americana
Track: Rianne Downey – ‘Stand My Ground’; Scottish country riser keeps both feet firmly planted
COMING armed with a clutch of proper old-skool, downhome country tunesmithery from the east of Glasgow, Rianne Downey is singing proud and strong on what’s only her second single drop, “Stand My Ground”, the proper rootsy pop inflections of which you can hear below. It’s as if our very own Dolly P had got her …
Track: Tarragon – ‘Follow The Sign’: Coventry songwriter calls on a host of greats for his shimmering debut
YOU’VE got a musical vision, a wish to create, that keeps you going through the grind of the everyday but which you can’t ever quite shift off the back burner? Focus on it, bend your will to it, make it happen: that’s a lesson we can all take from Coventry’s Callum Pickard, the man behind …
SEE: The fairytale stop-motion video for Renée Reed’s graceful, mysterious ‘I Saw A Ghost’
WITH her stunning, graceful, mysterious debut album out tomorrow on Keeled Scales, Louisianan folk riser musician Renée Reed has dropped a fourth and final single to usher you into the scented finery of her world; watch the video for “I Saw A Ghost” below. “I Saw A Ghost” rings true with the four-track ambience which pervades her home-recorded …
See: Bill MacKay and Nathan Bowles get languid with the deep verdancy of ‘Dowsing’
IT’S STILL pretty weird out there right now, right? I think it’s getting better; thank the sweet lord for the gift of music. And one area in which 2021 is shaping up to be really interesting year is in the field of solo Americana musicians who’ve been carving their own, unspooling instrumental path coming out …
Track: Sydney’s Steve Smith unleashes a vibrant slice of Americana power pop in ‘Runnin’ Red Lights’
Steve Smith has a lot of very impressive form in Sydney’s indie scene, stretching right back to his early solo career (as Steven Smith) with the famous Green Fez/Citadel Records in the eighties and membership of Catherine Wheel. More recently, Smith has released a series of lauded albums that has seen him move towards a …
News: Marisa Anderson and William Tyler announce an album together for Thrill Jockey; hear the title track, ‘Lost Futures’
TAKE two of the best instrumental guitarists currently working in instrumental Americana, Marisa Anderson and William Tyler; put them together in a studo; press record. It’s a simple idea, but an idea as brilliant as the results. In some ways it’s a surprise the two haven’t married their winding, mesmerising aesthetics before. In fact they …
Album review: Chad VanGaalen – ‘The World’s Most Stressed Out Gardener’: an excellent, multifaceted curio of psych and fun
YOU’VE gotta love Chad VanGaalen, the Albertan singer-songwriter who completely follows his own muse, sees the world his own goddam way, thank you very much; and who’s been delighting those of us in the know for a decade and a half now. He first emerged blinking into the musical sunlight with his Infiniheart album for …
News: Nordic country singer Louien will release an EP in June; hear a first track, ‘Better Woman’
LOUIEN we touched base with just a matter of days back, in an ensemble sense, when she lined up alongside Siv Jakobsen and The Northern Belle for the Nordicana loveliness of “No Rush”, bringing three-part harmonies to a chiming beauty of a tune reminding us to take care of each other. Now Miranda Solberg (for …
Track: Jordan Merrick – ‘This Rainy Day’: sweet Americana to curl up inside
BRISBANE folkie Jordan Merrick has capturing hearts a while now; and it’s a dead cert he’ll capture a few more with the warming campfire Americana of “This Rainy Day”, which is just a bit of a tune, actuellement, and which you can hear below. His After releasing his debut album Night Music in 2019, Jordan released a clutch …
Track: Renée Reed – ‘Neboj’: mysterious verdancy from rising Louisiana folk chanteuse
WE’RE just a fortnight, a little more, away from the release of Renée Reed’s self-titled debut album, one on which she reveals a mysterious, perfumed songwriting aesthetic, steeped in the Cajun culture she grew up within. And today’s she’s dropped a third single from that album, “Neboj”; it’s a languid thrill, as you can hear …