1) Taking their name from a Willard Grant Conspiracy song is always going to meet with our approval.
2) To see The August List then self-proclaim themselves as “backwards country porch-folk”, was also going to pique our interest that little bit more – we love those country porch sing-a-longs.
3) And to have our friend Ronan at Nightshift compares them to The Handsome Family and the Carter-Cash partnership meant that we were definitely going to put this husband and wife duo’s debut EP Handsome Skin right to the top of our ‘must listen’ pile.
We’re glad we did.
Originally hailing from Dorset and now residing in our neck of the woods in a small barn perched on a hill in Oxfordshire, this self-released EP via their own Ubiquity Project Records is an absolute gem. Consisting of four tracks of perfectly judged Americana tinged with a dash of southern-gothic flavour, they are perfectly told campfire stories wrought from dying embers, and borne away on woodsmoke to drift and linger overhead.
Sometimes frantic, occasionally creepy and expertly switching between the uptempo, toe-tappin’ hoedown of Death Penalty and Bird House Song to the contemplative, languid melancholy of Homeland, this is an EP that enthrals and enchants in equal measure. We’re pretty confident this will appeal to anyone with a soft spot for Shovels & Rope, Roadside Graves, or even Wilco.
Believe it or not, Mad Mackerel has been around for more than five years now. During that time we’ve posted more than 4,000 times, and offered more than 5,000 songs for your listening pleasure. And more than three quarters of a million people have paid MM a visit during our lifetime on Google’s godawful blogspot and since April 2010 on WordPress.
We asked some of the regular MM contributors to give us their top twenty songs since MM first went live and we’re also going to give you one big mega-listing shortly, but first up with their personal top twenty is the right honourable Dr Roddy.
Through good fortune and fine sailing I have been lucky enough to be involved with this blog and it has provided me with some of the finest music in genres I maybe wouldn’t have looked in. So when asked to compile a top twenty of tunes from the last five years, I kicked aside the memories of musical turmoil that is involved with the yearly top tens, poured a stiff drink and set about it with relish.
20 Dan Auerbach – Heartbroken, In Disrepair
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19 Dirty Bourbon River Band – Train Is Gone
Download Dirty Bourbon River Show – Train Is Gone mp3 (from Volume 2)
10 The Cave Singers – I Don’t Mind
Wonderfully carefree and happy song that could so easily be heard drifting out of a doorway in Haight Ashbury with some interesting smelling smoke circa 1967. Yet this song never bows or becomes a pastiche of that, it rises above it all with its own verve and character.
9 Brown Bird – Wrong Black Mare
Sullen, desperate story songs are a bit of a fave of mine and to be honest I think I can trace it back to this song. A tale of woe, desperation and unpaid debts are told here with such clarity, it’s as if you’ve got drunk with Brown Bird and they have decided to spill their guts to you. You understand though, ‘coz at some point we have all backed the “Wrong Black Mare”
8 Mummy Short Arms – Cigarette Smuggling
When I wrote my first review of this song I thought I had described quite well. Upon re-reading it, I can safely say that my view has changed and will probably change on my next listen to it. The insanity, confusion, and babbling of this song are what holds my love for it. It’s an enigma wrapped in a riddle, all encased in a funky B-line, foot tapping beat, gravel throated, roister of a song.
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7 Strayfolk – What Wouldn’t I Do
This is such a beautifully crafted song. Simple, but packed with a rich warm sound that feels like it lends weight to the honesty of this tale of lost and forlorn love. Perfect Americana direct from Sweden.
6 Withered Hand – Religious Songs
A piece of lyrical mastery is on display here. A fantastic sing-a-long arrangement supports the witty word play that Dan Wilson sings with a vulnerability to his voice. This doesn’t stop him from punching the words that need emphasis. This song also ask the obvious question “How does he really expect to be happy, when he listens to death metal bands?”
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5 Tweak Bird – Weight
I love the in-your-face nature of this song. Right from the start, it sets its stall out – flat out, foot on the amp rock, and proud of it to boot. The guitar plays a gritty riff that sounds angry and frustrated, while the drummer is hell bent on punishing every bit of his kit.
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4 Grass House – A Cradle A Short Breath
The deep sombre tones that lay across this song act as a perfect partner to the bass as it pounds along at a merry old pace. It never fails to make me give a wry smile as I bob along to it’s woeful chorus of “A cradle, a short breath”.
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3 Roadside Graves – Far And Wide
I still think Roadside Graves is the best band name of this century and Far And Wide is a song that has stayed with me since my first listen – I was hooked. A great country riff lures you in and you hardly notice that the song fills with more and more sound and pleasure until it finishes and you’re left with a hole where the music once was, so you reach for the replay button, you know like musical heroin.
Download The Roadside Graves – Far And Wide mp3 (from My Son’s Home)
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2 Wooden Wand – Servant To Blues
As this track rolls effortlessly on, Wooden Wand spills his bleak melancholy tale of a servant to blues. In other words, the relationship equivalent of the Church’s pious man. I love the rhythm of this track, it almost seems to tick along like a clock. The peacefulness of this song is speared through the heart with a great screeching guitar solo, this then just seems to ebb back into the shadows it leapt from, only to be covered by the warm sound of the organ. Truly blissful…
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1 Henry’s Funeral Shoe – Stranger Dig (Everything’s For Sale)
For just two guys damn! They make some noise. Great heavy blues tinged riffs and rolling drum beats – I’m loving that all day long. There is talent and passion in abundance here. I’m sat here trying to write something for this whilst listening to it, that has had to stop, as when it plays it just grips me up and I can’t do anything other than get right into it. If you’re looking for something new rock wise I beg you to check them out, live if possible. Disappointment won’t be on the menu.
Next week sees the release of Rabbit Runs A Destiny, the fourth studio album from Birmingham, Alabama native Duquette Johnston.
In advance of the big occasion, he has now released a third track from the record to tickle the earbuds and this time it is the excellent Cherry Blossom. It has a slightly more anxious feel than the previous songs we’ve heard, a fretful, plaintive vocal and some wonderfully ominous fuzzy guitar lines are counterbalanced by lovely harmonies and robust percussion.
With every new track we hear, we anticipate the whole album a little bit more. This is the best we’ve heard from Duquette Johnston yet and we’d highly recommend you head over to Pledge Music here to pre-order.
Ah, how we love Matthew Sawyer and his unique/oddball/visitor from Mars perspective on the world. His 2010 album How Snakes Eat, with backing band The Ghosts remains one of our all time favourites.
Good news then to discover that he is returning with a new album later this year on our favourite label Fire Records. We have a track from it below, the typically original Feeeeling. Given the plethora of wonderful releases Fire have already put out in 2013, they should be having their best year ever.
See previous posts here. You can catch him live with Ned Collette & Wirewalker and Pete Astor on the 23rd May at the 12 Bar Club in London. To book tickets call 020 7240 2622.
Emily Anne George is a singer-songwriter from Sydney. Influenced by the early sounds of Carole King, Etta James and Leonard Cohen and literature from Allen Ginsberg, Truman Capote and Emily Bronte, she writes about personal experience or about the absurdities and observances of life.
If her feature single Murderers On The Inside is a typical example of what she is capable of, then we are in for a treat. A haunting melody underpins lyrics that are as insightful as they are honest – and the subject matter is not for the fainthearted, as it explores the effects of abuse and the ignorance of those that observe it.
Here is another collection of fifteen top tunes lovingly collected and filtered for your listening pleasure. So gather round and invest some time in these – a veritable aural treasure trove of tracks.
First up is another track of swaggering blues rock and roll in the shape of New York Avenue from the Delta Routine’s recently released album, Cigarettes And Caffeine Nightmares.
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In a similar vein, the bravely named Velvets from down under, have a big, sleazy blues sound going on with their free download of Shoot You Down.
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Darren Hayman has shortened his Long Parliament and returns with a new album of seventeenth century folk songs called Bugbears, which is due out on Fika Recordings in July. A companion piece to previous release, the very well received The Violence, have a listen to Seven Months Married.
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Graham MacRae has shared a new single from his album Dundrearies and by the sound of Game Changer, those Bill Fay and Bill Callahan comparisons seem pretty much on the money.
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Granite City is the lysergic new single from Aussie psych indie-rockers Deep Sea Arcade.
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London’s Low Moon Low are set to release their first official single with Calm Now, sweetly melodic indie-folk that errs on the side of dreamy.
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The wonderfully skewed world view of Justin Farren featured on MM back in March last year and he is back with a new album Another Bluebird Day from which we have Mostly In My Mind. This time he plays it a little straighter on the back of an upbeat folky strum and some scalpel sharp lyrics. Great stuff.
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Spectrals have given us another track from new album Sob Story. Inspired by Dave Edmunds, A Heartbeat Behind has a great riff and is full of rockabilly twang and heartbreak lyrics. No longer are the brothers low key, lo-fi merchants and it bodes very well for the album indeed.
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Two Inch Astronaut have given up Blood From A Loyal Hound for download, a convulsive rocker propelled by a muscular power-pop melody.
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Quilt hail from the eastern shores of Massachussets, where the band formed out of a tight-knit art collective in the winter months of 2009. They combine traditional folk vocal harmonies, reverb-drenched fingerpicking and meditative drum repetition in a patchwork of eclectic psych-folk ideally suited to their name. Open Eyes comes from a recent split single with MMOSS.
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Carmen Villain, aka London-based Carmen Hillestad, recently released her fiery debut album, Sleeper. Introduce yourself to the darker and more psych-oriented side of the album via Made A Shell.
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Half The Time, the A-side of recent 7″ single by Nick Ferrio & His Feelings is a psychological thriller, exploring one man’s realization that his love is unrequited and only exists within the confines of his fallible mind.
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Like the excellent Allah-Lahs, The Young Sinclairs mix folk rock and garage rock with plenty of jangle in the style of The Byrds or Rain Parade and their most recent single Hurt My Pride is a top-notch example of what they are capable of.
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Though we were late to it, we are loving the gorgeous Hymnal by In The Valley Below, a duo from Echo Park in LA who are a new musical pairing, delivering hushed swirls of male and female vocals forged with dark stories of brooding riddles and romance.
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And lastly (for now) we have a taste from Robert Pollard’s (of Guided By Voices fame) new album Honey Locust Honky Tonk. The song, I Killed A Man Who Looks Like You is already one of our favourite titles of the year so far and thankfully the tune itself more than lives up to its title.
Films today from indie heavyweights The National and their video for the brilliant Sea Of Love, and from rising UK troubadour L.A. Salami we have the sparse but engrossing video for Old Queen’s Head, (pick up a free download of his track Deformation Days below too). We have some appropriately vintage film footage for Miss Quincy & The Showdown’s video for Silent Movie, and lastly, a chilly hunt for the Northern Lights accompanies High Coast’s sweetly picked Americana on Talvatis.
Better late than never, here is our monthly round-up of the best of our April downloads together with a handful of brand new tracks. More than twenty songs especially prepared for you to put together an eclectic and appealing mix to impress all your friends and bore your boring work colleagues.
Hey Anna – Tiny Kiss
Intimate vocal harmonies perched atop poppy folkish melodies that meet soaring, atmospheric alt-rock.
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The Lost Souls Club – Son, You Look Like You Need Jesus
Taking its cue from the darker end of the psych-blues spectrum, this track gleefully careers off the road into the verge, happily making a home in the margins of mainstream rock’n’roll and spitting sly malevolence at anyone who comes too close.
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Owls Of The Swamp – Hypnotist
A masterpiece of elegiac fingerpicked folk, softly spun melody, and ghostly backing vocals.
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Young Hunting – Baby’s First Steps
Lush, woozy and seductive evoking a sense of back porch bonhomie and marijuana enhanced well being.
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Belle Mare – The Boat Of The Fragile Mind
Dreamspace of acoustic and synth textures, weaving folk with dream pop.
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Sunjacket – Alligator
Indie rock with a laconic, hazy chug and sweet falsetto chorus.
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Download Brass Bed – Please Don’t Go mp3 (from The Secret Will Keep You)
Three minutes of infectious indie-rock perfection with a soupçon of garage rock attitude.
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Amanda Jo Williams – 2000Hell
Idiosyncratic mix of twangy rockabilly and weird Americana
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The Baptist Generals – Broken Glass
Haunted, claustrophobic take on drunken folk.
Click through for free download.
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Torches – When You Gonna?
Opens with a tasty riff and settles into a nice, easy-going melodic groove that calls to mind The Shins or Spoon.
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Georgia’s Horse – Ginger
Dusty Americana shot through with a melancholy and sadness that is almost real enough to touch.
Shawn Mrazek Lives! – Man In The Grass
A tale of self-discovery and freedom that snaps, snarls and sparkles in equal measure.
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Download Shannon and the Clams – Into a Dream mp3 (from Dreams in the Rat House)
Slow-dance-ready instrumental with darkly bucolic lyrics.
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The Builders & The Butchers – Dirt In The Ground
Sonically heavier perhaps, but just as distinctive dark-hearted folk as always. Wonderful.
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And new tracks to dive into from Morningbell’s experimental psych-tinged art rock to Honeymilk’s infectious indie, and two tracks of gorgeous stripped back folk from Dark For Dark. Finally, try the simplicity and honesty from Young Readers indie-folk, shot through with a dreamy, imaginary quality that (whisper it) calls to mind Sparklehorse or Jason Molina.
We have already postedWhere Can I Go? the first offering from Laura Marling’s forthcoming album Once I Was An Eagle (out 27th May).
The album is picking up uniformly good reviews and sounds like it may well be her best yet. This second taste from it is the altogether more insistent and threatening Master Hunter, which comes across as equal parts angry and frustrated, and is one of our new favourite LM tracks.
Arborea has a new album Fortress of the Sun coming out on April 30th on the NYC label ESP-Disk.
At the vanguard of the avant-folk scene, they effortlessly combine the delicate and fragile with the traditional, weaving together a beguiling mix of ambient sounds with gentle psychedelia, Appalachian folk and indie rock.
Take a listen to a selection of tracks from the album below.
