Birch Street Radio

Saturday, September 7, 2024

Amy Helm, Pete Yorn, Dawes, Sting, Linkin Park freshen up our New Music bin

➤Our music-pickers took a couple of weeks off for a well-earned vacation, but they're back with a new batch of carefully curated songs for our New Music bin.

Amy Helm: Baby Come Back

The ten songs on her fourth solo album, Silver City, are "conversations ... celebrating womanhood in all its complexities," says Helm. And while the title of this track might sound like a plea to a departed lover, instead it is a call to a female friend to take control of her life: "Baby, go on / Hand on your heart and your eyes on the road / Get yourself back home." It's also a standout track on this mostly acoustic album. Rock and Blues Muse writes: "A strangulated electric guitar grinds out the chords ... elevated by searing, yet touching gospel backing vocals. It’s the disc’s most propulsive moment and another example of Helm’s soaring voice." (Photo by Ebru Yildiz)

Pete Yorn: It's Alright

We've previously featured a couple of singles ahead of the New Jersey native's ninth studio album, The Hard Way. Now the full collection is out, and we're dropping Track 4 into our New Music bin. It's a gentle love song to someone who isn't always (or any longer?) nearby: "So I keep you in my heart / when you’re not here in my arms."

Dawes: Still Strangers Sometimes

This is the second single from Oh Brother, the upcoming album from Taylor Goldsmith and his band, of which the only other remaining original member is his brother Griffin. “It’s a song about the spiritual investigation of long-term relationships,” says Taylor Goldsmith. “How a part of ourselves will be unknowable forever, despite our deep connections and intimate understandings of each other.”

Sting: I Wrote Your Name (Upon My Heart)

The veteran British rocker is about to start a North America tour, joined by his longtime collaborator, guitarist Dominic Miller, and drummer Chris Maas. The new power trio, dubbed 3.0, launches with this single. Stereogum calls it "a raspy rocker that's driven by the fabled Bo Diddley beat."

Linkin Park: The Emptiness Machine

The California band returns with a new lineup and its first album since the 2017 passing of former lead singer Chester Bennington. Vocalist Emily Armstrong and drummer Colin Brittain join Mike Shinoda, Brad Delson, Dave "Phoenix" Farrell and Joe Hahn. The group's next album, From Zero, is due in November.

Saturday, August 17, 2024

New releases from Rubblebucket, Sycamore Tree, Mossy Ledge, John Lewitt, Clairo

Rubblebucket: Moving Without Touching

Back in 2015, bandleaders Kalmia Traver and Alex Toth found their romantic relationship unraveling. After a period of tumult, they were no longer a couple yet were recommitted to their musical partnership. Since then the band has released 2018's Sun Machine and 2022's Earth Worship. Now comes Year Of The Banana, whose lyrics are based on poems Traver wrote during 2015's upheaval. As the press release puts it, "Rubblebucket is celebrating 15 years as a band with a record about the year it almost ended." (Photo by Shervin Lainez)

Sycamore Tree: Scream Louder

Vocalist Ágústa Eva Erlendsdottir and musician (and fashion designer) Gunni Hilmarsson have released 17 singles since forming Sycamore Tree in 2016 in their home town of Reykjavik, Iceland. This track, the band says, tells the story of two adolescents who "embark on a spontaneous adventure into the wilderness. Their screams echo across the rugged Icelandic terrain, symbolizing a release of pent-up frustrations and a yearning for connection and community."

Mossy Ledge: All You Need to Know

This quintet formed in Vancouver in 1994, released two LPs and two EPs and toured Canada before going on hiatus in 2001. Twenty-one years later, all original members reunited to re-release their catalog on streaming platforms and to complete previously recorded songs - such as this new single. Drummer/co-producer Ryan Mason says, "It’s all very exciting... the band is in great form, and all the original members are together again writing and recording. There’s a fresh vibe and an excitement to the band, which is translating into the sound.”

John Lewitt: Building My Own Dreamland

The Toronto singer-songwriter has had several of his songs picked up for use in movies and television series, but says the ones on his latest album, One More Time, "were written for the pure joy of writing music, with no intentions attached to them.” Lewitt says. He describes this track as "an upbeat, positive song," noting that's the hardest thing for a songwriter to write.

Clairo: Thank You

On her new album, Charm, the singer-songwriter writes about "fleeting moments ... where I’ve been charming or have been charmed." In this song, the protagonist questions why she doesn't fully commit to relationships -- "I don't invest the way I'd prefer / Someone to in me" -- and expects them to be temporary: "Cause when I met you, I knew it / I'd thank you for your time."

Sunday, August 11, 2024

Snow Patrol, The Killers, Stand Up and Say No, James Bay, Michael Kiwanuka in New Music Bin

Snow Patrol: All

A single from the Scottish band's upcoming album The Forest Is The Path. The song's narrator is in love, afraid to declare himself, but also afraid of what will happen if he doesn't. "All I know is holding you is all I ever wanna know / But maybe I'm not brave enough to tell you so / But I don't have the strength to watch you go."

The Killers: Bright Lights

This single is billed as a "celebratory homecoming track" as the band, founded in Las Vegas in 2001, starts a residency at the Coliseum in that city. That launches a tour marking the 20th anniversary of the Hot Fuss album.

Stand Up and Say No: Shared Interests

The new single from the project of Andre Nault, we're told, "reflects his personal journey through introspection and self-acceptance." The Ottawa-area artist wrote, performed, recorded, produced, mixed, and mastered the track.

James Bay, The Lumineers, Noah Kahan: Up All Night

The English singer-songwriter teams up with a bunch of Americans on a song that he says is "all about navigating the great weight of all the stuff that plays on our minds and keeps us awake at night.” Bay's fourth album, Changes All The Time, is due next month.

Michael Kiwanuka: Floating Parade

Here's the first new song released by the British singer-songwriter in three years. Produced by Inflo and Danger Mouse, it's "loosely written about utilizing your senses to find an escape, particularly in oppressive circumstances."

Sunday, August 4, 2024

New from The Smashing Pumpkins, Bottlemoth, Adult Leisure, Valley, The Harbours

The Smashing Pumpkins: Sighommi

Billy Corgan and company just released their 13th album, Aghori Mhori Mei. Corgan says the LP is an attempt to see whether "our ways of making music circa 1990-1996 would still inspire something revelatory." He says the album name is a cipher; maybe this song title is, too. The lyrics are equally obscure. What would you expect?

Bottlemoth: You'll Always Have Us

This is one half of a double-single just released by an indie-folk quintet from the UK, ahead of their debut album Even Us Ghosts, due in October. "The track’s simplicity and sincerity mirror vocalist Ethan Proctor’s reflections on maintaining connections amidst the whirlwind of city life and global disruptions, writes review site Amplify The Noise.

Adult Leisure: Borderline

We've been playing several tracks from this Bristol group's 2023 release, Present State of Joy and Grief, and now pick up this new single. It was "inspired by the break-up of a long term relationship ... and the feeling of hindsight in the months following it," the band says, adding that the track evolved from "a Police-y style demo."

Valley: The Bass Player's Brother

Here's the latest single to spin out of the Toronto indie-pop group's latest LP, Water the Flowers, Pray for a Garden. It takes a rather jaundiced view of romance: "Love is a car chase / Crash into mistakes / Sooner or later, you're packing a suitcase."

The Harbours: So Sweet

This band from Leicestershire, UK, was formed just this year by vocalist Ollie Drakard and guitarist Will Massarella-Tyler. It's described as blending "modern indie vibes with classic pop influences."

Saturday, July 27, 2024

New: Kate Pierson, The Wild Feathers, The War and Treaty, Keeton Coffman, Tessa Rose Jackson

Kate Pierson: Evil Love

This member of The B-52s steps out on her own with Radios & Rainbows, an LP due in September. "Channeling the spirit of The Ronettes, The Crystals, The Shangri-Las, and Amy Winehouse, Pierson’s pipes are pure power," writes Post-Punk.com. Pierson says “It’s an eclectic group of songs ... Overall, the album has an upbeat vibe because I wanted to put out something positive in these dark times." She describes this song as “a not-so-true tale of obsessive possessiveness and righteous revenge.” (Photo by John Stapleton)

The Wild Feathers: Don't Know

We previously featured "Sanctuary" from the Nashville band's upcoming LP, Sirens. Bassist-singer Joel King says this song "started out as just an up-tempo rock and roll bass riff. Then adding a surf guitar and drums playing the toms, the lyrics had to be something primal and emotional. Leaving an old way of life behind but not sure you really want to."

The War and Treaty: Tunnel Vision

This is one of a string of recent singles that we surmise may be leading up to a new album by the duo of Michael Trotter Jr. and Tanya Trotter. We don't have any further information, but the song is a rousing, joyful rock 'n' roller about focusing on a righteous path: "I've got tunnel vision / I'm on my way to the promised land." (Photo by Austin Hargrave)

Keeton Coffman: Violet

We've been spinning "Kathryn," and now want to catch up with another recent single from this Texas singer-songwriter-bandleader. In a message to fans, he said: "Many of you have asked me...'Who is Katryn?'... 'Who is Violet?' Well, these songs are a bit like Rorschach images... they will aim to tell you more about you than about the person who made them." Spoiler: In the lyric, violet is an eye color.

Tessa Rose Jackson: The Antidote

A Dutch artist based in London (who previously recorded under the name Someone), Jackson teams with Charles Prest of Noon Garden and keyboardist Darius Timmer on this single from her upcoming EP A Mirror Sometimes, due in October. This song, Jackson says, "is a hypnotic, psychedelic folk track about the allure of the comfort zone and how scary it can be to step out of it. An ode to my fellow over-thinkers, over-worriers."