Category: 1/2/3/4

Grant Lee-Phillips was about to tour his last album when the pandemic hit. After months of waiting, he realized any potential touring options were still on hold for the foreseeable future, he set about penning tracks for his latest, All That You Can Dream. The resulting album’s lyrics are an attempt to make sense of an uncertain, anxiety-riddled time, while coming to terms with the idea that once-unshakeable things now seem fragile or fallible.

On this edition, meet Atlanta-based Neighbor Lady, This quartet deliver  an elegant style of lush and textural guitar pop with touches of country-noir. Songwriter and vocalist Emily Braden says their new record For The Birds is sprinkled with “reverb and magic.” Lots of other magical tracks as well!

Since starting Babehoven in Portland, Oregon in 2017, Maya Bon has shown herself to be a gifted heart-on-sleeve songwriter, using music to peel back the layers of her own experiences—sometimes sad, sometimes surreal, always vividly rendered—to reveal universal emotional truths hidden in the most intimately personal of details.  

Originally from Birmingham, AL, Banditos is a group – more like a gang, actually – of six 20-somethings, nowadays operating out of Nashville. I love their blend of jangle boogie, hill country mojo, all with a healthy dose of folk, soul and bluegrass. A taste of the forthcoming release, Right On, out soon. Plenty of other great tunes including the latest from Jonah Tolchin and Bellows.

Call it prairie noir, or Canadiana desert rock: Abigail Lapell sings haunting, gorgeous modern folk songs. Her albums have won two Canadian Folk Music Awards, English Songwriter of the Year (2020) and Contemporary Album of the Year (2017). Her latest single from upcoming album, Stolen Time, explores the insatiable, contradictory impulses that drive doomed love and other addictions.

A show that celebrates recent post-punk efforts and ’90s jangle with a twist. A favourite release from last year was from Leeds group Mush, this track has an arty twist and is very catchy! Add cracking new releases from Toronto’s Cola (pictured – my current my listen track), Berlin’s ShyBits and Sweden’s Holm and you’ve got a bunch of new musical friends you’ll want to visit often.

Aoife O’Donovan is a singer-songwriter living in Brooklyn and is back with a fantastic new release, Age of Apathy.

Produced by fellow GRAMMY-winner Joe Henry (Bonnie Raitt, Rhiannon Giddens) and featuring guest appearances from Allison Russell and Madison Cunningham, Age Of Apathy finds O’Donovan’s gift for poetic imagery and unconventionally alluring melody in full bloom as she confronts the sense-dulling barrage of the digital age.

Meet Sweden’s Many Voices Speak, Matilda Mård who reveals a single from her new album which is about feeling better after a dark period in life. Her gentle dreamy bedroom pop is essential. Plenty more essential new sounds to share with you from Congotronics to psych-pop to Country boogie.

Vancouver’s local DIY superhero Apollo Ghosts announce their return with an upcoming double album, 22 song epic “Pink Tiger”. They formed in 2008 and have stopped and started along the way, but they are sounding in top form with the new single ‘Spilling Yr Guts’