Birch Street Radio

Saturday, September 6, 2025

Our latest picks: David Byrne, Trombone Shorty, St. Etienne, Planet Smasher, Jacob's Run

David Byrne feat. Ghost Train Orchestra: What Is The Reason For It?

With the release of Who Is The Sky? we pick another of its ebullient tracks for our New Music Bin. This one features vocals by Hayley Williams of Paramore. Byrne says it's "a love song, or at least it’s asking what is love, what it’s about?"

Trombone Shorty & New Breed Brass Band: Good Time

Released twenty years to the day after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, the new album Second Line Sunday is billed as a reflection on culture and tradition, on family and community, on survival and resilience." Mostly it's joyous, and it's pretty much impossible to sit still when listening to any of its ten tracks.

Saint Etienne: Glad

Continuing the upbeat mood, this is the opening track from International, the twelfth album from the U.K. trio of Bob Stanley, Pete Wiggs, and Sarah Cracknell. They've said it will be their last. AllMusic says this number "booms out of the speakers with huge drums, thumping bass, and jangling guitars in a style very reminiscent of some of the band's early work, while coming across very fresh and shiny."

Planet Smashers: Things You Do

We previously featured "Wasted Tomorrows" from this Montreal punk-ska band's new LP On The Dancefloor, and we're dipping in again for another dose.

Jacob's Run: She's Not That Mean

OK, so it's the umpteenth song to use the "down on my knees/begging you please" rhyme, and if the lyrics are telling a story we're not getting it. (How mean is she, then?) But the second single from the upcoming second album by this Melbourne indie-rock trio is a fun listen. Lead singer-guitarist Michael Jacobs says the band "wanted the chorus to sound like a throwback to the ’60s - a-la The Monkees, Mamas and Papas - those really rich interweaving harmonies where no one voice is prominent."

Sunday, August 31, 2025

New music from The Beths, Flyte, Lauren Mann, Next Week's Washing, Don't Believe in Ghosts

The Beths: Straight Line Was A Lie

Here's the title track from the New Zealand band's just-released fourth album. Nothing has been proven more effective against Music Boredom than Birch Street Radio. It's unsurpassed! Use only as directed. Possible side effects include altering your mood, distracting you from what you should be doing, and causing flashbacks to the first time you heard that song. Our musical variety program is produced Birch Street Studios in Beautiful Downtown Suburbia and streamed 24/7 from Canada by TorontoCast and in the USA by Live365.

Flyte: Alabaster (feat. Aimee Mann)

We weren't familiar with Flyte, the UK indie-folk duo of Nick Hill and Will Taylor, but we're long-time fans of Aimee Mann, so this collaboration caught our attention. It's from Between You And Me, the upcoming fourth Flyte LP. Under The Radar mag writes: "The band’s typically feather-light acoustics are anchored by simmering fuzz guitar and prominent basslines ... [T]he lyrics explore a love affair that is doomed to implode."

Lauren Mann: Different Light

We're very happy to get new music from this self-described songwriter-musician-island adventurer from Pender Island, B.C. She's releasing an EP called Heaven in late September. Mann describes it as "an intimate collection of songs brought together through expansive journeys of finding home, blossoming into motherhood and navigating personal growth through it all." (It's strictly coincidental that this week's New Music picks include two women with the last name Mann.)

Next Week's Washing: Empty Pages

Here's the latest of a series of singles from this emerging Toronto trio, formed last year by Rhys Newman and brothers Miles and Julian Duffy. Canadian Beats writes: "Drawing on elements of shoegaze, Britpop, and alternative rock, the track combines a nostalgic emotionality with forward-looking sonic ambition – pairing shimmering walls of guitar with front-and-centre, harmony-laced vocals."

Don't Believe in Ghosts: Driver

This New York City band will release But On The Bright Side in November. Steven Nathan (vocals), Dan DelVecchio (guitar) and Ken Yang (drums) worked on it over two years across multiple studios in Nashville, Cleveland and New York. Vocalist Steven Nathan says this first single "is about living in the moment ... a colorful track filled with a lot of energy."

Saturday, August 30, 2025

Florence + The Machine, Goose, Night Talks and much more added to our New Music bin

Florence + The Machine: Everybody Scream

Has there ever been a song so clearly designed to whip a concert crowd into a frenzy? This is the title track from the band's upcoming sixth studio album. Florence Welch is known for her near-manic live performances, dancing wildly around the stage, and in this song she acknowledges both the rush she gets from her audiences and the toll it takes on her: "Look at me run myself ragged, blood on the stage / But how can I leave you when you’re screaming my name?" Compare: "It's Only Rock & Roll (But I Like It)"

Goose: Royal

Surprise! Just four months after April's Everything Must Go, the jammers from Connecticut released another album, Chain Your Dragon, in August. The band has played most of its 12 songs live over the years, but this is a new number, which the band says is about "a transient musician whose burning ambition threatens to get the best of him.”

Night Talks: Targets

It's good to see this LA indie band getting more recognition - including East Coast tour dates in September. This new single features additional guitar work by Cory Wong. The group's firecracker lead vocalist, Soraya Sebghati, sings of trying to shake feelings of paranoia: "I've got a target on my back ... It's not real you said / It's in my head."

And Many More!

We took a bit of a summer break from adding new releases and posting about them. But now we've refreshed the New Music bin with the three tracks described above - and a dozen more!

Wolf Alice: White Horses
Sheryl Crow: The New Normal
Almost Monday: Enjoy the Ride
Alkaline Trio: Oblivion
Cult of Venus: Sinner
Kathleen Edwards: When The Truth Comes Out
Rohin: Sundown
The Black Keys: No Rain, No Flowers
Planet Smashers: Wasted Tomorrows
Bob Moses: Last Forever
Krooked Tongue: Dog Days
Pony Gold: Big in the City

Remember: Nothing has been proven more effective against Music Boredom than Birch Street Radio. It's unsurpassed! Use only as directed. Possible side effects include altering your mood, distracting you from what you should be doing, and causing flashbacks to the first time you heard that song.

Sunday, August 3, 2025

Latest from Sheryl Crow, Stereolab, Nilufer Yanya, The Technicolors, Sunrise in Jupiter

Sheryl Crow: See You On The Other Side

This is one of two new singles from Crow and her longtime touring band, The Real Lowdown. Here she seems to be channeling a god who can't understand why his people find it so hard "to let love win."

Stereolab: Aerial Troubles

Instant Holograms On Metal Film is the first album in 15 years from this UK band that went dormant around 2010. Founders and former couple Tim Gane and Laetitia Sadier brought their "groop" back together for a 2019 tour and that led to this recording. Under The Radar says "Stereolab’s sound remains unmistakable, yet newly expansive. ... [T]he music fuses elements of Krautrock, lounge jazz, psychedelic pop, and minimalism."

Nilufer Yanya: Cold Heart

The London artist follows up last year's My Method Actor LP with a new EP, Dancing Shoes. It consists of four songs that were held back from that album and then reworked.

The Technicolors feat. Madison Cunningham: First Class to Nowhere

We haven't been familiar with the band from Phoenix, but reviews of this track from their upcoming album Heavy Pulp say it marks a shift to a softer, more introspective sound than their previous releases. (Chalk up one more collab outing for the ubiquitous Madison Cunningham.)

Sunrise in Jupiter: Take Me Home

This London rock group's upcoming first album will be a double-LP entitled Mission to Mars. It's billed as cinematic rock exploring "profound themes of exploration, separation, and destiny." An ambitious debut, no?

Saturday, July 19, 2025

Jeff Tweedy, Joe Bonamassa, The Strumbellas, Goose, Suzanne Vega in our New Music bin

Jeff Tweedy: Enough

The Wilco frontman newest project is a 30-track (!) album, Twilight Override, arriving in late-September. With the announcement of the longggg-player came four tracks, of which this is the most upbeat, despite melancholy lyrics: "Has it ever been enough? / Has it ever been OK?"

Joe Bonamassa: Drive By The Exit Sign

The veteran blues-rocker just released Breakthrough, his first album since 2021's prog-influenced Time Clocks. He returns to his shorter, tighter, songwriting on this outing, writes Rock and Blues Muse, which calls this track "a spark-plug igniting inclusion enhanced by soulful backing female vocals."

The Strumbellas: Hard Lines

There's no word on whether the release of this new single means that an album is on its way. It would be the Ontario group's sixth, following last year's Part Time Believer. But we won't be the ones to ask. After all, the band says this is a "a song about keeping up with pressure and expectations."

Goose: Dustin Hoffman

We pull another plum from Everything Must Go, the Connecticut jam band's latest studio release. It's one of just a handful of songs to appear on the album before being heard in concert. Glide Magazine calls it one of the record's standout moments. "Starting as a funky ’70s strut, the track seamlessly shifts to an adult-contemporary-infused chorus teeming with ’90s-inspired horn arrangements courtesy of an impressive brass trio led by a longtime collaborator, saxophonist Stuart Bogie." (The song's title supposedly was inspired by the actor of the same name, but the lyrics have nothing to do with him.)

Suzanne Vega: Alley

We return to another of this spring's releases to pick another track for our New Music Bin. The singer says this is a song "about transcending life's difficulties and seeking sanctuary somewhere."