New year, new music picks: Larkin Poe, Kathleen Halloran, Warren Haynes, The Weather Station, Brett Dennen

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Larkin Poe: Little Bit

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The first batch of new music added to our giant playlist in 2025 comes from Bloom, the new album from Rebecca and Megan Lovell, due for release in a couple of weeks. This track is an ode to keeping things simple and not overreaching: "Keep the things I need on a very short list / What do you keep looking for / More ain't always more / Than a little bit."

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Kathleen Halloran: Free With Me

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This is the debut release by a guitarist known in Australia as a session musician and a member of orchestral ensembles, and now trying her hand as a singer-songwriter and solo artist. The Other Side Reviews says of this single: "Pounding drums lie alongside a bold bass, but it is the outstanding guitar solo that ups the ante of the track. ... Halloran simultaneously eases you into a hypnotic state while retaining a hint of brash alt-rock in the mix."

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Warren Haynes: These Changes

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Just a few days into the new year, we're continuing to pick still-fresh produce from 2024. We previously featured "This Life As We Know It" from the blues-rock guitarist's new LP, Million Voices Whisper.Now popping into our New Music Bin is this track co-written by fellow Allman Bros. alumnus Derek Trucks and featuring his slide guitar.

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The Weather Station: Neon Signs

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LED lights may be replacing neon signs on stores, restaurants and taverns these days, but here Tamara Lindeman uses them as a metaphor for false attractions: "Every neon sign every flashing like tries to fool you ... You feel flattered to be wanted and you don't know why / It reminds me of that look, that look in your eyes." This track comes from her upcoming album Humanhood.

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Brett Dennan: Another Day In Babylon

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We dip back into the California singer-songwriter's eighth album, the recently released If It Takes Forever, for a song that is both specifically personal - "Kristina and I, we still aren't married with no plans to / But I call her my wife all the time" - and curiously obscure: "Do my words fail? / I laid them out like a yard sale / Now I'm stuffing a pillow into a suitcase."

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Our Marvelous Mix of Musical Variety flows on into 2025 - still free and commercial-free 24/7! 

Check out the many ways to listen to our stream from Canada on TorontoCast, or our stream from the USA on Live365. If one doesn't work in your area, another one will!

Best holiday wishes from Birch Street Radio

We wish all our listeners a wonderful holiday season - whatever, wherever and however you celebrate!

Our Marvelous Mix of musical variety keeps on streaming through the holidays and beyond!

Lucius, George Marinelli, Michael Kiwanuka, Movieland, Lauren Mayberry bring the news

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Lucius: Old Tape (feat. Adam Granduciel)

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Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig are joined by the guitarist/vocalist from The War On Drugs on this new single from an album expected in the new year. "We wrote 'Old Tape' while working on new music at [bandmate Danny Molad’s] studio in LA," the two say. "We were discussing the loops we get stuck in, the rabbit holes our minds go down." For the sound of the track, they "wanted to make something that was both driving and uplifting," so they called Adam - for whom they had provided guest vocals on TWOD's “I Don’t Live Here Anymore.”

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George Marinelli: Except Always

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This is the title track from a new album by a founding member of Bruce Hornsby & the Range and more recently Bonnie Raitt’s lead guitarist. It's quite literally a solo LP: he plays every instrument, recorded the songs himself, found time to mix and master them and created all the artwork for the album.

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Michael Kiwanuka: Rebel Soul

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The new album Small Changes, says Kiwanuka, was inspired by the birth of his two children and moving out of his hometown London. He was motivated by the desire to transcend what’s deemed “cool”, adding: "We were trying to shoot for something that might have made it onto a Bill Withers album or a Sade album" - a good description of this track. (Photo by Marco Grey)

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Movieland: I Relate

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Here's a "new" track recorded in the 1990s by this Vancouver shoegaze group. Released only on a cassette back then, it's been remastered and included on a new collection of the band's work, Then & Now. The LP is part of a new archival series from 604 Records, paying tribute to Vancouver’s overlooked artists from decades past. Singer-guitarist Alan D. Boyd says this song is "about being in a flux state after meeting somebody."

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Lauren Mayberry: Crocodile Tears

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The Chvrches lead vocalist explores a range of different pop sounds on her new solo album, Vicious Creature. The Guardian says the album "shapeshifts frequently, often into realms that feel wilfully unbothered about current notions of 'cool.' 'Crocodile Tears' is so 1980s it should come with an obligatory tight perm." Mayberry says she wrote the song when feeling "trapped in an unhealthy, negative feedback loop with someone." She adds that she "consciously put in a lot of animal imagery (crocodile, rabbits, wolves) because I wanted it to feel escapist."

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NOTE: This will be our last New Music update for 2024. Onward to 2025!

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New sounds: Inhaler, Beach Riot, Krooked Tongue, KC Armstrong, The Sea The Sea

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Inhaler: Open Wide

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Here's the title track from the Irish band's next LP, scheduled for February release. An earlier single, "Our House," had the indie-rock sound we've come to expect from the band, but this track uses a wider palette, "featuring a rolling bass line, expansive guitar lines and Balearic-style percussion," as NME puts it. Photo by Lewis Evans.

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Beach Riot: Meltdown

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The new single from this Brighton, UK, "fuzz pop band" is its first release since a pair of songs early last year. "We’re sorry we’ve been quiet for a while, but hey…life gets in the way sometimes. ... Thank you so much to everyone who still listens and turns us up loud," the band said in a post that suggested they're having "just a little pause." Hopefully there's more to come.

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Krooked Tongue: Ember Mile

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Jumping a couple hundred klicks from Brighton to Bristol, we catch up with the latest single from this rock trio. Vocalist Oli Rainsford describes the song as a “kick up the arse” for anyone who talks about their dreams but never quite follows through. The title "refers to a proverbial golden, fiery strip of road where the final idea awaits on the horizon."

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KC Armstrong: Waiting For The Rain (To Fall)

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This singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist from Brantford, Ontario, has spent years playing festivals and bars across Canada, including a stint as one of Ronnie Hawkins' Hawks. In recent years he honed his producing skills, then built a recording studio in his basement (and we do mean built - framing, putting up drywall, insulating, etc.). The result was his LP Finally Crafted, released a few months back. We're catching up with this "swamp-rock/southern rock song" that concludes the album.

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The Sea The Sea: All Along

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We're happy to catch this new single from a duo we've featured before, Mira and Chuck E. Costa, now based in Nashville after years in New York's Hudson Valley. The lyric suggests finding what you're meant to find (love? destiny?) when you're not looking for it. "What are we waiting for / It was right here all along."