New Music, Emerging from your Local Scene
Action/Adventure have released visuals for the lead single, "Poser", from their forthcoming EP "Pulling Focus", which is due out on April 30th via Pure Noise.
This is the Pop Punk of Blake Evaristo, Brompton Jackson, Oren Trace, Manny Avila, and Adrian Brown.
Tiny Kingdoms are back with a new single called "All I Know", which is accompanied by the Alex Zarek video below. This is the group’s first single of 2021, sixth since releasing their most recent EP, "Realms", back in 2018.
The group blends Pop Punk with Alt Rock and Emo to create a sound all their own.
V.V. Lightbody (aka Vivian McConnell) has released a new single called "Really Do Care" via Acrophase Records. This is actually the lone B-Side from her 2020 Sophomore LP, Make a Shrine or Burn It, touches on the fear of commitment and troubling ways we cope with it.
For this track she enlisted the help of Juan Solorzano (Slide Guitar), Nate Friedman (Drums & Percussion), Mike Harmon (Bass), Evan Metz (Guitar), Dan Pierson (Piano), and Emma Hospelhorn (Flute).
Benjamin Carbone, Lead Singer/Band Leader of Boot, just completed his first Chicago winter since relocating from Brooklyn. Once the month of March began he felt the worst was behind him and the snow had ended, but in Chicago you have to be ready for anything. The new single,"Snow In March", documents his surprise when it did indeed snow last month. We can’t wait to hear what Benjamin will compose when it "unexpectedly" snows in May. Welcome to Chicago Benjamin and Boot!
"Snow in March" features Oliver Beardsley on drums, was mixed and mastered by Jake Cheriff, and was released by Paper Moon Records.
Looking much more like Matthew Sweet or other jangle pop hipsters with his sleek black outfits and his neatly styled light brunette hair (no cowboy hat/no facial hair) than the country music performer that he is, native Austin singer-songwriter and guitarist Terry McBride possesses a strong sense of his unique self. In the crowded and competitive country music genre, his new 3-song single containing live versions of songs from his 2020 album “Rebels & Angels” is bound to make a splash.
For starters, his credentials simply out-rock everyone else’s: at various times, he’s both a bass and a lead guitarist, the luminaries he’s toured with include Jimmy Dale Gilmore, Rosie Flores and Delbert McClinton and he’s written hits with Brooks & Dunn, George Strait, Reba McEntire and other stars from 1995 throughout the 2000’s. For Brooks & Dunn alone, he has co-written 25 tunes! And he’s not emceeing the CMT award show every damn year??
Thing is, with the exception of some all-too short years with his cult-status band McBride & The Ride, Terry McBride has been content behind the scenes, always the bridesmaid and never the bride. However a listen to “Terry McBride: Live At The Castle” reveals that his credentials supporting other musical celebrities do indeed translate onto his first solo album last year and now his first live tunes single this year.
McBride’s sense of humor and overall upbeat music and lyrics got a lot of practice and became part of his identity when he wrote songs with Brooks & Dunn. Can you say “ah-oooh-oooh/play me some country” from Brooks & Dunn’s “Play Me Some Country”? Yes he co-wrote that smash hit, a song that ranks up there with John Anderson’s “Swinging” as one of the funniest country tunes ever. On McBride’s “She Shows Up”, he approaches the situation of a break up in a small town with a wry raucousness that says loud and clear that the party must go on. If you like fast country dance songs such as “Sold” and “1, 2 Many”, or if you like swing dance/rockabilly at the bar, “She Shows Up” will impress.
McBride’s live version of his “Calling All Hearts” keeps it simple: the ex-girlfriend (“the only one I got at the bar”) whom he had lived with ghosted him. His maturity as well as his sense of fun just shine through on the song.
Judging from the three-song single, Terry McBride’s upcoming solo shows — as well as the McBride & The Ride reunion shows scheduled across various Texas towns — should be a great way to roar out of quarantine and let off steam now that music fans are getting vaccinated.
– Jill Blardinelli
McBride’s website features his tour schedule, which starts this Friday at Royse City’s Southern Junction.
NASHU has released a new, Greta Thunberg inspired, single called "Anthem För Greta". He will be donating 100% of the proceeds from the track to Fridays For Future to help fight against the current climate crisis.
This is the Dream Pop of Shaun Burk and this single is the first new music from him since the release of his 2020 album, Ghost Gardens.
Adem Dalipi has released his second single of 2021, an emotional new track called "Through Another’s Eyes". The song is about growing up and beginning to understand life through a new perspective.
Matt Muse has released two new singles, "Rockin" and "Bridges". These are a part of a new series of singles he is called Matt Packs, and are the first new music from Muse since 2019’s Love & Nappyness.
"Rockin" was produced by Renzell and features vocals from Sherren Olivia. "Bridges" was produced by BmfnT & Charles Lauste and finds Muse tackling the challenges that friendship can sometimes bring.
If the long awaited Cagney & Lacey movie ever comes to fruition (sorry, I don’t consider the TV movies canon) I’m going to immediately start an online petition to make "Asphalt Homeland" the opening credit music–played as the camera slowly pans over the asphalt homeland of Lower Midtown Manhattan until landing on our two sometimes harried but always resolutely determined lady detectives. And sure, the new single by Ghost Funk Orchestra is a good deal less boob-tube bouncy and peppy than the original TV theme song, but that’s good because it’ll help Cagney & Lacey make the transition to the big screen with the help of some dramatic, cinematic music.
Of course this isn’t to imply that bandleader/songwriter/arranger/producer Seth Applebaum only writes music appropriate for a Cagney & Lacey type show. To the contrary, Seth is a one-man "library music" machine whose music could just as easily be used to score urban dramas, medical dramas, gangster epics, or even wild comedies and super action films but with a distinct golden-era approach harkening back to a time when jazz and funk and rock and Latin music and psychedelic music (and many other genres besides) often shared equal space on a single soundtrack.
Take the song called "Fuzzy Logic" for example (see video above) which stays true to its title by rejecting Boolean either/or logic in favor of multiplicity and suggestive ambiguity. It starts off sounding like the dramatic opening moments to a classic spy soundtrack or a caper movie with its dissonant stabs of brass and syncopated hi-hat cymbal–not to mention how the music video’s use of color gels and multiple exposure give it a strong Bond pre-credit sequence vibe–before sliding into a groove that’s laid back enough to be Sade-approved but with some vaguely uneasy lyrics (and a brief Bill Withers "I know" interlude, may he rest in peace) sung to enchanting effect by regular vocal collaborator Romi Hanoch (PowerSnap). And then about one minute in the song takes another turn with a breakdown section featuring flamenco-style clapping and dub-like echo and surf guitar reverb before circling back to the second verse and then later ending with a concise but still pretty epic solo outro traded between baritone sax and flute.
Seriously, put this song on in the car next time you’re cruising around and it’s guaranteed to make you feel like a total badass even if you’re just heading to 7-11. Or put on almost any GFO song because they rarely skimp on the funkiness, the ghostliness, or the intricate orchestrations. And did I say "one-man show"? In reality, Ghost Funk Orchestra is more like a ten-to-twelve-man-and-woman machine because you know it can’t be easy making music this elaborate alone and especially not if you plan to play live. And by the way seeing GFO live is a wonderful thing that will presumably happen again someday soon.
So, if you lack familiarity with the Ghost Funk prior to "Asphalt Homeland," their most recent full-length An Ode To Escapism (2020) is a good place. The album features a shift array of musical emotional hues that still manage to flow together as a continuous whole–more that fulfilling the promise of the album’s title. And just case you happen to forget the stated purpose of the album while listening there’s an intermittent GPS Lady voiceover reminding you that "as long as your headphones are on…you’re safe, and hidden" and it never hurts to be reminded of that. (Jason Lee)
St. Malboro has released the first single, "Funeral Home", from their forthcoming LP, Photo Album.
This is the work of Kyle Paulin (guitar, vocals), Liam Shanley (guitar), Anthony Cook (bass), and Garrett Campbell (drums).
Instrumental Surf Rock Quartet Outronaut has released a P-Chan, aka Phil Fujiwara, animated video for their single "World War Tour". The single is taken from the group’s 4th album, Kill The Light, which was released back in April 2020.
The video finds a personified version of COVID-19 battling a healthcare hero on top of the Statue of Liberty. All of that takes places on top of live footage of the band shot at Liars Club.
Mars Rodriguez is an independently-operating, Los-Angeles-based, Nicaraguan-American singer-songwriter-producer-multi-instrumentalist and so far her early releases are living up to that multi-hyphenate description. Mars released her first full-length last September, Don’t Wait for Nothing, and over its 30 minutes you never have to wait too long for some new sonic wrinkle or other musical ingredient to be thrown into the mix which makes for a compelling and propulsive listening experience. And while I may be reading too much into things here, I could see how this restlessness could possibly derive in part from being part of a population displaced by political crisis and state violence.
If forced to come up with my own original hyphenate to describe Mars Rodriguez’s music I think I’d go with "Café-Tacuba-meets-Shirley-Manson-meets-Massive Attack" because that at least hints at the stylistic eclecticism and the multilingualism and the mix of grungy guitar, power pop melodies, trip hop ambience, dub- and psych-inspired production, rock-en-espanol rhythms and drum machine rhythms. It’s one of those albums meant to be taken in all at once in full, a continuous sonic journey.
Take the album-opening instrumental track "Tous Les Jours" for example, which starts off with almost a full minute of ambient planetarium-style celestial sounds before launching into a funky percussion loop that wouldn’t sound out of place in a Chemical Brothers song and then a fuzzed-out zig-zagging melody that brings to mind Radiohead’s "Myxomatosis" or it does to my mind at least. After a minute or two the fuzzone starts to disintegrate and get swallowed up by swirling echo effects. Then the whole thing topples and transforms into a slower, stripped down groove–but with vibrating tones and reverb-drenched voices still hovering overhead before fading out to sounds of distorted radio signals and sine waves.
From there each subsequent song on Don’t Wait for Nothing explore a new direction or two. One of these directions is the "potential pop crossover hit" and there would seem to be at least a couple on the album–like "Now" with it’s singalong refrain and motivational message and steady build to a big finish–but always with a quirky touch or two to keep it more on the alternative side of things. Mars’s new single released on Friday ("The End") continues down this path of pop music with frayed edges–evoking Brian Eno one moment and Republica the next, with the listener exhorted to "exit your mind". And with all this talk of ends and exits, here’s to new beginnings because I’ll bet Mars Rodriguez has some more interesting ideas in store. (Jason Lee)
