Sometimes it takes just one play, one single spin, to know you’ve found something to treasure.
So it is with Changing Colors and the track Good Times from their new album Joan & The King, which sees a release via Blank Tape Records.From the opening lazy strum of guitar and gently hypnotic percussion to the perfect, world-weary vocals of frontman Conor Bourgal, the song meanders slowly and surely to its destination over a simple refrain, “I am a mess of a man“. This is haunted, melancholy Americana at its very best.
The album also features some fantastic guests in Jolie Holland, Macon Terry and Mark Anderson from Paper Bird, and Inaiah Lujan and Desirae Garcia of The Haunted Windchimes.
Listen below and you can grab yourself a free download of Good Times from Pigeons & Planes here.
Its been a good while since we’ve put up one of these type of posts, but a plethora of top notch releases meant it demanded to be temporarily resurrected!
So without further ado we have another taste of Laura Marling’s much anticipated new album in the shape of Once, and another taste from the rather weirder folk songstress Amanda Jo Williams and Holster, The Gun It Hangs In There, which is taken from her new album You’re The Father Of My Songs.
Cass McCombs will release a split single with Michael Hurley in the summer and his offering is the cheery shuffle of Three Men Sitting On A Hollow Log. Elsewhere, New Zealand band Surf City’s forthcoming album We Knew It Was Not Going To Be Like This continues their love affair with psychedelic, reverb-swathed guitar pop, drawing from their Flying Nun forefathers The Clean and The Chills, as well as the fuzzed-up dream pop of The Jesus and Mary Chain and the loopy noise of Animal Collective. Have a listen to It’s A Common Life.
Brendan Benson has a new single out titled Swallow You Whole, which is an infectiously jaunty piano led slice of indie rock and by contrast a slow burning, semi-intimidating cover of TLC’sNo Scrubs by Scout Niblett is a gem right out of left field – it comes from her critically acclaimed new album It’s Up To Emma.
Next, turn up the volume for another taste of White Mystery’s high octane garage-punk blues with their new single Telepathic from recent album of the same name, and finally we have the insouciant indie of Smith Westerns new single 3AM Spiritual which comes with a free, lightly sprinkled tinge of 60s psychedelia.
Much to enjoy with these excellent videos from Brazos with the woozily sinister Charm, and from the Baptist Generals and their surealistic flimic triumph of man vs. wild for Dog That Bit You.
From Catfish & The Bottlemen we have a live performance for debut single Homesick, and lastly from Split Screens comes their dreamy collage for the gorgeous Born - melded together using footage from the local Prelinger Film Archives, the video centers around the 1948 educational clip “The Nature of Light” and pairs the film against ads from long lost cigarette companies and “state of the art” 1960’s projectors.
We are looking forward immensely to the new Case Studies album This Is Another Life which is released via Sacred Bones on the 11th June.
We have already posted the first ‘single’ from the record, Driving East And Through Her, and now we have another taster from it, this is the equally good Everything. Heartbreak, grief and regret rarely sounded so good…
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.
American Songwriter’s latest free Muse sampler is a gem featuring twelve tracks that includes such MM faves as Phosphorescent, Caitlin Rose, Water Liars, Cheyenne Marie Mize and Futurebirds alongside some Americana heavyweights like Son Volt and Will Johnson and the new-wave inspired indie rock of the Features.
Just head over to their Bandcamp page here and download it all for nothing.
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.
Meet The Lawsuits from Philadelphia PA. They have been described as a schizophrenic mix of modern Americana, and that seems to suit them very well based on a few spins of their first single, Onion, which is a real treat. It comes is from the upcoming album COOL COOL COOL.
Videos today from the wonderful Parson Red Heads and their studio film for new track Times, and also a brand new video from the Lumineers for Stubborn Love. Lastly we have Barry Brusseau’s new video for Til The Wind Blows Everything from his wonderful album The Royal Violent Birds.
