Sound Cloud Sunday – May 31, 2020
Sound Cloud Sunday May 31, 2020
Great new indie music from Laurel Canyon Radio on Sound Cloud Sunday at 3pm PST every Sunday, the best unsigned, should be signed and independent artists from around the globe. Enjoy this first of week of summer show, click below:
Adeem The Artist – Pandemic Days
Hometown: Knoxville, TN
Album: New single released April 24 on Saint Judas Records.
Review Snippet: His sound is informed by the vast vernacular of folk, indie-pop and Americana; using this palette, he creates a truly compelling and personal narrative in the vein of visionary artists the likes of Glenn Hansard, Bright Eyes, and John Prine.
Website: https://www.adeemtheartist.com/
Lullanas – Highway Honey
Hometown: Philadelphia
Album: From the EP “Before Everything Got Real” released April 24 on Nettwerk.
Review Snippet:
Website: https://www.facebook.com/lullanasmusic/
Jeff Crosby – Laramie
Hometown: Idaho
Album: From the album “Northstar” self-released on April 24.
Review Snippet:
Website: https://www.jeffcrosbymusic.com/
The Mammals – Coming Down Off Summer
Hometown: Hudson Valley, NY
Album: From the album “Nonet” released May 22 on Humble Abode Records.
Review Snippet: [Nonet], the new and sensational album from the Americana band, The Mammals . . . It is highly polished, it is beautifully constructed and arranged, and you’ll be hearing a lot more of it.” – BBC Scotland
Website: http://www.themammals.love/
Ocie Elliot – Be Around
Hometown: Victoria, BC
Album: From the album “We Fall in” released in February on Nettwerk.
Review Snippet: Ocie Elliott is musical duo Jon Middleton and Sierra Lundy from Victoria, B.C., Canada. The two have come a long way in a short time since a chance encounter in a Salt Spring Island café led to a spark, collaboration, and their ultimate partnership in music and beyond. That was hardly two years ago, and Ocie has been busy, releasing both an EP and their debut full-length album We Fall In (Nettwerk Music Group), playing with the likes of Mason Jennings, Sons of the East, Kim Churchill, Roo Panes, Current Swell and Joseph, touring Canada, US, and Europe and having their song “Run To You” featured on an episode of Grey’s Anatomy.
Website: https://www.ocieelliott.com/
Zach Aaron – Dayton Town
Hometown: Austin, TX
Album: From the self-released third album “Fill Dirt Wanted”.
Review Snippet: Aaron, with the help of producer Giovanni Carnuccio and engineer Steve Boaz, swings a two-ton barbell. “Fill Dirt Wanted” pops the top of his swelling, inescapable melancholy, his voice often aching and heavy. “Running from the preacher / Running from my sins / Running from my family / I’m running from my fears / Running from anything that gets too near,” he confides through sun-baked acoustics.
Website: https://zachaaronmusic.com/
Ben de La Cour – High Heels Down The Holler
Hometown: Brooklyn via London
Album: From the album “Shadow Land” released May 15 on Flour Sack Cape Records.
Review Snippet: There are the titans of the form; immortal artists who risked everything to have the grittiest, most authentically artistic life, manifesting in songs that spoke with great passion and brutal honesty. Men and women who sing the truth: Townes Van Zandt, Robert Johnson, Warren Zevon, Gil Scott-Heron, Judee Sill, Dee Dee Ramone, Guy Clark, Janis Joplin, Mickey Newbury, Lucinda Williams, Steve Earle, Nick Cave… and every other troubadour who has attacked convention riding on little more than a guitar string and a song. Their influences shine on Shadow Land, but the sound and the stories here are all Ben’s.
Website: https://www.bendelacour.com/
Laura Cortese And The Dance Cards – Dreamin
Hometown: San Francisco
Album: From the album “Bitter Better” out July 17 on Compass Records.
Review Snippet: “Laura Cortese and the Dance Cards create a stunning, forward-looking sound that charts a path for innovation in folk music.” -PopMatters “…vocally superb… amazing talent with the fiddle” -Maverick “Like many of the best “folk” bands, this talented quartet is much more of an uncategorisable and dynamic force” -Americana UK “… their close and complex harmonies and imaginative arrangements signified the best of folk right now.” -The Bluegrass Situation Expanding on the boundaries of what an indie-folk band can be, Laura Cortese & the Dance Cards take their extensive string music background, add their knowledge of folk and roots music, and incorporate an edgy pop sensibility to create their latest album, BITTER BETTER. A stunning lesson in all the ways string instruments can be played- bowed, plucked, percussively – the album showcases Cortese and multi-instrumentalist producer Sam Kassirer (Lula Wiles, Lake Street Dive) striving to capture the most adventurous approach to each moment. The result is an album that incorporates dance-worthy foundational grooves, synth, and loops to push the boundaries of the genre. The band has been invited to support The Mountain Goats on their extended US tour, which kicks off in late April.
Website: https://thisislauracortese.com/
Roadside Graves – Sit So Close
Hometown: New Jersey
Album: From the album “That’s Why We’re Running Away” released on May 22 on Don Giovanni Records.
Review Snippet: Roadside Graves have carved out a small and strange piece of musical territory over the course of their nearly twenty years together. Their sound emerges as much from their longstanding friendships and personality quirks as it does from their eclectic musical influences. That’s Why We’re Running Away was engineered and mixed in Brooklyn, NY by Robert Lombardo and mastered at Strange Weather by Daniel Schlett. On this new record, the group has created a cycle of songs about acceptance – the struggle to accept defeat and loss, and whether to give up peacefully. It’s about finding comfort in seeing the reality of a situation and reckoning honestly with your own part in it. If the question is acceptance, one answer then is to run away – not alone, but together. This a record about living in the tiny space between “I want to leave” and “I want to believe.”
Website https://roadsidegraves.bandcamp.com/album/thats-why-were-running-away
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Bowerbirds – Hazel Eyes
Hometown: Raleigh, NC
Album: EP was released April 28 on Psychic Hotline Records.
Review Snippet:
Website: http://www.bowerbirds.org/
Fretland – Long Haul
Hometown: Snohomish, WA
Album: Eponymous debut album came out May 22 on Tone Tree Music.
Review Snippet: The family quilt of Americana music is long and well worn. With stitches that took hold hundreds of years ago, the legacy of forlorn lyrics sung over spare, twinkling instrumentation depicting long nights, whiskey glasses and love that too often walks out the door extends further than any can remember. And it will continue well past anyone kicking up mud today. But with each passing sunset, we can see new patches added to the legacy. And the next name to be sewn in is FRETLAND.
The band plays songs that dash over hills, harmonize with the breeze and coax honey from tall trees. Founded by Hillary Grace Fretland, the group also includes the tasteful Jake Haber and subtle Luke Francis on bass and guitar and Kenny Bates on drums. FRETLAND’s self-titled, 11-track debut album, which is due out in early 2020, includes the epic, “Long Haul,” reflective, “Have Another Beer,” and the revelrous, “Friendly Fire.” Their first single has already received high praise from The Boot and American Songwriter Magazine.
While still getting footing on their newest plateau, FRETLAND has lots to enjoy in the view behind them. The band corralled two sonic stalwarts for their first full length record, including engineer Nich Wilbur (Angel Olsen, Black Belt Eagle Scout) and Seattle-area sage Trevor Spencer (Father John Misty, Fleet Foxes), who mixed the record. The band, rife with energy and momentum, has already created one of those strong foundations that allows for a long story to unfold in great detail and with much revelation.
Website: https://www.facebook.com/pg/Fretlandtheband
Woods – Just To Fall Asleep
Hometown: Brooklyn, NY
Album: “Strange To Explain” was released May 22 on Woodsist Records.
- Review Snippet:
“Dreaming doesn’t come easy these shadowed days, which is why Strange To Explain by Woods is such a welcome turning of new colors.
It presents an extended moment of sweet reflection for the 15-year-old band, bouncing back to earth as something hopeful and weird and resolute. Like everything else they’ve recorded, it sounds exactly like themselves, but with subtly different shades and breaths and rhythmic feels and everything else that changes, the natural march of time and the intentional decisions of the musicians moving in what feels like an uncommonly organic alignment.
Strange To Explain trades in a different kind of dependability, maintaining a steady connection to the voice on the other side of the record needle. After quickly recording and releasing 2017’s Love Is Love in response to the tumultuous events of their (and our) 2016, Jeremy Earl and company took their time with what came next. Parenthood arrived, as did a short songwriting pause. The band went bicoastal when Jarvis Taveniere headed west. And when they returned to their posts, there on the other side of this particular mirror, they made this, an album that not only catches and holds and shares the light in yet another new way, but recognizes that there’s still light to be caught, which is also no small thing.
Website: https://www.woodsist.com/
Noah Reid – Hate This Town
Hometown: Toronto
Album: From the album “Gemini” released on May 29 on Baseline Music.
Trivia Snippet: Noah Reid was a regular in the Netflix TV Series “Schitts Creek”.
Website: http://www.noahreid.com/
Johnny Blueheart – Home
Hometown: Abiqui, NM
Album: From the EP “On The Loose” to be released June 5.
Review Snippet: Fully realized cowboy folk.
Website: http://www.johnnyblueheart.com/
Wild Rivers – Left Out
Hometown: Toronto
Album: From the EP “Songs To Break Up To” released in April on Nettwerk.
Review Snippet: By chasing it, Wild Rivers uncovered five undeniable tunes led by the first single “Thinking ‘Bout Love.” Clean guitar and a steady beat reverberate amidst a heartfelt vocal volley between Khalid and Devan. Wistful recollections of an old flame give way to gospel-style harmonies as Devan soulfully sings, “I’m just thinking ‘bout love.”
Website: http://www.wildriversmusic.com/
The Lost Trailers – Fifth Of July
Hometown: Nashville via Atlanta
Album:
Review Snippet:
Website: https://losttrailersmusic.com/
