Birch Street Radio

Saturday, November 2, 2024

What's new: Spun Out, Autopilot, Tunde Adebimpe, The Far Out, Kathleen Edwards

Spun Out: Paranoia

More than 40 years after The Kinks sang about it in "The Destroyer," this Chicago band gives us a fresh take on unsettling fear. They even include a line saying "don't let it destroy you." This is the lead single the group's just-released second LP, Dream Noise. Singer/guitarist Michael Wells says, "I got taken out by a rip tide in the Pacific a few years back, and that feeling of trying to remain calm physically while not being in control of your surroundings definitely informed the psychology of the tune." Although technically, paranoia is an unfounded fear - while rip-tide danger is real!

Autopilot: Here Comes the Pressure

From a song about paranoia we go to one about "the anxieties we experience in a world full of pressures, and how we do our best to handle it," according to Marlon Harder, lead vocalist/guitarist of this three-piece band from Saskatoon. We've featured them previously, most recently in May with the single "Say Something."

Tunde Adebimpe: Magnetic

Even as TV On The Radio is touring to mark the 20th anniversary of its debut album, Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes, its frontman makes his solo debut with this new single and an album coming next year. Adebimpe is also an actor, animator, director and visual artist, and has been a musical collaborator with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Massive Attack and Run The Jewels, among others.

The Far Out: Packed to Go

Here's a funk-soul-pop band from the north shore of Massachusetts whose six members have been playing together since they were kids, through genres including jazz, theater and orchestral music. They've put out a couple of EPs, but this new single is the first to reach our ears. Glad it did!

Kathleen Edwards: Crawling Back To You

We're told she has a new album on its way, produced by Jason Isbell, but in the meantime the Ottawa-based singer-songwriter just released this cover of a Tom Petty song from his album Wildflowers, which came out exactly 30 years ago. Edwards says that album "is unquestionably one of the finest albums of [Petty's] career and remains one of my favourite recordings of all time." She was working with producer and engineer Jim Scott, who also worked on that album, when she "mustered up a bit of courage" and asked to try this song. "The track feels like an old friend sitting next to me on a comfy sofa reminiscing about teenage memories."

Saturday, October 26, 2024

The Head And The Heart, Lilly Hiatt, Lost Leaders, Phantogram, 311 - Variety in our New Music bin

The Head And The Heart: Arrow

Here's the first sample of an upcoming album to be announced shortly, on which the band returns to self-producing and something closer to their early folky sound. "We really wanted to make our next music our own way, and it was a lot of fun to have all of us in a room together again," says vocalist/guitarist Jonathan Russell. This song, he says, is "very self-empowering ... It’s nice to know that you have your own way of providing yourself with confidence when you're out there in the dark.”

Lilly Hiatt: Shouldn't Be

The upcoming album Forever was written and recorded by Hiatt and her husband, Coley Hinson, in their home outside Nashville. Hiatt calls this first single "a song about standing in your truth" and not needing validation from others. "I hate when you leave me on my own / I start spinning now - but I shouldn't be."

Lost Leaders: Cookie Jar

We're catching up with the recently released Hungry Ghosts, an 8-song collection (is that a short album or a long EP?). The title refers to a Buddhist concept about people searching to fill the void. The duo of Byron Isaacs and Peter Cole says the album captures them "in all of our moods: pointedly snarky, whimsical and outlandish, reflective and confessional. It starts very worldly getting caught up in the surge, moves to psychedelia, then the journey ends with getting yourself back home. In the end things are alright."

Phantogram: Running Through Colors

The duo of Sarah Barthel and Josh Carter just released their fifth studio album, Memory of a Day. The AU Review writes: "The album creates a rich, atmospheric soundscape that feels incredibly cinematic and immersive." This track is one of several highlights, with "a bold, confident sound."

311: Full Bloom

The title track of the Omaha, Nebraska band's 14th (!) album is "about maintaining some innocence and sense of wonder and not becoming jaded," says lead singer/guitarist Nick Hexum. "One can decide that they’re in the prime of their life and choose to live in full bloom."

Saturday, October 12, 2024

Maggie Rogers, Dawes, The Cure, Bottlemoth, Sapling

Maggie Rogers: In The Living Room

Just six months after her Don't Forget Me album, the singer-songwriter releases another track that could easily have fit in that collection. (We're guessing it's destined for a "deluxe edition.") "Like so much of the album, it’s a song about the beauty and pain of memory, and the way that interweaves with reality when you’re processing the exit of a person in your life," Rogers says.

Dawes: Front Row Seat

We've previously featured a couple of its singles, and with the full release of Oh Brother, we're picking this track for our New Music bin. It's a rocker that takes a break midway for a jam-band interlude. The lyric suggests anxiety about the U.S. political situation, then takes a fatalistic attitude: "But if that’s the ball game / If the experiment’s complete / And we both stand around / To watch it all come down / At least we got a front row seat."

The Cure: A Fragile Thing

Robert Smith & Co. are back with Songs of a Lost World, sounding as cheery as ever. Billboard says of this track: "The swirling, midtempo rocker is classic Cure, with a morose, nearly minute-long instrumental intro that sets up a most on-brand tale of devastating love." Smith says the song "is driven by the difficulties we face in choosing between mutually exclusive needs and how we deal with the futile regret that can follow these choices.”

Bottlemoth: Everything Works Out in the End

How about we inject some optimism into the mix? The debut album by this indie-folk quintet from the UK, Even Us Ghosts, comes out this week. Singer-songwriter Ethan Proctor says of this song's title and key lyric: "I can’t recall who said it first to me, perhaps my parents or grandma said a lot when I was growing up. It’s a sentiment that has stuck; our biggest problems now won’t matter in 6 months, and that is a calming ideal. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end yet."

Sapling: Rabbit Hole

This synthy and very catch single is first we've heard from Sapling, a native of Dumfries, Scotland, now based in Glasgow. "Having been influenced by early folk and protest music growing up, she now turns to her own expression of emotion and protest mixed with the inspiration of dance, pop and soul," per her Bandcamp page.

Sunday, October 6, 2024

U2, Dear Rouge, Monica Moser, The Wild Feathers, Sarah Jarosz land in our New Music bin

U2: Picture Of You (X+W)

If this sounds like a U2 track from the early 2000s, that's because it is. The boys from Dublin are marking the 20th anniversary of How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb by releasing a batch of previously unreleased songs from that album's recording sessions. The Edge says "I went into my personal archive to see if there were any unreleased gems and I hit the jackpot. ... Although at the time we left these songs to one side, with the benefit of hindsight we recognize that our initial instincts about them being contenders for the album were right, we were onto something."

Dear Rouge: Cutting Teeth

We dip again into Lonesome High, released last month, for this high-energy track that songwriter-vocalist Danielle McTaggart says "embraces the thought that even negative experiences can be where you get your strength, and your chance to succeed in life." "Got something to cut my teeth on," she sings. "I've sharpened up and I'll bite down."

Monica Moser: Find You Yet

This singer-songwriter - a native New Yorker previously based in Nashville and now part of the Austin, Texas scene - has been in our mix for a half-dozen years now. Her latest collection is 27teen, which includes previous singles like "Shortcut" and "Headlines" along with new tracks such as this one, which Kindline Magazine calls "a seamless fusion of indie-pop and introspective songwriting. The lyric suggests a desire to desire to meet a soulmate, but having other priorities that come first: "You're all I want in the end / I just don't want to find you yet."

The Wild Feathers: Stereo

Nashville meets Los Angeles on Sirens. The Feathers, based in Nashville, traveled to LA to record the new album with Shooter Jennings producing - and the result is country-rock with echoes of Laurel Canyon. Bassist/singer Joel King says this track "began as an instrumental soundcheck jam while on tour, and we knew we had to make it a finished song ... We loved the idea of an explosive harmony/chorus right up front in the song, then followed by fun musical idiosyncrasies throughout. Lyrically, it struggles with the duality of life. How can life be both beautiful and depressing at the same time?"

Sarah Jarosz: Just Like Paradise

Unlike U2, Jarosz didn't wait 20 years to release extra tracks from Polaroid Lovers, her seventh album. Eight and a half months after its release, she has issued a deluxe edition with two additional tracks - Wildflowers In The Sky and this song, co-written with Nashville-based Daniel Tashian. "We were overlooking the Gulf of Mexico and taking in the cool ocean breeze," she said in a post. "The way the sunlight was sparkling on the water led us to imagine a place where you never have to be cold or worried or lonesome and you can let go of all your darkness and fears.

(Photo: Jarosz at the Ryman Auditorium, by Erika Goldring via Facebook)

Sunday, September 29, 2024

New Music Variety: Future Islands, Dangermuffin, Golden Dimes, Lights, Suki Waterhouse

Future Islands: Glimpse

Samuel Herring and his band from Baltimore are back with a stand-along single, recorded during the sessions for the People Who Aren't There Anymore LP that came out earlier this year. Stereogum calls it a "zippy yet nostalgic tune." The lyrics make references to "memories lost" - a press release says they focus on a family home burning down - mixed with darker images of gallows and graves.

Dangermuffin: New Sol

A folky jam band from South Carolina, this foursome is best known for live shows there and in nearby states. They've released several albums since 2007, but their latest (self-titled) is the first one to reach our ears (sorry to say). The group says "this song embodies the Dangermuffin vibe - lighthearted, liberating music. Lyrically, we’re touching on how being in-the-moment in your life keeps you young and vibrant."

Golden Dimes: Gotta Start Somewhere

It seems fair to call this New Jersey band's music "dad rock" since they bill themselves as five suburban dads brought together by a love of making music. On their just-released third EP, Helicopter, they bring a classic adult-album-rock vibe and strong musicianship to their original songs. Along with our pick for the New Music bin, other highlight tracks are "Seafarer" and "You Don't Love Me Like You Used To."

Lights: Damage

This electro-pop singer-songwriter from Toronto has a new album coming next year, and this is the first taste. She posted that "this marks the beginning of new music that I am very excited to share with you," adding that "all of it is a very little machines/early lights coded" - referring to her music from a decade ago, including Little Machines, winner of the Juno for pop album of the year in 2014.

Suki Waterhouse: Supersad

The idea of a model-turned-actress releasing an album titled Memoir of a Sparklemuffin* might seem off-putting, but it's hard to deny that this single is a solid piece of pop-rock (hat tip to a SiriusXM DJ we heard making this point). Paste Magazine calls the 18-song LP "overstuffed," with "too many unadventurous tracks" - but some "bright and scrappy highlights" like this number that gives a "middle finger to depression." (*No relation to Dangermuffin)