So we exit April, which true to form turned out to be wetter than a Mackerel’s handshake. No matter, banish the blues with this scorching mix of some of the best downloads we offered in the month, plus a few new ones to get to know and love too. Download Alexander Tucker – Window Sill mp3 (from Third Mouth) Minimalist string arrangements with electronic manipulations … Continue reading Mad Mackerel’s Best Of The Month: April 2012
Hurray, the Riff Raff are back. And it’s all looking quite different. Their brand new album, Look Out Mama, is a whole lot more country and a lot less bluesy/Americana than before. Throw in a sprinkling of good old fashioned rock and roll with her new band the Tumbleweeds, and it’s a coat of many different colours that Alynda Lee Segarra wears on this outing. … Continue reading Album Review: Hurray For The Riff Raff – Look Out Mama
Amanda Jo Williams latest offering, The Bear Eats Me, is chock full of catchy rockabilly band numbers, with multi-layered recordings featuring cherubic choruses and good ol’ honky tonk. It’s dusty jukebox rock that will wake the kids in the middle of the night for a boot-stomping, moon-invoking dance party on the back porch. Comparisons? Try Hank Williams Jr., Joanna Newsome, Melanie or June Carter, Lucinda Williams … Continue reading Mad Mackerel Recommends…Amanda Jo Williams
While Q magazine goes from bad to worse to even worse, thankfully Uncut is going in the opposite direction and is just about the best ‘mainstream’ music magazine there is at the moment. Their latest issue dropped through the door this morning and the Cover Disk is simply titled Americana 2012. It contains fifteen tracks from the likes of MM faves such as Father John … Continue reading Uncut’s Free Americana Cover Disk
Dubious Ranger began as a band name concocted by classical pianist Alexander Eccles. As a band name warrants a band, he took the plunge and formed a peculiar brand of art-rock based in his hometown of San Francisco. Dubious Rangerʼs newest album, Found Recordings From The Panda Valley Mining Company c.1931, sounds like a blend of Tom Waits and Beck and is a creative collaboration between … Continue reading Introducing >>> Dubious Ranger
Although they have been a little quiet for a while, the sparse and often deliciously eerie folk duo The Skeleton Dead have made a couple of new tracks available for free download via their Bandcamp page. More new material is due for later in the year. a a Continue reading MM Shorts 146: New Songs From The Skeleton Dead
Here are a few tasty streams for you to hit the play button on, and a couple to download too. First, some new blissed-out, hypnotic psychedelia from White Fence who have a new three track single out titled Green Balloon via Sexbeat Records in Europe – limited to 500 vinyl copies, and we’ve just pre-ordered one of them… a Next up is the altogether more … Continue reading Streaming Round Up
We are looking forward with much anticipation to the new album from Justin Townes Earle. His fourth release, Nothing’s Gonna Change The Way You Feel About Me Now will be released this spring via Bloodshot Records. It comes ahead of a run of UK June dates in Bristol, Manchester and at London’s KOKO. The album was recorded completely live with no overdubs over a 4-day … Continue reading MM Shorts 145: Justin Townes Earle’s New Album
It is funny how things turn out sometimes. Four months ago, Austin Texas duo Twilight Hotel were turning up in various MM End-of-Year-Best-Of Lists following the release of their superb album When The Wolves Go Blind. On Saturday they turned up at the fag-end of their UK tour just a few miles from chez Mackerel playing a free show at the rather lovely, and certainly … Continue reading Twilight Hotel – Live Review
Orpheum Bell have become our favourite ‘Country & Eastern’ artists! They deftly and elegantly mix classic Americana with gypsy rhythms plucked from travelling carnivals and vaudeville sideshows to create something that is in equal parts melancholic, seductive and sometimes a little bit dangerous. We’ve already posted two tracks from their latest album The Old Sisters’ Home and here is a third, the ukelele led Whatever Shines So … Continue reading Another From Orpheum Bell
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