurrent of outrage, and the band, led by guitarist Mike Hardwick, gives the arrangements a punch to match the lyrics. But Gilkyson’s lean-in alto isn’t strident; instead, she invites others to join her in song.
Website: http://elizagilkyson.com/
Morgan Rider – Sad Old Story
Hometown: Toronto
Album: From the album “Folklore” released March 27 on North Soul Records.
Review Snippet: “…an album that concentrates on storytelling through music combining Folk, Blues and classical elements to craft and weave a story and musical experience led by the powerful voice of Morgan Rider that will truly echo and resonate with the listener…” – Crannk.com
Website: https://morganridermusic.com/
Don Gallardo – Ghosts & Hummingbirds
Hometown: Nashville via California
Album: From the album “Lonesome Wild” released February 27 on Southern Carousel Records.
Review Snippet: Don Gallardo has called Nashville home for over 11 years. He has his heart in the East Nashville sound and scene, but his California roots are never far away. Gallardo has weaved his 1970’s Laurel Canyon influences into modern roots-Americana, while mixing southern and western sounds comfortably.
Website: http://www.dongallardo.com/
Jess Jocoy – Love Her Wild
Hometown: Seattle
Album: Self-released debut album “Such A Long Way” was released April 10.
Review Snippet: Having grown up south of Seattle, hitting every karaoke night and singing competition her parents would drive her to, Jocoy kept her eye ever on the prize: Nashville. “I’d had this dream that I was going to move to Nashville and be a country singer like Miranda Lambert or Faith Hill, and get a record deal, and sell out stadiums,” she says. With a twang in her voice, an edge to her sound, and a fire in her belly, Jocoy might just do it.
Her parents weren’t musical, but they loved music. From her mom, she got an appreciation for classic rock and, from her dad, a passion for country music. “We listened to Shania Twain’s Up! and Alan Jackson’s Drive albums every single day on the way to school for three years straight,” Jocoy recounts. But her parents’ support didn’t stop with album introductions and chauffeuring duties. “My dad would stay up all night learning how to use ProTools so that he could try and teach me, so we could record my music at home. He would make graphics in Photoshop that would read: ‘Jessica Jocoy, the New Queen of Country Music.’ He believed.”
Website: https://www.jessjocoy.com/
Stu Larsen – We Got Struck By Lightning
Hometown: Australia but technically homeless
Album: From the album “Marigold” out June 12 on Nettwerk Records.
Review Snippet: Larsen seems to be opening himself to you, his new best friend, especially on the sorrowful but beautiful, string enhanced ballad “Wide Awake and Dreaming,” sounding somewhat like early Paul Simon. Even though the opening tracks, especially the strummy, folk pop, Paul Kelly-styled “Hurricane,” are sprightly, the album eases into a more pensive mood as it progresses.
Website: https://stularsen.bandcamp.com/
Fiver And The Atlantic School Of Spontaneous Composition – It Won’t Be Long And I’ll Be Hating You
Hometown: Toronto
Album: From the EP “You Wanted Country Part 1” released April 10 on You’ve Changed Records.
Review Snippet: When citing Fiver’s 2017 Audible Songs From Rockwood LP as one of the city’s best albums of the 2010s, NOW Toronto observed that songwriter Simone Schmidt “has a knack for infusing old music styles with new life”. With “You Wanted Country? Vol 1” Schmidt celebrates and critiques country music as a living form, from a position of deep love, passionate study, and radical understanding, pairing a stunning original song “It Is What It Is” with covers of iconic works by Willie Nelson, Gene Clark, and Johnny Paycheck. Performing with some of the finest young improvisers working in North America, here credited as The Atlantic School Of Spontaneous Composition, Fiver is reinvigorating and reinventing a beloved musical tradition.
Website: https://youvechangedrecords.bandcamp.com/album/you-wanted-country-vol-1
Chelsea Williams – Red Flag
Hometown: Los Angeles
Album: From the album “Beautiful And Strange” out May 8 on Blue Elan Records.
Review Snippet: Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter Chelsea Williams released her debut album for the Blue Élan music label. Boomerang spotlights Williams’ tantalizing vocal skills, with musical accents reminiscent of “Alice in Wonderland” and twangs that typically accompany a Western film. The album is undoubtedly more robust than her previous acoustic music; empty spaces are filled with instrumental sounds from an actual musician, as opposed to samples or synthesizers.
Website: http://www.chelseawilliams.com/
Satin Nickel – Train Song
Hometown: Brooklyn, NY via Irvine, CA
Album: From the album “Shadow Of A Doubt” self-released on April 10
Review Snippet: Satin Nickel began as a collaboration between Morgan Hollingsworth and Samantha Aneson, two songwriters who met while studying theater at the University of California, Irvine. They began writing together after relocating to NYC and found a musical spark, writing a collection of songs ranging in styles from Folk to Blues to Indie. Combining Morgan’s aggressive approach to the Americana narrative with Samantha’s sentimental and introspective approach to folk music, they found their contrasting styles complemented each other, forming a powerful dichotomy. Smooth as satin, hard as nickel. Folk and rock. Aggressive and sensitive. Progressive and reflective.
Website: https://satinnickelmusic.com/
Ruben Levi Rhodes -Avery
Hometown: Southern California
Album: From his second album “Abbeville” released March 27.
Review Snippet: American Singer/Songwriter whose music has seamlessly blended the free spirit of Rock N Roll with the classic sounds of traditional Country. A Southern California native, his musical history is steeped in the heritage of his surroundings.
Website:
Greyhounds – Tune In
Hometown: Austin
Album: From the album “Primates” out July 10 on Nine Mile Records.
Review Snippet:
Website: http://www.greyhoundsmusic.com/home
Ryan Dart – Pony
Hometown: Austin
Album: From the album “Grow Toward The Light” self-released on April 10.
Review Snippet: Ryan Dart’s music encompasses the worlds that he lives in. You can’t sing about needing rain, unless you really know what it means to need rain. The new album, Drifters Heart, showcases his earnest and heartfelt songwriting, stripped down to its core and presented honestly. Recorded in Austin, TX and Boulder, CO, the album is a departure from some of Ryan’s earlier, more rock leaning offerings. Yet, it still retains all of the qualities common throughout Ryan’s music – genuine lyrics, vivid imagery, and an authentic take on American music.
Website: https://www.ryandartmusic.com/
Rex Orange County – Face To Face
Hometown: Grayshot near Surrey
Album: From the 2019 album “Pony” available as in import only through Sony UK.
Review Snippet: Rex’s distinctive voice has earned him the epithet “old soul,” but his newest music is relentlessly juvenile. When he landed a Spotify deal that offered the opportunity to work with an established artist on a cover song, he picked Randy Newman and “You’ve Got a Friend in Me.” On Pony, a collection of 10 new songs irritating enough to activate the mildest allergy to sincerity, he sings about being young and in love; about getting a little older but not yet old enough; about feeling like a comic-book superhero and getting “Stressed Out.” “When we have to speak I usually shoe gaze,” he admits on “Laser Lights,” with a delivery style equally indebted to Chance the Rapper’s singing and Ed Sheeran’s rapping.
Website: https://www.rexorangecounty.com/
Luke Sital-Singh – Almost Home
Hometown: LA via Bristol
Album: From the EP “New Haze” released April 10 on Raygun Records.
Review Snippet: Accompanied by piano, and sounding a little like mid-period Paul Simon.
Website: https://www.lukesitalsingh.com/
Moira Bren – Hourglass Of Fun
Hometown: Nova Scotia
Album: Debut single. Released February 14 on Ticklegrass Records.
Review Snippet:
“Hourglass of Fun” is “inspired”, if that’s the right word, by the frustration of being in a one-sided relationship. The song comes from the perspective of one person in the relationship whose partner is not consistent with their love and only gives their “all” for a limited amount of time before becoming distant. We have all experienced giving too much only to receive little in return, whether it be a friend, family member, the music industry, or a partner.
“This song does not come from personal experience at all,” explains Bren. “It’s not my story, but it could be someone else’s story. I wrote it a while ago so I don’t remember that many details of the process, but I do remember starting with the melodic phrase ‘You are an hourglass of fun’ and trying to build the rest of the song around that idea.”
The soft piano playing and background vocals compliment the young singers emotions as we accompany her throughout the hardship of the fallen relationship. Listening and watching as the hourglass slowly starts to run out and all the fun in the relationship has gone.
Moira says that her upcoming EP, titled 6 Is Green, will feature, appropriate enough, six tracks, and is expected for release sometime this summer.
Website: https://moirabren.bandcamp.com/
James Elkington – Late Jim’s Lament
Hometown: London via Chicago
Album: From the album “Ever Roving Eye” out April 3 on Paradise of Bachelors Records.
Review Snippet:
Lyrically, Elkington remains an eccentric songwriter, given to playful turns of phrase as ornate as they are cryptic. There’s a menagerie of animals roaming around Ever-Roving Eye, hyenas and leopards and wolves; at one point Elkington even declares himself a malamute. Such odd imagery doesn’t distract him from the mortal dread that seeps into these songs. Rather, it magnifies it, as though he’s staring down death with a chuckle. “You’ll be underground in no uncertain terms, and dozing with the worms,” he prophesies on “Nowhere Time.” “There’s a master plan somebody understands, and I wish that one was me.” The unstoppable passage of time is his primary theme, and he’s found an intriguing way of addressing it through his music: Ever-Roving Eye collapses time as Elkington combines elements from previous projects into his current folk palette, as though he’s playing in all the above groups all at once.
That’s especially enlivening after Wintres Woma, whose combination of Albion folk and American Primitive occasionally sounded a little too tidy. The focus on that album was clearly on Elkington, but on Ever-Roving Eye he sounds more like a bandleader. These new songs savor a wider variety of sounds, like the prismatic strings and woodwinds that flutter just under the surface of “Tempering Moon,” or the pile-up of voices on the psychedelic title track. Even Elkington’s vocals, which don’t have the range or the texture of his playing, sound more commanding here. He devises new tricks of phrasing and layering on “Late Jim’s Lament” to complement the song’s pulse, rooting deep in his lower register like he’s digging into peat. In this setting, even a more straightforward folk instrumental like “Rendlesham Way,” written and recorded for Wintres Woma, sounds more pointed, more purposeful, maybe even pricklier—as though Elkington is pushing against some expectation he has for himself. Or, as he sings on “Nowhere Time,” “It is time for you to move. You’d better get somewhere to go.”
Website: https://www.jameselkington.com/music-2
