CLAY PARKER AND JODI JAMES YOUR VERY OWN DREAM INDEPENDENT There’s this relaxed, free-flowing stream in Americana music today picking up and refining the pieces singer-songwriters picked up from Americana itself back in the 70s and its [...]
PACKS MELT THE HONEY FIRE TALK Although Toronto’s Madeline Link is the person that operates as PACKS, the moniker actually covers a full band which includes Dexter Nash on guitar, Noah O’Neil on bass, and Shane Hooper on drums. [...]
DIANE COLL OLD GHOSTS INDEPENDENT Words are quite important to Diane Coll, after all in the other part of her life, she is a mental health therapist. And yes, Coll is approaching her music as some sort of personal therapy. Maybe that is one of [...]
BILL RYDER-JONES IECHYD DA DOMINO RECORDING COMPANY Artists don’t always get the attention or recognition they truly deserve. So far, Bill Ryder-Jones has received some cult fandom, first as The Coral guitarist, then as a solo artist. Yet [...]
MARIKA HACKMAN BIG SIGH CHRYSALIS RECORDS Taking a road less travelled is not a path you would expect from an artist that loosely falls within the singer-songwriter category. Such a road takes not only artistic courage, but the ample ability to [...]
HAZLETT GOODBYE TO THE VALLEY LOW NETTWERK When Justin Vernon and Bon Iver came up with his debut For Emma, Forever Ago back in 2007, we not only got a classic alt-folk album, but music that definitely influenced a set of upcoming artists that [...]
ALL THE BEES ALL THE BEES HOBOPOP RECORDINGS Artists weaned on the so-called ‘old’ folk music, the one that originated decades, or even centuries ago, very often tend to stick to the originals as much as they can. On the other hand, [...]
VALENTINA ALL ARE LOST INDEPENDENT Valentina (Pappalardo), Italian singer songwriter based in London, doesn’t seem to be a big fan of social media, but on the evidence of her latest six song EP All Are Lost she doesn’t need to be. [...]
FROG GROG INDEPENDENT To many ardent indie rock followers, Frog, consisting of brothers Danny and Steve Bateman, is hanging in the memory somewhere as one of those cult artists that has done something that earned them status. The reason why the [...]
LOW WATER BRIDGE BAND BACK TO THE VALLEY INDEPENDENT Low Water Bridge Band, is a relatively fresh force on the Americana music scene, as the band started back in 2020. The Virginia sextet consists of Logan Moore (guitar, vocals), Alex Kerns [...]
JULIE BYRNE JULIE BYRNE WITH LAUGH CRY LAUGH GHOSTLY INTERNATIONAL How many songs on a release do you need to realize that an artist is doing the right thing? For some, a double album is not enough, for others, like Julie Byrne, who are brimming [...]
DAFT PUNK RANDOM ACCESS MEMORIES (DRUMLESS EDITION) SONY MUSIC It has been 10 years now since French electro-pop masters Daft Punk released their seminal album Random Access Memories. As time went by, it became quite obvious that the album [...]
ABIGAIL LAPELL LULLABIES OUTSIDE MUSIC No hidden meanings or double entendres with the album title here – Abigail Lapell’s Lullabies is exactly that – eight lullabies from across the world. These songs should make you, your [...]
DAVID HOLMES BLIND ON A GALLOPING HORSE HEAVENLY RECORDINGS David Holmes is a name that often lingers in the minds of listeners, either as a DJ or as a member of Unloved, but even more so as the man behind quite a number of modern film [...]
ROSIE H SULLIVAN IN MY NATURE NETTWERK We often speak of what detriments Spotify poses to artists, but sometimes, artists do have benefits from that streaming service. Let’s take here the example of Scottish singer-songwriter Rosie H [...]
IN THE PINES PAINTING BY NUMBERS INDEPENDENT Working on the edges of indie rock while crossing over into Americana one moment and post-grunge and psych (and elsewhere) on the other, is not new but is not easy to do well. Sure, there are [...]
TALsounds SHIFT NNA TAPES Natalie Chami, who works under the moniker of TALsounds ,refers to herself as “a proud Canadian-born Lebanese American” a description that is something for the listeners to uncover through her work so far, [...]
JERRY LEGER DONLANDS LATENT RECORDINGS They say that the Americana/roots genre is getting crowded. Quite possibly so, but that just gives the opportunity to those artists that should stand out with the quality of their music do exactly that. [...]
Robert Finley Black Bayou Easy Eye Sound There are so few of those old-fashioned soul-roots artists around that whenever one of them releases an album you simply have to go out and grab it. That is exactly what needs to be done with Black Bayou, [...]
SEAN BURNS LOST COUNTRY DEPARTMENT STORE RECORDS If the title of the latest album by Winnipeg artist Sean Burns, is not a true giveaway of what you can hear within the grooves (or bits), Lost Country, I don’t know what is. And what Burns [...]
RYKARDA PARASOL TUESDAY MORNING INDEPENDENT How do you combine that mid to late 60s San Francisco style psych with French pop of the same period with touches of that Velvet Underground dark cool? Well, if you are Rykarda Parasol, you move from [...]
THE RISKS AND REWARDS OF DOING IT SOLO A CONVERSATION WITH JOHN DOUGLAS (TRASHCAN SINATRAS) Deciding to do it solo, just you, your voice and guitar, can be a tricky proposition. You are not only all by yourself, you are completely exposed and [...]
MARE BERGER DREAMING BLUE INDEPENDENT PR people often plug their artists’ new releases by comparing them to some big or well-known names, for those artists only to fall a bit, or a bit shorter to those they are compared with. Now, Mare [...]
TERRA LIGHTFOOT HEALING POWER SONIC UNYON Is there anything wrong with some high energy, guitar-driven pop-rock, with or without other embellishments? Surely not, if it has a lot of good melodic hooks, and some strong vocals, it this case, as [...]
