Jenn Grant is a multi-award-winning Canadian artist. Consequence of Sound called out Grant’s “majestic vocals” on her latest release “Love, Inevitable.” Stereogum noted she created “something that’s both a bit familiar and a little otherworldly. “Music is the connector that binds us all”, says Grant. “To be able to create music, and share the power it can hold is one of life’s greatest gifts.” This is the very essence behind the voice and songs of Jenn Grant.
A heralded singer and songwriter from Prince Edward Island, in Canada’s Maritimes, Grant has four albums and one EP under her belt; she is about to embark on a brand new journey with her best collection of songs to date.“The time is here and now, I’m over the moon.”
Now living in Lake Echo, Nova Scotia with her husband and producer Daniel Ledwell, the wilderness of the forest and eastern seas helped them to settle into creating a new body of work based on time, courage, healing, wonder, and of course love. Jenn has has numerous Juno Award nominations and is widely regarded as one of the finest songwriters to come out of Canada.
“Born out of magic and hopelessly romantic. A message from the fire. The flames are burning higher and ever so brightly, softly, sweet scars & beauty, death like, so lovely. Ghosts and Gods sing Pharaoh melodies”. Natalie De Silver founder of The Dandelion describes her band. This four-piece group take 60s psych influences and ghostly sounds into modern world. We had a lovely chat with Natalie, while the flute and the organ ring out in the night…My studio is my home and I mostly record music in my lounge room. Sometimes I write songs in my kitchen or bedroom. I like composing songs on either guitar, organ or drums first, then I just make the rest up. I have an old cassette recorder I like to record on. However, the next Dandelion record we’re going into a proper studio which is really exciting!. for independent artists like us who sell our own music through sites like Bandcamp or at our own shows and mange our own social media platforms it’s very personal. The Dandelion originally began as a solo recording project for Daniel Poulter (1981-2015) who recorded Strange Case of The Dandelion.
During the recording of The Dandelion’s 2nd album “Seeds Flowers & Magical Powers of The Dandelion” 2014/2015, Daniel gracefully handed over all creative duties to Natalie de Silver who can be heard subtlety coming through the album’s mix and main themes. Natalie is currently working on a third album to be released very soon!
True spirituality is also taking responsibility for your role within the creation process and once you find a positive rhythm within in it then you will begin to truly understand what God is. I strongly recommend to anyone who is even remotely spiritual, that you find a disciplinary belief system or religion to subscribe to Otherwise you’ll have no spiritual structure or grounding and what often happens to the “spiritual but not religious” is a false self justification of being on the “right path” and this often leads to spiritual gluttony, substance abuse and self indulgence which will ultimately disconnect you from reality and God.
Sure, so the first step is to discern what is good for you and what is bad for you and how it might affect other people. This is not an overnight process, however, if you have the ability to feel remorse and empathy towards anything other than yourself, then discernment should come quite easily, It’s much more beneficial to see how your bad habits might be negatively affecting others as opposed to just yourself as bad habits are often strangely enjoyable and, if you give up a bad habit just for yourself, then you’ll most likely just trade it for another bad habit to meet your own needs.Last year, The Dandelion joined the Gizzfest, curated by Ozzie favorites King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard.
Laura Marling’s exquisite seventh album “Song For Our Daughter” arrives almost without pre-amble or warning in the midst of uncharted global chaos, and yet instantly and tenderly offers a sense of purpose, clarity and calm. As a balm for the soul, this full-blooded new collection could be posited as Laura’s richest to date, but in truth it’s another incredibly fine record by a British artist who rarely strays from delivering incredibly fine records.
When Laura Marling moved Song For Our Daughter up from August, it became a semi-surprise release meant to, hopefully, provide an anchor for people in confusing, traumatizing times. Not that this album is purely comforting, being a series of missives to an unborn child warning of how this warped world would challenge her. Despite coming from turmoil, Marling’s songs — the lilting sigh “Held Down,” the catchy “Alexandra” and “Strange Girl,” the raw and sparse “For You” — are able to harness beauty hidden within the ugliness surrounding us. In the end, it was the exact kind of salve we needed, just when we needed it.
Taking much of the production reins herself, alongside long-time collaborators Ethan Johns and Dom Monks, Laura has layered up lush string arrangements and a broad sense of scale to these songs without losing any of the intimacy or reverence we’ve come to anticipate and almost take for granted from her throughout the past decade.
“It’s strange to watch the facade of our daily lives dissolve away, leaving only the essentials; those we love and our worry for them. An album, stripped of everything that modernity and ownership does to it, is essentially a piece of me, and I’d like for you to have it. I’d like for you, perhaps, to hear a strange story about the fragmentary, nonsensical experience of trauma and an enduring quest to understand what it is to be a woman in this society. When I listen back to it now, it makes more sense to me than when I wrote it. My writing, as ever, was months, years, in front of my conscious mind. It was there all along, guiding me gently through the chaos of living. And that, in itself, describes the sentiment of the album—how would I guide my daughter, arm her and prepare her for life and all of its nuance? I’m older now, old enough to have a daughter of my own, and I feel acutely the responsibility to defend The Girl. The Girl that might be lost, torn from innocence prematurely or unwittingly fragmented by forces that dominate society. I want to stand behind her and whisper in her ear all the confidences and affirmations I had found so difficult to provide myself. This album is that strange whisper; a little distorted, a little out of sequence, such is life. Laura Marling
Our hearts go out to the family of legendary songwriter John Prine, who passed away after being in a critical condition recently with coronovirus. The legendary singer-songwriter John Prine died Tuesday at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn. He was 73 years of age. Part of John Prine’s brilliance was how easy he made it all seem. With some songwriters, you can hear the effort and strain put into every line, and it can become wearisome. But Prine seemed to come about it so humbly and naturally that you could believe, since you had access to the same language and the same chords on an acoustic guitar, that you could be as wise, as funny, as heart-rending as he could.
His road to that point wasn’t the typical one for music stardom. He was a soldier and a mailman before he emerged from Chicago with his debut album in 1971. That self-titled release cemented him as a fully-formed song-writing powerhouse.
Following his service in the army, John Prine seemed to spring forth as a fully formed multi-dimensional singer songwriter at the age of 24. Steve Goodman and Prine were running buddies and staples of Chicago’s hardscrabble folk scene during the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. It was Goodman who led Prine to Kris Kristofferson. An established star, Kristofferson brought the pair to New York, and on their first night in town, Prine sang three songs at The Bitter End in Greenwich Village. Legendary Atlantic Records producer and A&R executive Jerry Wexler was in the audience. Twenty-four hours later, he signed Prine to the famed label.
In 1971, Prine released one of the most impressive debut albums ever, proving himself capable of writing folk balladry, country, and rock songs laced with pathos, sensitivity, and sardonic humor that reflected on the human condition. A critical smash but a commercial disappointment, this remarkable album set the tone for the rest of his career. The next two albums, 1971’s Diamonds In The Rough and Sweet Revenge, released in 1973, proved that the first album was no fluke. His songs continued to have depth, compassion, and an understanding that belied his young age. The first three or four records, I would just write ‘em while walking down the street–just throw ‘em over my shoulder,” Prine says. “The best way to get away from the world was to go write a song.”
This solo acoustic performance, recorded at the Music Inn in Lenox during the summer of 1973, captures Prine performing the material from his first three albums stripped down to their bare essence. In almost every case, these songs are even more compelling with just the man’s voice and guitar. This audience, the vast majority of whom had come to see Bonnie Raitt, is immediately drawn in and responds with great enthusiasm, bringing out a most inspired choice of material from Prine. Taken as a whole, this remarkable set is overwhelming in its diversity and contains a wealth of Prine’s most memorable compositions.
Fans of Prine’s self-titled debut will be delighted to find that album extremely well represented. Early in the set, he delivers the counterculture songs “Spanish Pipe Dream” and “Illegal Smile,” setting an irreverent tone that resonates with the audience. These more humorous numbers are almost immediately balanced out by “Donald and Lydia” an achingly poignant song about a young couple separated by army life and “Sam Stone,” an anguished tale of a drug addicted Vietnam vet. With its disturbing and penetrating lyrics, including a chorus of “there’s a hole in daddy’s arm where all the money goes; Jesus Christ died for nothin’, I suppose,” There are few lyrics as sobering as this one from John Prine’s “Sam Stone” The track taken from his 1971 self-titled debut album, this acoustic song lays bare the horrors of war long after combat has ceased. The protagonist succumbs to a drug addiction after his severe wartime injuries, and his children’s innocent, simplistic view of their father’s darkest demon just hits you like a barreling train. Speaking of which, there’s another powerful, slightly more vivid allusion to locomotives when Prine describes the centre of his main character’s universe, the rush you get from taking heroin: “And the gold rolled through his veins / Like a thousand railroad trains.”
Prine’s insightful anti-war commentaries have a depth and substance that seemed to come from experience. As such, they have far more insight and resonance than most anti-war songs of the Vietnam era. That first album is also represented by the autobiographical “Paradise,” as well as the immeasurably sad songs, “Hello In There” and “Far From Me” Prine’s trademark wit and sense of humour also gets more time to shine on the rollicking anti-war song “Your Flag Decal Won’t Get You into Heaven Anymore” and “Pretty Good,” one of the most outrageously funny songs in Prine’s early cannon.
You won’t find very many 25-year-old male musicians writing from the perspective of an older woman, but John Prine had a gift for storytelling that knew no bounds. Singing with beautifully grizzled vocals over rousing organs, Prine pleads with angels on “Angel From Montgomery” to be saved from a loveless marriage, lost dreams and a life devoid of purpose. Various covers of this song by John Denver, Bonnie Raitt and Tanya Tucker helped popularize the song, and Raitt’s version, in particular, is an absolute knockout
Several tracks from Prine’s second album, Diamonds In The Rough are also performed, including “Rocky Mountain Time,” the hilarious sing-along encore of “Everybody” and a powerfully moving “Clocks and Spoons” However, what is possibly most delightful here is the appearance of the new songs that would be included on Prine’s third album, Sweet Revenge, including his classic “Grandpa Was A Carpenter.” On this album, Prine ventured into increasingly cryptic lyrical terrain. “Please Don’t Bury Me” and “The Accident (Things Could Be Worse)” are both brilliantly written songs that remain open to interpretation, while the overtly comical “Dear Abby” and the doleful holiday carol, “Christmas In Prison,” display Prine’s sharp wit and wry sense of humor.
For anyone interested in contemporary folk music and its history, John Prine is a required course and his first album is absolutely essential listening. This recording is a perfect overview of Prine’s early career containing many of the highlights from those first three albums and most of the songs that cemented his reputation. Prine is hysterically funny here, but he is always just as thought provoking, able to strike a nerve way down deep, often in the same song. Common Sense (1975), Bruised Orange (1978), Pink Cadillac (1979) and Storm Windows (1980) followed, as did more classic songs–“Come Back to Us Barbara Lewis,” “Hare Krishna Beauregard,” “That’s the Way the World Goes ‘Round” and “Crooked Piece of Time” Eventually, Prine discovered that his escape from the world had become a world unto itself.
Maybe you’ve never heard a John Prine song in your life. But if someone spun his 1978 album Bruised Orange for you, unprimed and unprepared, my bet is you’d be smitten within the first few seconds of that record’s first song, the jaunty “Fish and Whistle.” To the tune of one especially chirpy flute, Prine sings, “We’ll forgive each other ‘til we both turn blue.” It doesn’t matter how much beautiful nonsense he crams into his folk songs, John Prine always leaves a nugget of wisdom. Isn’t that a beautiful idea, that we’ll all just keep forgiving each other as long as we live, because that’s part of being a human? End your feuds; do it for John.
He enjoyed the early 90’s comeback album that many of his era who had flailed a bit during the 80s did, thanks to the Heartbreaker-filled The Missing Years in 1991. And he proved one of the world’s most charming duet partners on 1999’s In Spite Of Ourselves, as he and Iris DeMent turned the title track into one of most romantic warts-and-all songs of all time. His live performances constantly reminded everyone both of his incredible songbook and of his boundless charisma; contemporary and younger artists revered him; and awards and honours came in with regularity.
Prine returned with his first original album in 13 years a few years ago. The Tree Of Forgiveness included guests like Jason Isbell, Amanda Shires, Dan Auerbach, and Brandi Carlisle, but Prine still stole the show. The heartbreak of “Summer’s End” and the feistiness of “When I Get To Heaven” proved that he hadn’t lost anything.
“Sometimes I feel like we’re just sleepwalking through our lives. We’re not really present.” Hazel English wants us to open our eyes. Through her shimmering, daydream-pop, the California based singer-songwriter is on a mission to rattle the cages of our very existence, asking us to dig deep and ask challenging questions of ourselves. “Wake UP!”, her debut album, is a call to arms: an attempt to “make people become more aware and mindful,” she says.
Since debuting with bittersweet single ‘Never Going Home’ in 2016, the Sydney-born artist has felt the urge to connect with her listeners in a meaningful way. Blending wistful, candid lyricism with jangling psych and beach-pop sounds, English’s compelling song-writing has earned her over 25 million streams, airplay on BBC Radio 1, 6Music and Beats, praise from Lauren Laverne and Annie Mac, and press acclaim with double EP Just Give In/Never Going Home labelled by The 405 as “one of the strongest records of the year”. 2019 saw her gain an even wider audience after touring with Lord Huron and Death Cab For Cutie.
Where the double EP was very much a lo-fi, bedroom-produced record, English left her home setup behind in favour of roomy recording studios and tapped up session players for her debut album. Bigger, lusher, and more live-sounding, the LP shows a new side to English: one that conveys the joy and excitement of collaboration. Drawing from a more grandiose sonic palette while pulling on the same sun-kissed thread of her previous work, half of the record was made in LA with super-producer Justin Raisen (Sky Ferreira, Charli XCX, Angel Olsen), while English flew to Atlanta to work with Ben H. Allen (Deerhunter, M.I.A, Animal Collective) on the other half.
Listening to the record, it should come as no surprise that ‘Revolver’-era Beatles, The Mamas & The Papas, The Zombies and Jefferson Airplane were all at the forefront of her mind while recording. “Radical messages need a raw and vibrant backdrop to pop,” she says, and she’s kept her trademark sunshine-filled sound that fits her Los Angeles dwelling, but with bigger, stirring choruses. It’s a testament to English’s writing style and ear for a hook that she won’t make anything that she couldn’t play stripped back to its bones, refusing to rely on production to carry a song. Standouts like the infectious ‘Off My Mind’ and ‘Like A Drug’, with its swirling hypnosis, find English’s songcraft at its most accomplished.
Lead single ‘Shaking’ wears its ‘60s psych influences on its paisley patterned sleeve. Written by Hazel and frequent collaborator Blake Stranathan (Lana Del Rey), it was a painstaking effort: “I just couldn’t rest until I had gotten it to a place where it felt like I could sleep at night. And I’m really glad I did,” she says. Tackling themes of power, lust, manipulation, pleasure, and control, its Erin S. Murray-directed video strikes right at the heart of this idea, finding English as the charismatic ringleader of her own Manson-esque cult, manipulating her subjects in a baby doll dress and beehive hairstyle. “It presents the promise of a spiritual awakening as a kind of seduction,” she says.
An open sufferer of anxiety, English wrote the record following something of an existential crisis. Stuck and isolated, she felt like life was becoming a series of mundane objectives. She began asking herself: “am I happy? Do I like the direction I’m going in life? Am I engaged with my community? Do I feel connected to others?” English realised that the answers to all these questions were, for her, resounding nos. The album’s title became a kind of personal mantra to her – “a reminder to wake up and be present in a time where we are used to switching off and looking for constant entertainment,” she says. “[‘Wake UP!] will mean something different to everyone. Like, oh yeah, I’ve been sleeping on this goal of mine, or I need to spend more time with my kids. It’s for whatever people need to confront.”
Obsessing over old movies and vintage clothing since the age of 15, English took cues from surrealism, dadaism and the writings of sci-fi novelist Philip K. Dick for the record. She wrote words before she became a musician – before a student exchange programme prompted her San Francisco move, English was studying creative writing in Melbourne and writing poetry prolifically. After reading Guy Debord’s 1967 book The Society of the Spectacle, English began pondering our obsession with self-image. In it, Debord considers how we get caught up in the ‘spectacle’: How am I perceived by others? How can I make it seem like I’m successful? English draws parallels from the ‘60s text with our social media-crazed present as “essentially creating a fabricated version of yourself and making sure it seems like you’re living this amazing life. It’s not a true experience. That just makes us unhappy, I think.”
Confronting issues with the rampant, consumerist nature of capitalism and “our human propensity for dissatisfaction,” Wake UP! also explores power struggles, with English looking at how shifting dynamics affect relationships, be it in the music industry or in romantic life. The record dives into unbalanced power dynamics, be it “feeling stuck in a one-sided relationship where the other person cares less,” “needing space in order to seek power within myself, or feeling like I’m the one holding all the cards in a relationship.”
Wake UP! is a rallying call to our 2020 selves; a reminder of what our core values are, packaged up in a glorious, sparkling record. “I hope I can inspire others to also search for their inner truths and find their own inner strength in the process,” English says. “I wanted to create something really dynamic, and kinda wild.”
Laura Marling’s exquisite seventh album “Song For Our Daughter” arrives almost without pre-amble or warning in the midst of uncharted global chaos, and yet instantly and tenderly offers a sense of purpose, clarity and calm. As a balm for the soul, this full-blooded new collection could be posited as Laura’s richest to date, but in truth it’s another incredibly fine record by a British artist who rarely strays from delivering incredibly fine records.
Taking much of the production reins herself, alongside long-time collaborators Ethan Johns and Dom Monks, Laura has layered up lush string arrangements and a broad sense of scale to these songs without losing any of the intimacy or reverence we’ve come to anticipate and almost take for granted from her throughout the past decade.
Releases April 10th, 2020, Chrysalis Records Limited, in partnership with Partisan Records
After an assured vocal feature on The National’s ‘Where Is Her Head’ last year, Eve Owen garnered more attention with the release of the lovely ‘So Still For You’ in January this year.
Although these are very early days for London-based songwriter Eve Owen, she’s already making quite the impression. With just a handful of singles shared so far, Eve has already played a number of well-received headline shows, as well as supporting the likes of Hayden Thorpe, and was, prior to recent events, set to head out supporting The National. Eve’s links to The National run deeper than just a support slot though, her debut album, Don’t Let The Ink Dry, was recorded with the band’s guitarist, Aaron Desner, in New York, and she even helped with the recording of Where Is Her Head, from their I Am Easy To Find record.
This week, Eve has shared the latest track from, Don’t Let The Ink Dry, the delightfully crunchy sounding, Blue Moon. The track marked something of a turning point for Eve’s recorded output, as it was the first time she’d ever sang with electric guitar. The rawer sounding guitar tone gives Blue Moon a certain wildness, matched in Eve’s free and spontaneous vocal, that in her own words, was an attempt, “to capture some sort of Stevie Nicks atmosphere”. It’s a testament to the songwriting here that so much is captured with just voice and guitar, as Eve channels a spirit of “unrequited love, but not the hurtful kind”. The track is a reflection on an admiration so strong, you’re happy just to be friends with that person, as Eve explains, “I think when you take it upon yourself to truly accept unrequited love and still keep it, is when you’re finally becoming stronger again”. Eve Owen may be be a young songwriter taking her first steps into the sometimes cruel musical world, listening to Blue Moon, you wouldn’t bet against her soaring to the very top.n Yesterday’s release, ‘Blue Moon’, is just as strong. Building with classical instrumentation and soaring vocals, Owen sings of a deep appreciation and devotion, formed into the image of a blue moon.
Her album, which was produced by Aaron Dessner, will be released on 37d03d Records – a collective set up by Dessner and Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon.
From the forthcoming album Don’t Let The Ink Dry, out May 8th on 37d03d.
Mackenzie Scott, the singer-songwriter who performs under the pseudonym of Torres, has released a new cover of Portishead song ‘Wandering Star’. The Brooklyn-based musician, who is in the middle of a tour which has her scheduled to perform in Zurich, France, Italy and more, recently encountered a major financial struggle in order to get emergency flights back to America.
Now, while self-isolating like millions of people around the world, Scott has released a cover of the Portishead classic to help ease the struggle in quarantine. Given the recent success of Bandcamp’s campaign to help struggling artists at the time of the coronavirus campaign, Torres has made her ‘Wandering Star’ cover available to buy through her account on the streaming platform. It follows her January album Silver Tongue.
‘Winter’ is the first chapter of 4 EP’s that are coming this year, altogether making an album that takes you on a journey through the seasons.. It’s the culmination of many hours of work and thought, and I believe this body of music is the best I’ve ever made. I’m very excited to share it with you all! As a taste of what’s to come, go check out the video to ‘Winter’
Willow Robinson is one of those rare things -a singer/songwriter that makes you sit up and listen. With a raw edge and a blues stained voice his heartfelt songs and powerful performance makes him stand out in an over crowded genre. He’s been working underground honing down his art and is now ready to be listened to – enter Alan McGee who has signed him to his management company. Alan owns a club that I was invited to play in Wales called the Tabernacle, purely because I was the son of his wife’s friend. It’s an amazing old chapel that they have transformed into a venue, it even has some of the old pews in it!
He told me that he put me on the bill out of courtesy, not really expecting much. So I played, and after the show he came up and said he was blown away! I was shocked, always having little confidence in my performances. I then went away touring and as soon as I had finished he called me up and said he wanted to take me on! It was a dream come true, a blessing and what an amazing opportunity.
This is a music that drips classic but somehow carves out its own niche with a strong identity and strong voice. The full, 3 song EP drops this Friday 27th March 2020
Emma Charles back when she was still taking classes at Berklee College of Music. She has since relocated to Los Angeles, and now shares her endearing style of folk pop with a gorgeous, nostalgia-inflected video for new single “Connecticut.”
This is the title track from a 4-song EP that came out last month, produced by Doug Schadt, who has worked with both Shaed and Maggie Rogers. Emma delivers a heartfelt performance that maps out an emotional journey from her hometown on the East Coast to a new life in California. A hushed, guitar-based melody provides an evocative backdrop for Emma’s riveting vocal performance and a wistful exploration of the connection between memory and regret. At the intersection of self-examination and roots-Americana the organic sound of Emma Charles never fails to captivate, as we collectively stand witness to an emergent star who surrenders her full heart with every passionate song.
Big sounding acoustic guitars, and a soft emotional vocal is the sound of “Connecticut” by Emma Charles. This ambient track is the closing song of Emma Charles’ new EP released in late February. The song has a calming energy and feels like the soundtrack of a long drive, of traveling thousands of miles on a long highway. The lyrics dive into the emotions of leaving a small Connecticut hometown for something much bigger. It’s about self-discovery and exploration. It’s hard to ignore Emma Charles’ poetic lyrics and imagery. This sound is truly a gem in today’s music industry!
Emma Charles sets the mood for driving across America in her new song “Connecticut.” Song written by Emma Charles and Doug Schadt
The Fat Angel Sings 