Sound Cloud Sunday, November 22, 2020
Sound Cloud Sunday November 22, 2020
Another week another banner week for independent music. Click below #laurelcanyonsound for this week’s episode. Happy Thanksgiving Day, y’all!
Kelsey Waldon – The Law Is For Protection of The People
Hometown: Monkey’s Eyebrow, KY
Album: From the EP “They’ll Never Keep Us Down” released October 29 on Oh Boy Records.
Review Snippet: Kelsey Waldon’s “They’ll Never Keep Us Down” is a serviceable homage release, as the proud Kentuckian covers everyone from Nina Simone to Neil Young, and everything from union labor to feelings of freedom
Website: https://www.kelseywaldon.com/
The Dead Tongues – Peaceful Ambassador
Hometown: Asheville, NC
Album: From the album “Transmigration Blues” released in May on Psychic Hotline Records.
Review Snippet: From the very first strum of the new record, The Dead Tongues give off a Rolling Stones vibe that transcends listeners into a modern day take on “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”. “Peaceful Ambassador” is an epic start to the truly rocking, third full-length album Transmigration Blues.
Website: https://www.thedeadtongues.com/
Skyway Man – Do You Know Him?
Hometown: Nashville via Oakland, CA
Album: From the album “The World Only Ends When You Die” released October 23 on Mama Bird.
Review Snippet: JAMES WALLACE — singer, songwriter and producer behind Skyway Man — presents The World Only Ends When You Die, a spinning disc flashing the finest examples of cosmological country and sci-fi gospel blues.
Website: https://www.skywayman.com/
The Parson Red Heads – Fall & Be Found
Hometown: Portland, OR
Album: From the album “A Lifetime of Comedy” released in October on Fluff and Gravy Records.
Review Snippet: The Parson Red Heads’ new single, “Turn Around”, (released 25 September) demonstrates the group’s penchant for chiming, Byrds-like guitars and sublime vocals, married with contemporary sensibilities. It’s a pop tune, but pop as heard through ears more attuned to AM radio’s glory days rather than streaming playlists and studio trickery.
Website: http://www.theparsonredheads.com/
Larkin Poe – Fly Away
Hometown: Nashville
Album: From the album “Kindred Spirits” released in October on Tricki-Woo Records.
Review Snippet: Kindred Spirits moves the YouTube concept to album form, even including some of the same cover songs. Lenny Kravitz’s “Fly Away,” an earwig of a pop tune, becomes a timeless acoustic blues, with Megan’s howling laptsteel giving the track an emotional depth and desperation that Kravitz himself might never have imagined.
Website: https://www.larkinpoe.com/
Tyler Ramsey – Back On The Chain Gang
Hometown: Asheville, NC
Album: From the EP “Found A Picture Of You” released on Fantasy Records.
Review Snippet: In the case of former Band Of Horses guitarist Tyler Ramsey, the idea of his new covers EP, Found A Picture Of You, offered an opportunity to follow up last year’s stirring Fantasy Records debut, For the Morning, while also offering an homage to some female artists that he’s respected for quite some time. Among the highlights of the six song set — consisting of five remakes and one rerecorded original (an acoustic revisit to his lovely lament, “1000 Black Birds”) — are a touching take on Cyndi Lauper’s “All Through the Night,” an appropriately hushed version of Innocence Mission’s “Tomorrow on the Runway” and a relaxed yet reassuring rendition of the Pretenders’ “Back on the Chain Gang.”
Website: https://www.tylerramsey.com/
Wayne Graham – Tapestry Of Time
Hometown: Whitesburg, Kentucky
Album: From the album “#1 Juice” (kenny and Hayden Miles)
Review Snippet: Wayne Graham’s early releases may have focused on modern-day Appalachian sounds and stories, but the band has expanded, evolved, and electrified since then. 1% Juice showcases the full range of their abilities as a dynamic band with multi-cultural influence. Steadfast in their music, despite their transatlantic momentum, is the centrality of family.
Website: https://www.waynegraham.co/wg/juice.php
Tre Burt – Under The Devil’s Knee
Hometown: Sacramento, CA
Album: New single on Oh Boy released last month.
Review Snippet: Tré Burt’s folk songs sound like they have been plucked from the 1960s, but his story is made with modern-day miracles. Burt was busking in San Francisco when a stranger generously dropped $1000 in his open guitar case, effectively changing Burt’s life. With that money he booked a tour with Portland as last stop. He ended up living there for a while and started writing the songs that would lead to Caught It from the Rye.
Website: https://www.treburt.com/
Belle Mt. – Hollow
Hometown: London, England
Album: New single released on Warner Brothers Records.
Review Snippet: “‘Hollow’is about love, loss, rebirth, and everything in between,” says Matt. “Like great artists that leave us too soon, some of the love stories that aren’t fated to last are remembered with their own timeless beauty and eternal youth. This one was inspired by the beginnings of a relationship that could have gone either way, neither of us were prepared for the weight of it or for the depths that needed to be reached in order to confront our demons and heal together. They say that if you come to fame without knowing yourself then the fame will define you and consume you, the same can apply to love.”
Website: https://www.bellemt.com/
Paul Thorn – It’s Never Too Late To Call
Hometown: Kenosha, WI
Album: Single released November 13 on Perpetual Obscurity Records.
Review Snippet:
Website: http://www.paulthorn.com/
Oracle Sisters – Asc. Scorpio
Hometown: Paris, France
Album: New single on 22-Twenty Records.
Review Snippet: It’s appropriate that Oracle Sisters’ ‘Paris I’ was recorded in a wooden shack on a farm in south-west France. The tracks feel like they’re from another time – folky, sun-kissed and oozing with mellow optimism.
Website: https://oraclesisters.bandcamp.com/
Great Peacock – Heavy Load
Hometown: Nashville, TN
Album: From the album “Forever Worse Better” self-released in October.
Review Snippet: It is love that is at the heart of Forever Worse Better, the new album from the Nashville based Americana band Great Peacock and through their smooth and adept instrumentation and superb songwriting skills on the album, they treat the subject matter and the aforementioned results and consequences in such a masterful and skillful manner that it results in them creating one of the most passion-driven and intensely resonating records of 2020.
Website: https://www.greatpeacock.com/
Kacey Johansing – Make Love
Hometown: San Francisco via Kalamazoo, MI
Album: From the album “No Better Time” released November 20 on Night Bloom Records.
Review Snippet: The album pulls from Johansing’s love of classic pop—it’s her LA record—the place where she now resides and initially struggled to understand. Joan Didion said, “The future always looks good in the golden land, because no one remembers the past.”
Website: https://www.kaceyjohansingmusic.com/
Mike Mitchell – Calling Me
Hometown: Floyd, Virginia via Ontario
Album: New single on FMS Records.
Review Snippet: Mike Mitchell began his music training before he started school, singing and playing with his Mom in Kitchener, Ontario. After classical violin training he migrated to Virginia, studying the musical traditions of the Blue Ridge region.
Website: https://mikemitchellmusic.com/
Leif Vollebek – Long Blue Light
Hometown: Montreal, Canada
Album: New single released November 10 on Secret City Records.
Review Snippet: While putting the final touches on his third album, 2017’s Twin Solitude, Canadian songwriter Leif Vollebekk began to understand it better. Across 10 tracks, he’d mourned the dissolution of a relationship, grasping to resolve his past as newfound success created geographic and emotional distance. Only when he stopped searching did clarity find him. Rather than revise Twin Solitude, Vollebekk set about fashioning new songs to explore his growing perspective. “I started working on this new record [New Ways] while I was mixing that one,” he told Atwood Magazine. “I had this idea,” he said, “that it would be a companion piece.”
Website: https://www.leifvollebekk.com/
James Tillman – Lose Control
Hometown: Baltimore, Maryland
Album: From the EP “Modern Desires” released in October on Musella Creative
Review Snippet: Over the course of the project Tillman introduces the listener to a wide range of musical expressions and time periods, he hits hard with ’70s inspired Brazilian and Latin-infused funk, ’90s hip-hop, and modern lyricism that is both thought provoking but also full of energy that can be its own mood.
Website: https://www.facebook.com/pg/JamesTillmanMusic/
