Tag: Song Premiere

LISTEN: Sarah Morris, “All Mine”

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Artist: Sarah Morris
Hometown: Minneapolis, Minnesota
Song: “All Mine”
Album: All Mine
Release Date: February 21, 2020

In Their Words: “To me, writing ‘All Mine’ was this acknowledgment/celebration that I while tend to lose myself in the details, and miss the big picture — maybe that’s OK. Maybe the gift from being wired that way is ‘I can tell you the secret of a single pine.’ As soon as I finished writing it, I knew it was the title track, and the umbrella that was going to cover all the other songs on the album. This is the one song on the album that has all of the players on it, and I love the way everyone finally came together on it.” — Sarah Morris

Photo Credit: Katie Cannon

LISTEN: FRETLAND, “Must’ve Been Wild”

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Artist: FRETLAND
Hometown: Snohomish, Washington
Song: “Must’ve Been Wild”
Album: Fretland
Release Date: May 22, 2020
Label: Tone Tree Music

In Their Words: “We all know how it feels to love someone who doesn’t love us back. To be the friend, to pine from afar. I wanted to capture a love triangle where the characters were earnest in wanting what was best for each other. Of course they all deeply want to be seen and loved in return, but when they recognize that same struggle in each other they are moved to be a good friend and have compassion. To love someone and know they might never love you the same way is so beautiful and heartbreaking to me. That’s true love.” — Hillary Grace Fretland

Photo credit: Jake Hanson

LISTEN: Seamus Egan, “Two Little Ducks”

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Artist: Seamus Egan
Hometown: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Song: “Two Little Ducks”
Album: Early Bright
Release Date: January 17, 2020
Label: THL Records

In Their Words: “This mandolin-driven track is inspired by my love of Baroque music. I spent many hours as a teenager sitting in the front room of the great Irish musician and folklorist Mick Moloney’s house in Philadelphia, listening to mandolin concertos and trying to learn them by ear. I was never very successful in that endeavor, but my love of Baroque, and in particular, mandolin music endured.

“This track is also a nod, in its own way, to an old De Dannan track called ‘Arrival of the Queen of Sheba to Galway,’ from their 1983 album, Song For Ireland. This was their interpretation of the Handel piece, The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba. Hearing that track was a watershed moment for me. It opened my ears to what could be possible with Irish music. It was like getting permission to look outside the tradition and see what you could find and bring back with you. It was incredibly liberating. Joining on this track is Kyle Sanna on guitar and Owen Marshall on bouzouki.” — Seamus Egan

LISTEN: James Steinle, “Back Out on the Road”

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Artist: James Steinle
Hometown: Pleasanton, Texas
Song: “Back Out on the Road”
Album: What I Came Here For
Release Date: February 7, 2020
Label: Shotgun House Records

In Their Words: “‘Back Out on the Road’ is about putting a face on in a relationship — and how one day the final straw breaks the camel’s back and you’re off to the races. One of the topics I visit a bunch on this record is the idea of being unhappy in a relationship and having the hunch it won’t work out in the long run, competing with a personality type that makes it hard to see people hurt. And so the vicious, drawn-out cycle begins. It always makes matters worse.” — James Steinle

Photo credit: Juliet McConkey

LISTEN: Thunder and Rain, “Two Ships”

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Artist: Thunder and Rain
Hometown: Golden, Colorado
Song: “Two Ships”
Album: Passing in the Night
Release Date: January 3, 2020

In Their Words: “I wrote a poem based off the old saying ‘two ships passing in the night.’ It seemed to perfectly sum up a fragile but fun relationship I was in at the time. When we started arranging it as a band, we cranked up the speed and started passing speedy licks between the dobro and mandolin. Being one of the grassiest songs on our record, we had our engineer, Aaron Youngberg, rip some banjo on it. This song sets the tone of the record, describing the moments in relationships that are meaningful but don’t last very long.” — Erinn Peet Lukes, Thunder and Rain

Photo credit: Scott McCormick, McCormick Photos and Design

LISTEN: Daniel Donato, “Always Been a Lover (Stripped)”

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Artist: Daniel Donato
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “Always Been a Lover (Stripped)”
Release Date: December 17, 2019

In Their Words: “Something that I’ve always been tested with as a musician is the fact that I’m very dynamic-based, so depending on the song, I’m letting loose in different ways and I’m holding back in different ways. This was a great opportunity to take this song and fulfill it in an acoustic manner. You know, it goes back to that old Nashville trope, ‘Can you boil it down to an acoustic version and still satisfy?’ And I absolutely feel that it does. It’s like it passed the test.” — Daniel Donato

Photo Credit: Saverio Donato #cosmiccountry

LISTEN: B. Knox, “The Fault Lies”

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Artist Name: B. Knox
Hometown: Barrie, Ontario, Canada
Song: “The Fault Lies”
Album: Heartbreak and Landscape
Release Date: Early 2020

In Their Words: “It’s hard to feel any sense of permanence when the seasons are constantly changing. I love the interplay between landscape, weather, and emotion. I think most of what I write reflects that, in one way or another. I tried to lean heavily on barren images and vast amounts of space: the distance between things. Emotions, like the seasons, are things we all experience, but they are also extremely individual. Here in Canada, we have a lot of open space and vastly different seasons. In a way, that’s what both connects and isolates us.” — B. Knox

Photo credit: Baldwin

LISTEN: Jennah Barry, “Pink Grey Blue”

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Artist: Jennah Barry
Hometown: Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia
Song: “Pink Grey Blue”
Album: Holiday
Release Date: March 27, 2020
Label: Forward Music Group

In Their Words: “‘Pink Grey Blue’ is about my deep and lasting body dysmorphia. The song speaks from the perspective of a voice in my head trying to convince me to look at myself with gentle eyes.” — Jennah Barry

Photo credit: Kira Curtis

LISTEN: Ben Krakauer, “Heart Lake”

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Artist: Ben Krakauer
Hometown: Black Mountain, North Carolina
Song: “Heart Lake”
Album: Heart Lake
Release Date: December 17, 2019
Label: Blue Hens Music

In Their Words: “I wrote ‘Heart Lake,’ along with the rest of the tunes on this album, with these particular musicians in mind. ‘Heart Lake’ was my attempt at a fiddle tune, which morphed into something different by the time I finished writing it. Like John Hartford’s string band records, it shifts in texture every 16 or 32 bars. It’s named for one of my favorite places, near Mt. Shasta, California. Featuring Duncan Wickel on fiddle, Nick Falk on drums, and Dan Klingsberg on bass.” — Ben Krakauer

Photo credit: Laura Ogburn

LISTEN: John Dennis, “First Light”

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Artist: John Dennis
Hometown: Freeburg, Illinois
Song: “First Light”
Album: Mortal Flames
Release Date: January 31, 2020
Label: Rainfeather Records

In Their Words: “This tune is my own version of a creation myth. Because the whole record is intended to tell a larger chronological story, I wanted to set up the ‘mortal flames’ idea by challenging myself to imagine my own poetic version of existence coming to be. The idea that resonated most with me was all life being a part of one great, harmonious (and sometimes cacophonous) song and dance; and its fundamental ‘meaning’ is to continually experience the wonder of itself. (‘Each given a freedom and time to make up their own meaning for this life, When really they were merely born to see, to shine first light.’)

“There are a multitude of stories and myths we can all inhabit, but, as someone who can get consumed and paralyzed by existential questioning, it gave me peace to think that, at the very bottom of it all, I’m fulfilling a ‘purpose’ just by being. These themes get explored throughout the record, but if you listen closely after the final song, you’ll hear the whistling motif from ‘First Light’ again, which was meant to signify the cyclical nature of life — the constant rising and falling, creation and destruction, darkness into light back into darkness.

“It’s also worth noting that I was listening to a lot of Paul Simon when I wrote this — specifically The Rhythm of the Saints and So Beautiful or So What records.” — John Dennis

Photo credit: Kristin Indorato