Birch Street Radio

Saturday, February 1, 2025

Sunflower Bean + Snow Patrol + Tunde Adebimpe + The Weather Station + R.O. Shapiro = New Music

Sunflower Bean: Champagne Taste

Here's the lead track from Mortal Primetime, due in April. Stereogum writes that the Brooklyn trio "leaned into their dark side with the Shake EP," released in September - and now "is getting even heavier." Bassist/vocalist Julia Cumming describes the album as “Belle And Sebastian meets Alice In Chains.” This track, she says, "is about feeling beaten down but still driving forward."

Snow Patrol: But I'll Keep Trying

This new single will be on an upcoming deluxe version of last year's album, The Forest Is The Path. We're told six new songs will be on the extended edition. (Why not issue them as an EP? What is an album these days, anyway?)

Tunde Adebimpe: Drop

Following up on "Magnetic" comes this new single from the TV On The Radio frontman's upcoming solo album, Thee Black Boltz.

The Weather Station: Humanhood

We previously featured a couple of singles and now here's the title track of the latest release by Tamara Lindman and company. It's musically complex, featuring winds, strings and syncopated percussion, with seeming stream-of-consciousness lyrics. "I been carrying this humanhood clumsily / carrying this humanhood, not carefully / carrying a body that’s tired from carrying a mind."

R.O. Shapiro: A Song To The Sunset

Now in California, formerly of Austin, Texas and native of Sag Harbor, N.Y., this self-described troubadour has just released a four-song EP called Worthy. This jaunty, cheerful tune is the most light-hearted of the bunch, and in heavy times we found it irresistible. (Photo by Brit Powers.)

Saturday, January 25, 2025

Our new music picks: Craig Finn, Lucy Dacus, The Head And The Heart, Mumford & Sons, Larkin Poe

Craig Finn: People of Substance

The lead singer-songwriter of the Hold Steady is bringing out his sixth solo album, Always Been, produced by the War on Drugs’ Adam Granduciel and featuring musicians from that band along with guest spots by Kathleen Edwards and Sam Fender. On this first single, Finn's lyrics are more coherent than typical, as he takes on the persona of someone trying to reconnect with someone who "cut him off" - apparently for good reason: "I’m pretty much cured / Been getting out of bed before noon now ... I'm sorry about the way that I scared you ... I know I used to be such a monster ..."

Lucy Dacus: Ankles

This single precedes the fourth solo album by the singer-songwriter who is also one-third of Boygenius. The lyric suggests wanting a partner to be both hot and sweet: "Pull me by the ankles to the edge of the bed / And take me like you do in your dreams ... Then help me with thе crossword in the mornings / You are gonna make mе tea.

The Head And The Heart: Time With My Sins

Following up "Arrow," the Seattle-based band just released this second single from its upcoming sixth album, details TBA. "I started this song when I was deep into a whole mess of distractions and, quite frankly I wasn’t able to finish it," says Jonathan Russell, who got help from bandmate Matt Gervais. "The way he interpreted the song and brought it forward is just a great example of why I love being in this band."

Mumford & Sons: Rushmere

Here's the first taste, and title track, of a new LP from British folk-rockers. It's the group's first album since 2018's Delta and its first in its current configuration - the trio of Marcus Mumford, Ted Dwane and Ben Lovett - following the departure of Winston Marshall. Rushmere, we're told, is the name of a pond in Wimbledon Common, southwest London, where the three first made plans to form a band.

Larkin Poe: Easy Love, Pt. 1

Round out - and rocking out - our New Music picks for the week, here's yet another track from Bloom, the just-released LP. Yes, we've already featured two singles from the album, and other tracks from this very solid and enjoyable album are bound to pop up in our mix.

Saturday, January 18, 2025

OK Go, My Morning Jacket, Deep Sea Diver, Coheed and Cambria, Inhaler bring the new music

OK Go: A Stone Only Rolls Downhill

The difficult-to-characterize band from Chicago (AllMusic.com calls it "retro indie pop") has announced a new album, called And the Adjacent Possible, coming later this year - its first new release since 2014's Hungry Ghosts. Of this first single, frontman Damian Kulash, says: “It’s a tough time to be optimistic. ... What do we tell [our children]? That’s what this song is about: trying to be honest but keeping your head up at the same time.”

My Morning Jacket: Time Waited

Also coming this year, a new MMJ album with the understated (or pretentious?) title is. Bandleader Jim James says this lead single starts with a sample of a piano part from a "lost album" by pedal-steel virtuoso Buddy Emmons. "I made a loop of that piano intro and listened as I went for a walk and all these melodies started coming to me."

Deep Sea Diver: Billboard Heart

This Seattle-based group headed by Jessica Dobson will release its fourth studio album in late February. Dobson says this title track is "a song that felt like a strange transmission, a new emotion, and a spirit-filled dream when it came. ... It is about being present and embracing the future while wholeheartedly letting go of any amount of control that I think I have in this life. ‘Billboard Heart’ is both a longing for something that may not exist and a place where I can be free.”

Coheed and Cambria: Someone Who Can

This band from suburban New York is known for metal-ish, prog-ish rock, and for sci-fi concept albums. But this single from its upcoming The Father of Make Believe reaches beyond its core audience. Lead guitarist Claudio Sanchez says of the song: "When you’re growing up, you’re perpetually trying to understand the world that’s changing around you. Over time, it’s comforting to reach the conclusion that you’ll never truly have things figured out."

Inhaler: A Question of You

Here's another taste of the Dublin quartet's third album, Open Wide, coming out in a few weeks, Frontman Elijah Hewson says, "This is love song territory for me, about how in order to be honest with someone else you’ve got to be honest with yourself."

Saturday, January 11, 2025

Latest adds to our New Music bin: Ringo Starr, Aysanabee, The Rockyts

Ringo Starr: Rosetta (feat. Billy Strings, Larkin Poe)

Wait, what year did we just start? Yes it's 2025 and the drummer from Liverpool (formerly with a well-known band) has released his 21st studio LP, 55 years after his first solo album. Recorded in Nashville and Los Angeles, produced and co-written by T Bone Burnett, it's billed as a country album, but we'd classify it more as rootsy Americana. Review site Ultimate Classic Rock calls the album "both slightly out of step and sweetly charming." The title track is the lead single, but we've picked this mid-tempo swamp-rock tune for our New Music bin.

Aysanabee: Edge Of The Earth

This First Nations musician from Northwestern Ontario issued his debut album, Waitin, in 2022 and came to our attention with his 2023 single "Somebody Else." We're told this new track precedes another album in the works. "This song is for anyone who has fallen in and out of love, and has come out on the other side of its reckoning," the singer-songwriter-guitarist says.

The Rockyts: A Girl Like You

We're always happy to see young artists discovering good old rock'n'roll and bringing it forward. Twenty-year-old Jeremey Abboud, originally from Ottawa and now based in Los Angeles, recorded this new single after a road trip to Memphis, Tenn. "Inspired by the birthplace of rock and blues, visiting Sun Studio (Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis) ... I stepped right out of the car and into my studio, and [this track] came exploding out the same night."

Saturday, January 4, 2025

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

Larkin Poe: Little Bit

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."

Kathleen Halloran: Free With Me

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."

Warren Haynes: These Changes

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.

The Weather Station: Neon Signs

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.

Brett Dennan: Another Day In Babylon

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."