Tag: Video premiere

WATCH: Abigail Dowd, “Beautiful Day”

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Artist: Abigail Dowd
Hometown: Carthage & Southern Pines, North Carolina
Song: Beautiful Day
Album: Beautiful Day
Album Release Date: April 23, 2021

In Their Words: “I started writing ‘Beautiful Day’ sitting on our neighbor’s front porch one morning. I was living with them at the time, after our house flooded and my husband and I were waiting for the city to buy and demolish it. He was still living in our house with no heat, taking care of our cat and dog, and it got a little lonely month after month of waking up alone in other people’s houses. It was such a wild experience of not knowing what each day would bring or when the sky would clear, so to speak. As the verses started shaping up, I remembered all of the times in my life that felt dark and uncertain, but were actually necessary parts of growing into better versions of myself. This song became a reminder to enjoy the moment and have faith that it was leading to a brighter day. And now, I look back on those days as gifts of time with friends, with my guitar, and without the distractions that used to keep me from having long stretches to write.” — Abigail Dowd

Photo credit: Todd Turner

WATCH: Cristina Vane, “Prayer For the Blind”

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Artist: Cristina Vane
Hometown: Turin, Italy
Song: “Prayer For the Blind”
Album: Nowhere Sounds Lovely
Release Date: April 2, 2021

In Their Words: “‘Prayer For the Blind’ is inspired by a friendly couple I met while camping on the border of Nebraska and Iowa. She told me her mother suffered from dementia, but that it couldn’t help but make her laugh when her mother claimed that her husband was cheating on her, going dancing with a woman with two peg legs, and that she was going to wring her neck. The anecdote got me thinking about how we try and find levity in heavy situations, and also about the bond between mothers and daughters and the intergenerational burdens that can be passed along through them. I wanted to find a tone that matched the difficult nature of these questions, and the lonesome modal banjo seemed perfect for that, paired with Nate Leath’s great fiddling. The issues of motherhood and illness are no new phenomenon, so I thought old time sounds fit the theme well — you can’t beat a fiddle and banjo!” — Cristina Vane

Photo credit: Oceana Colgan
Video credit: Jeremy Harris

WATCH: Raine Hamilton, “Brave Land”

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Artist: Raine Hamilton
Hometown: The flatland prairies of Winnipeg, Manitoba
Song: “Brave Land”
Album: Brave Land

In Their Words: “I am a prairie person, but this album is about the mountains. As a flat lander, I was in a good position to appreciate the contrast of the open, vulnerable spaces of my upbringing, with the courageous, up-reaching lands of the mountains. We don’t have ‘up’ where I come from, so I really had a lot to learn from the mountains, this brave land that connects both the earth and the sky. This song, ‘Brave Land,’ is the title track of the record, and speaks to the courage of these landforms that reach out beyond their earthly world, and the spiritual connection that represents. ‘Brave Land’ is a joyful song that celebrates being alive on the Earth! What an amazing time that can be!” — Raine Hamilton

Photo credit: Megan Steen

WATCH: Chris DuPont, “Sandpaper Hymn”

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Artist: Chris DuPont
Hometown: Ypsilanti, Michigan
Song: “Sandpaper Hymn”
Album: Floodplains
Release Date: February 5, 2021
Label: Sharehouse Audio

In Their Words: “‘Sandpaper Hymn’ was written during a time of massive loss. At the time, it felt as if the universe was grinding away at me, taking little bits of material off of my heart and body with every stroke. But with every loss, I feel like I have a choice to stretch and grow, or otherwise allow bitterness to overshadow the narrative. If loss is a great ‘sanding,’ perhaps my edges can be made smooth, less jagged, less likely to snag people. I recorded the studio version during the early phases of the 2020 lockdown, giving the themes of loss and isolation a greater meaning during the recording process.” — Chris DuPont

 

WATCH: Tejon Street Corner Thieves, “Deal Rag”

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Artist: Tejon Street Corner Thieves
Hometown: Colorado Springs, Colorado
Song: “Deal Rag”
Album: Stolen Goods
Release Date: May 7, 2021
Label: Liars Club

In Their Words: “‘The Deal Rag’ had been a staple in our band since day one. It’s upbeat and fun as hell to play! It’s about when deals go wrong and you end up in a bad situation. Something we’re all too familiar with. We love the ragtime swing and the and the washboard solo rips. This is the first song we decided to put on Stolen Goods. It really sets the pace for the whole album.” — Connor O’Neal, Tejon Street Corner Thieves

Photo credit: Mountain Trout Photography

WATCH: David Huckfelt, “Hidden Made Known”

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Artist: David Huckfelt
Hometown: Spencer, Iowa
Song: “Hidden Made Known”
Album: Room Enough, Time Enough
Release Date: February 26, 2021
Label: Gambler’s Dharma Records/Fluff & Gray Records

In Their Words: “‘Hidden Made Known’ is about having faith in the basic intelligence of the universe, and what to do next when you lose it. From Wounded Knee to Sault Ste. Marie, tenderness is on the run, ‘Here be monsters’ all over your Google maps, even your sure things fall through. Meanwhile, sparks of the dharma shoot out from little children, lakes and rivers all day long, saying ‘Be gentle.’ Don’t see many of these long-form poem-songs these days, we don’t seem to have the attention for them — but every line felt like it could be another song. Walk out of doors, slip through a crack in the live stream feed, find a glitch in the system and mine it until things feel wild again.” — David Huckfelt

Photo credit: Charlie Stout

WATCH: Rod Abernethy, “My Father Was a Quiet Man”

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Artist: Rod Abernethy
Hometown: Raleigh, North Carolina
Song: “My Father Was a Quiet Man”
Album: Normal Isn’t Normal Anymore
Release Date: February 5, 2021

In Their Words: “About two years ago around the holidays, I had a dream that my dad called me and we were talking on the wall-hanging, rotary dial phone in the kitchen. He was talking up a storm, like a teenager… funny thing was he never really talked that much in real life. We had a great talk on the phone that night and he asked me how I was doing and how the family was getting along. It was so unlike him to be so upbeat, asking me about things — I’ll never forget that dream.” — Rod Abernethy

Photo credit: Neilson Hubbard

WATCH: The Horsenecks, “Six Foot Under”

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Artist: The Horsenecks
Hometown: Astoria, Oregon
Song: “Six Foot Under”
Album: Started Out in Town
Release Date: January 29, 2021
Label: Tiki Parlour Recordings

In Their Words: “We got this song from an early sixties recording of an obscure country singer named Bob Fryfogle. A man jilted at the altar, walking around the church graveyard wanting to bury his heart. The melody and lyrics are so lonesome, as soon as we heard it we knew we’d have to learn it. It’s a departure from the rest of the songs on the album in that it’s the only song with electric guitar and drums, while the rest of the album is acoustic. This song represents a broader scope of the music we love to play at live shows or sitting around kitchen tables.” — The Horsenecks

Photo credit: David Bragger

WATCH: Taylor Ashton (Feat. Rachael Price), “Alex”

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Artist: Taylor Ashton (featuring Rachael Price)
Hometown: Brooklyn, New York via Vancouver B.C.
Song: “Alex”
Album: Romanticize
Release Date: February 5, 2021
Label: Signature Sounds

In Their Words: “Rachael and I traveled to On Deck Sound Studio in Connecticut to do a streaming show from their live room just after the new year, and before the show started broadcasting we filmed this stripped down version of ‘Alex,’ which is a song on my upcoming EP Romanticize (a companion to my album The Romantic which came out last year). The produced version is lush, with piano, electric guitar, drums, bass clarinet and synths, but I love the way this song feels just stripped down to the skeletal banjo part and the two voices. Rachael and I singing together has definitely been a hallmark of this quarantine time, since we would usually be too busy with our respective schedules to make it work. So the song ‘Alex’ and this stripped-down live video are a record of this time and this silver lining of an otherwise extremely weird year.” — Taylor Ashton

Photo credit: Shervin Lainez

WATCH: The Burnt Pines, “Diamonds”

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Artist: The Burnt Pines
Hometown: Boston, Massachusetts, USA and Lisbon, Portugal
Song: “Diamonds”
Album: The Burnt Pines
Release Date: January 22, 2021
Label: Adraela Records

In Their Words: “This song offers a bit of a different twist on a typical love song, in that it’s told from the perspective of a faithful and committed partner, in a complicated and difficult relationship, as many relationships are. It’s an aching love song. Through the twists and turns and uncertainties of his relationship with his partner, and dealing with her indecision between wanting both a mutual commitment and a certain freedom that she imagines outside the relationship, he keeps returning to his intense and poignant feelings in the song’s chorus: ‘I bleed apart. Torment in the colorful rain. Diamonds, oh diamonds, I don’t mind getting old for you, babe.’ Love often isn’t easy.” — Aaron Flanders, The Burnt Pines

Photo credit: Rui Major, The Burnt Pines