Tag: premiere

LISTEN: Suzzy Roche & Lucy Wainwright Roche, “Jane”

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Artist: Suzzy Roche & Lucy Wainwright Roche
Hometown: New York, New York
Song: “Jane”
Album: I Can Still Hear You
Release Date: October 30, 2020
Label: StorySound

In Their Words: “For my 16th birthday, my aunt Terre gave me a cassette tape of some demos that she and my aunt Maggie recorded in 1973. ‘Jane’ was one of the songs on the tape and it was immediately one of my favorites. The song had never been included on any album, and for many years I thought it would be a great song to record. It finally found a home on this album. I particularly like the line, ‘It’s like remembering rain in the sun, or remembering sun in the rain.’” — Lucy Wainwright Roche

Photo credit: Shervin Lainez

LISTEN: The Mastersons, “I’m Your Girl”

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Artist: The Mastersons
Hometown: Los Angeles, California
Song: “I’m Your Girl”
Album: Red, White & I Love You Too EP
Release Date: October 16, 2020
Label: Red House Records

In Their Words: “We watched the first episode of Ken Burns’ Country Music and Eleanor wrote this after trying — unsuccessfully — to go to sleep.” — Chris Masterson

“I had Maybelle Carter’s guitar in my head and a little bit of Townes Van Zandt’s and Woody Guthrie’s spirits guiding me. I already had the first verse, which is more abstract, written down in my notebook and then I started thinking about the plight of immigrants today and the rest of the song just flowed out.” — Eleanor Masterson

Photo credit: Curtis Wayne Millard

LISTEN: Ashleigh Flynn & the Riveters, “The Lion and the Lamb”

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Artist: Ashleigh Flynn & the Riveters
Hometown: Portland, Oregon, and Los Angeles
Song: “The Lion and the Lamb”
Album: The Lion and the Lamb (Digital 45)
Release Date: October 20, 2020
Label: Home Perm Records

In Their Words: “‘The Lion and the Lamb’ draws from Bible stories as an overlay for the situation we find ourselves in today — enveloped in the COVID-19 pandemic, civil unrest/peaceful protests, the rise in domestic terrorist groups in the US, the devastating impacts of climate change/fires that are destroying our communities… things feel hopeless…. While I am not a religious person, I am a spiritual person, and believe the goodness in the hearts of Americans translating into benevolent action is what will heal us as a nation; that ‘savage and cruel beasts’ find their kind and gentle nature, and work to restore of the world to peace and ‘righteousness.’

“This song (with lyrics by Ashleigh Flynn and Virginia Cohen) and the Digital 45 were recorded remotely, with our guitar player Nancy Luca at the helm of arrangement and production from her home studio in LA. She says this about the song, ‘When Ashleigh sent me her song a few months ago, and as we are all locked down because of the COVID-19 pandemic, we worked hard to bring life to this endeavor despite the distance. The Riveters recorded their parts safe at home on their iPhone or DAWs and I mixed it all in the sonic blender of my session. My hope is that you hear the musical emotion of this wonderful and poignant song. Ready world? It’s ready for you.'” — Ashleigh Flynn

https://soundcloud.com/smashedflynn-1/the-lion-and-the-lamb/s-bI67cGnOGMZ

Photo credit: Kate Flather

LISTEN: Cf Watkins, “White Nights”

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Artist: Cf Watkins
Hometown: Westfield, North Carolina (Currently in Nashville, Tennessee)
Song: “White Nights”
Album: Babygirl
Release Date: October 16, 2020
Label: Whatever’s Clever Records

In Their Words: “‘White Nights’ is based off of one of my favorite Dostoevsky short stories. On this album, I was trying to explore shifting the way I write music and, in a sense, share myself. I felt a lot of my music was coming from a place of my own longing, unrequited love, and heartbreak. Though I think all of those topics are worthy of our time and attention, I felt, as a woman especially, it was important for me to explore and show my strength as well. I started by simply shifting the focus from myself, and writing songs about something outside of myself. This was one of the first songs to come from that effort. I am singing from the male perspective, who has unrequitedly fallen in love with the female character. There was something very powerful for me to recontextualize romantic longing — to sing the male voice, and to have it honoring the power and magic of a woman.” — Cf Watkins

Photo credit: Griffin Hart Davis

LISTEN: The Honeygoats, “Hummingbird”

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Artist: The Honeygoats
Hometown: Plymouth, Wisconsin
Song: “Hummingbird”
Album: Four Years in Three Days
Release Date: October 16, 2020

In Their Words: “’Hummingbird’ was written out of a love for songs that get people dancing and singing along to them the first time they hear them, which makes it great opening track for our album. Upbeat, straight to the chorus, no messing around. It almost sounds innocent enough at first listen, but there’s some innuendo in its theme that gives it some edge when you take a closer listen. The idea was sparked simply by watching some hummingbirds as they buzzed around a feeder one morning, and it turned into a song about a certain type of relationship between two people. Old blues musicians mastered the art of using metaphors to sing about edgy themes in their songs, and that was something that we tried to capture with this.” — Jamie Odekirk, The Honeygoats

Photo credit: Flyover Vigilante

LISTEN: Peter Mulvey with SistaStrings, “What Else Was It”

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Artist: Peter Mulvey with SistaStrings
Hometown: Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Song: “What Else Was It”
Album: Live at the Cafe Carpe
Release Date: Oct. 9, 2020
Label: Righteous Babe Records

In Their Words: “‘What Else Was It?’ was a gift, a trance, a song that came straight through me in a time of need. I’ve been alternating two different third verses for years now, and we finally got the other one on record. This might be the best we’ve ever played this song, so I guess we won. What else was it we were looking for, anyway?” — Peter Mulvey

Yellow Couch Management · What Else Was It?

Photo credit: Matt Dayak

WATCH: Josh Shilling, “(Go to Hell) 2020”

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Artist: Josh Shilling
Hometown: Martinsville, Virginia
Song: “(Go to Hell) 2020”
Release Date: October 9, 2020
Label: Josh Shilling Music

In Their Words: “This song wrote itself. It fell out one morning while waiting for a Skype writing session to start with another songwriter. It felt like a personal and heavy conversation with an old confidant. I was positive this would impact people. Each verse is something I’ve faced personally since spring regarding the pandemic: societal unrest, facing loss and grief, and relationship tension throughout 2020. The chorus provides hope and belief that life will get better and ‘someday soon we’ll be free and this will be in the rear view.’ The song is where I am; it’s where I think we all are right now. No tricks, no big production, this was a live take, three chords and the truth … the truth for everyone, I think.” — Josh Shilling

Photo credit: Sebastian Smith

LISTEN: Bahamas, “Half Your Love”

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Artist: Bahamas
Hometown: Living in Halifax, Nova Scotia; from Barrie, Ontario
Song: “Half Your Love”
Album: Sad Hunk
Release Date: October 9, 2020
Label: Brushfire Records

In Their Words: “It’s a love song. Doesn’t the world need another one of those? My first co-write with the massively cool Pat MacLaughlin. Every line in this one feels well-earned and true and like it’s been there for 1000 years. Hope it’s half as good as I think it is.” — Afie Jurvanen

Photo credit: Dave Gillespie

LISTEN: Jeremy Garrett, “The World Keeps Turning Around”

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Artist: Jeremy Garrett
Hometown: Loveland, Colorado
Song: “The World Keeps Turning Around”
Release Date: October 9, 2020
Label: Organic Records

In Their Words: “These days it just seems like we are going around in circles with many of the conversations we are having — especially online. Someone has a good idea for good change, and then the barrage of disagreements on how to achieve that fires up. When we look at the big picture though, are we all just beating our heads against a brick wall, so to speak? Never realizing how powerful all of us truly loving one another could be? Maybe that message is too simple and naive, but perhaps we need to break it all down, go back to the basics and realize that we are one country, one world. We can’t ever escape that, and when we learn from each other, we would never want to. So the goal of this song for us was to simply ask that question: are we going to keep heading down a path of division over and over and over again? Or can we ask ourselves what we can do to break this cycle?” — Jeremy Garrett

Photo credit: J.Mimna Photography

WATCH: Suzi Ragsdale, “The Ending”

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Artist: Suzi Ragsdale
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “The Ending”
Album: Ghost Town
Release Date: October 9, 2020
Label: CabaRay Records

In Their Words: “Can anyone accurately predict the future? Of course not. Not even the chief meteorologists get it right. With the exception of fictional books and films when you might, like my ex-husband in this song, skip to the last chapter to get answers, we’re all kinda just wingin’ it. More and more I’m becoming a fan of focusing on the present moment unfolding instead of pinning anything on the final result. ‘The Ending’ is a four-minute musing on how my life might have been different had I known the outcomes of life’s loves, dramas and situations … and how ultimately, I’m happier not knowing and having the world of possibilities remain open to me and to everyone else.” — Suzi Ragsdale

Photo credit: Joshua Black Wilkins