Tag: premiere

LISTEN: Merle Monroe, “Shelby Tell Me”

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Artist: Merle Monroe
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “Shelby Tell Me”
Album: Songs of a Simple Life
Release Date: June 4, 2021
Label: Pinecastle Records

In Their Words: “A common characteristic of classic songs throughout history is how they tell a story or paint a picture for the listener. Our intention is to capture a wonderful story line that everyone can relate to — one that moves the listener emotionally through the lyrics and melody.” — Tim Raybon & Daniel Grindstaff, Merle Monroe

Photo credit: Sheri Clark

LISTEN: Andrew Sa, “Love Hurts” (feat. Sima Cunningham)

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Artist: Andrew Sa
Hometown: Chicago, Illinois
Song: “Love Hurts” (featuring Sima Cunningham)
Album: Cosmic Country Stars: Andrew Sa
Release Date: June 4, 2021
Label: Cosmic Country

In Their Words: “I love a sad song, and ‘Love Hurts’ is a sad-ass song. It’s the first time someone’s broken your heart, and you’re gonna let it all out. I liken the feelings of loss and emptiness in the song to that of floating alone in zero gravity. The numbness in the realization that love could also hurt. The majestic Sima Cunningham (of Ohmme) and I originally covered this true duet for the very first Cosmic Country Show, our now regular Chicago revue. Now after recording it for the first virtual Cosmic Country Show, it’s a real favorite among our fans.” — Andrew Sa

Photo credit: Alexa Viscius

LISTEN: Satsang, “Malachi”

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Artist: Satsang
Hometown: Red Lodge, Montana
Song: “Malachi”
Album: ‘All. Right. Now.’
Release Date: June 4, 2021
Label: SideOneDummy Records

In Their Words: “The day my son Malachi was born, they said his bilirubin count was bad and they suggested we keep him under this crazy blue light throughout the night. My wife and I couldn’t do it. While my wife slept, I held him on my chest overcome with joy and thinking about what he could be and what I could be to him. His mom woke up in the middle of the night and I handed him over, and as they slept I just watched the two of them. I pulled out my notebook and wrote down what would become this song.” — Drew McManus, Satsang

Photo credit: Greyson Christian Plate

WATCH: Turner Cody and the Soldiers of Love, “Lonely Days in Hollywood”

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Artist: Turner Cody and the Soldiers of Love
Hometown: Brooklyn, New York
Song: “Lonely Days in Hollywood”
Album: Friends in High Places
Release Date: June 4, 2021
Label: Capitane Records

In Their Words: “‘Lonely Days in Hollywood’ is one of the older songs on Friends in High Places. I wrote it years ago at my friend’s house in Paris. After a night of singing traditional Jewish songs, I awoke humming those haunting, cantorial melodies. Eventually, the phrase lonely days in Hollywood appeared out of nowhere. I’d never been to LA, but I conceived the song to be in that noir-ish Raymond Chandler/Day of the Locust vein — a wanderer is on the outskirts of an alluring yet hostile place with a seedy underbelly; a place where promises are broken and dreams of stardom go to die.

“The song is a kind of meditation on the transactional nature of our culture of celebrity; how our dreams belie reality and nothing is for free. The song was originally more up-tempo, but Nicolas Michaux’s arrangement is slower and groovier. He also made a slight change to the chord progression that moved the song away from its klezmer roots. The result is moody and dark and reminiscent of Serge Gainsbourg. This recording came out of a true collaboration. The song travelled a long way from its original form but I love how it turned out.” (Read more below the video.)

“The Capitane Records team dreamt up a truly ambitious plan for the shooting of the video, especially as it turned out to be in the midst of the pandemic. To get the right feel, we needed a location that invoked Los Angeles without necessarily being Los Angeles. Not an easy task. But as it turned out, we had a connection to a photographer on the island of Ibiza who, along with her friends, could provide us the help we needed. And so, after a month of back-and-forth with various embassies, we converged on the island in March.

“Valentine Riccardi (our point person) had already scouted a bunch of locations of out-of-the-way beaches, country roads, old churches, and a beautiful organic farm. As the island was free of tourists due the pandemic, its usually bustling downtown was desolate, providing us the perfect lonely, dystopian backdrop we needed. Valentine’s friend and muse Susana Tartalos played the role of savior and paramour to my down-and-out and wandering cowboy who drifts from hotel room to hitchhiking odyssey to rain-soaked jalopy only to end up at a fire ceremony in the hands of his new companion. Ibiza is a beautiful and enchanted place, whose beaches, seascapes, pastures, and mountain ranges were perfect for the video. Valentine’s friends and their children were like an extended family to us over the two weeks we were there. Like the song, the video was truly a group effort.” — Turner Cody

Photo credit: Charles Paulicevich

LISTEN: Tray Wellington, “Pond Mountain Breakaway”

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Artist: Tray Wellington
Hometown: Originally from Ashe County, North Carolina and now calls Johnson City, Tennessee home
Song: “Pond Mountain Breakaway”
Release Date: May 28, 2021
Label: Mountain Home Music Company

In Their Words: “I actually wrote the main riff to this song while playing electric guitar — but then, while playing banjo the same day, I tried it out with more of a bluegrass feel, and thought, ‘Wow, it would be cool to write a fast, upbeat instrumental around it.’ When recording, I got to the session late because my car broke down on the way, and while I was trying to think of a name for the tune during the actual recording session, Wayne Benson, who plays mandolin on the track, asked me, ‘Where did you break down?’ I replied, ‘A place called Pond Mountain,’ and he said, ‘Call it “Pond Mountain Breakdown.” I thought that was a great idea, but as I was thinking about it later, I realized that I don’t get a full breakdown vibe from this tune — and when I thought that a little variation in bluegrass titles wouldn’t be a bad thing, I decided to make a slight change to ‘Pond Mountain Breakaway.’” — Tray Wellington

Photo credit: Rob Laughter

WATCH: Charly Lowry & The Heart Collectors, “Navigating to Hope”

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Artist: Charly Lowry & The Heart Collectors
Hometown: Charly Lowry: Pembroke, North Carolina; The Heart Collectors: Hinterland Byron Bay, NSW, Australia
Song: “Navigating to Hope” from Folk Alliance‘s Artists In (Their) Residence program
Release Date: June 1, 2021

In Their Words: “It’s safe to say this global ordeal has proven that no one being has all of the answers; we are all navigating this plane the best way we know how. The Heart Collectors and I find ourselves on opposite sides of planet Earth, navigating to hope. We likened our experiences during this time to being aboard a ship, fighting against Poseidon’s watery fists and underneath dark, ominous skies. We do so with the understanding that we are in this together, and instead of accepting the defeat of a sinking ship, we remain steadfast in our voyage to find our lighthouse, our beacon of hope. This type of imagery was key in the songwriting process and aided us in delivering a message for the downtrodden. Whatever your case may be, we encourage you to seek your peace first, and then move your vessel onward and forward to hope for a new day, season, or way of being.” — Charly Lowry

“Coming together in collaboration from all points on the earth is an extraordinary experience, and one that makes our world so much bigger. Hearing and being present to the stories of people and cultures from one side of the world to another made us see how we literally are all in this together, we have all suffered this at once. Not in our life time has a global experience like this ever been the case, and it brings everything to a level. Things that seemed important became unimportant. The heartbreak of individuals suffering has a profound way of naturally breaking us open to be so much more capable than the usual way of dealing with existence. Finding each other and joining in this online type of creative common room has been the unifying strength to move forward, one step at a time.” — The Heart Collectors

Photo credit: Courtesy of Folk Alliance, Charly Lowry, and the Heart Collectors

WATCH: Dana Sipos, “Breathing Barrel”

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Artist: Dana Sipos
Hometown: Hamilton, ON (currently residing in Victoria, BC)
Song: “Breathing Barrel”
Album: The Astral Plane
Release Date: June 25, 2021
Label: Roaring Girl Records

In Their Words: “‘Breathing Barrel’ is ultimately a meditation on being at peace with the present moment. Written immediately upon returning home to the city from a music residency at the Banff Centre for the Arts, deep in the foothills of the Rockies, this song is an attempt to integrate a very powerful experience into the more mundane, everyday life. I was trying to trick or convince myself to ‘be July in the wintertime’ — ‘July’ being the Banff Centre in the middle of a bleak Toronto winter, trying to buoy myself and bring back that feeling of abundance and ripe possibility. So in visiting many landscapes, changing seasons, and fleeting moments while focusing on staying present, ‘Breathing Barrel’ turned into a bit of a dreamscape.

“The video was created by Victoria musician Trevor Lang, with dozens of high-resolution scans of vintage magazine cutouts, finely tuned to line up with the rhythm of the song. The pairing of vintage magazine cutouts with the text made to look as though it was coloured in by hand and was intended to mirror the warm and analog textural quality of the recording, the feeling of paper and pencil. The slightly unusual frame rate of this video (eight frames-per-second as opposed to the typical stop-motion animation of either six or 12 frames-per-second) was intended to give the video a familiar but unique rhythm akin to the drum machine featured throughout the song.” — Dana Sipos

Photo credit: Chris Dufour

LISTEN: Kyle LaLone, “Learning How to Love”

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Artist: Kyle LaLone
Hometown: Watertown, New York; living in Los Angeles
Single: “Learning How to Love”
Album: Looking for the Good
Album Release Date: June 25, 2021

In Their Words: “I wrote this song starting with the title, which is how I begin most songs now. I was thinking about the earliest relationships I had been in and how I would say ‘I love you’ but had no idea what that actually meant. In the last few years I feel like I’ve gotten a better understanding of how to be a good partner, how to really show up for someone in a relationship, and that it is something I will continue to improve on. As for the music, I was going for a classic, sweet-sounding country vibe that I thought would fit well with the tender sentiment of the lyrics. And having Michaela Anne, who is a wonderful singer-songwriter, add those beautiful harmonies was the icing on top of the cake.” — Kyle LaLone

Photo courtesy of Kyle LaLone

LISTEN: Mara Connor, “Old Man”

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Artist: Mara Connor
Hometown: Los Angeles, California
Song: “Old Man” (Neil Young cover)
Album: Decades EP
Release Date: May 20, 2021
Label: Side Hustle Records

In Their Words: “I recorded this with Jon Estes in Nashville at the same age Neil Young was when he wrote it (’24 and there’s so much more’) about a caretaker who lived on his ranch. When I first heard the song I was struck by the empathy exhibited by such a young songwriter. I’m also impressed by his economy of language, how in so few words he conveys so much: that as humans, we’re more alike than we are different, and at our core, we all just want to be loved. It’s an affirmation that if we took the time to really look into each other’s eyes and see the humanity there, the world would be far better for it. Can you imagine an insightful folk rock song about an elderly ranch foreman charting on the Billboard Hot 100 today? Me neither, and that’s a shame.” — Mara Connor

Photo credit: Schuyler Howie

LISTEN: Graber Gryass, “Your Body’s Border”

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Artist: Graber Gryass
Hometown: Memphis, Tennessee
Song: “Your Body’s Border”
Album: Spaceman’s Wonderbox
Release Date: May 21, 2021
Label: Outer Orbits

In Their Words: “‘Your Body’s Border’ is a meditation on boundaries in song. From the pensive bouzouki that opens the tune to the first couplet, ‘you’re as old as the crow, fresh as an embryo,’ one can tell this song isn’t supposed to make linear sense and acts more like poetry than storytelling. The voyage is one of discovery — and the discovery is about the joys of being in love, working through stereotypes and clichés (‘if you get sweet and sour with me’), the lengths we go to find love, the transitory nature of national identity, and the repurposing of influence (notice the John Donne homage, ‘my love, my new found land’). Fiddle, banjo, mandolin, two guitars, bouzouki, and upright all play it cool, rather than hot as expected, letting the song take center stage.” — Graber Gryass

Photo credit: Eric Brice Swartz