I feel like I’ve been waiting for a new Melody Pool album for far too long. But do you know what? Now that I have “Deep Dark Savage Heart” I can honestly say it was worth the wait. Melody Pool is seriously one of the finest young singer songwriters in Australia The melodies are complex, her lyrics are layered and each song is just so perfectly crafted and presented. If you listen to “Deep Dark Savage Heart” from start to finish – and trust us, you should and will listen over again, prepare to be transported by Pool’s liquid velvet voice. “Black Dog” is among the standout track’s but it’s a highlight in an album full of highlights – every song is worth revisiting over and over again.
Melody moved to Melbourne from Kurri Kurri NSW, her first time living away from home. She also toured with The Milk Carton Kids through Europe and performed two massive shows supporting the Eagles, before returning to Nashville to make Deep Dark Savage Heart with producer Brad Jones, an American who has worked with several Australian
Imogen Clark has had a pretty big year built on the bedrock of her debut album Love & Lovely Lies and its two lead singles “Take Me For A Ride” and “You’ll only Break My Heart”. The latter is Clark’s most mature offering to date, making the most of her big voice and lyric driven song writing. Her EPs to date have all been pretty strong but it feels like Love & Lovely Lies realises Imogen Clark’s potential as a singer and a songwriter – which is not at all hurt by the slick production and fantastic band she has behind her. Imogen Clark is touted as an alt-country singer (and we’ve been known to use that label as well) but I feel there’s a pop sensibility to her music that’s had a country sheen added to it courtesy of her band, but regardless of the genre “You’ll only Break My Heart” heralds big things to come from the Sydney singer-songwriter.
One of the hardest working singer-songwriters in Sydney releases a debut to be proud of, paving the way for bigger things to come.
Lucy Dacus had an unfair advantage in getting our attention this year: Her debut album, No Burden, came out twice, first on Richmond’s tiny EggHunt Records in February, then on the venerable Matador in September. Recorded in one day in Nashville with a band that had just learned the songs, No Burden is not only a surprisingly assured album from a 21-year-old newcomer;
Donovan Woods is one of my favorite songwriters, and the album he put out earlier this year contains a little bit of everything I love about him and the songs he crafts and I think it’s the finest collection he’s ever put together
When you listen to Donovan Woods, you can hear the craft of songwriting being carried forward: Stripped down, but never simple; direct yet poetic; new and timeless. The music is delivered with confidence, and in an evocative voice that you wouldn’t expect from someone as young, approachable, or humorous as Woods.
His acclaimed fourth album Hard Settle, Ain’t Trouble received a 2016 Polaris Music Prize nomination. Three original songs intended for that project have now surfaced on a new digital EP, They Are Going Away. There’s a distinct sense of motion throughout the narratives. In “What They Mean,” Woods responds to a curious child in the backseat who is listening carefully to the car radio. “It’ll Work Itself Out” shows someone who is traveling furiously to outrun problems. “Drove Through Town” provides a backdrop for the big issues, from living up to expectations to escaping a dead-end relationship.
Woods, who is an exceptional acoustic guitarist in his own right, says these songs didn’t make the track listing for Hard Settle, Ain’t Troubled because he didn’t want to rush the lyrics or force them to be finished. A fourth selection, “Empty Rooms,” is about moving on from a relationship—when that’s not such a bad thing. Although it’s new, Woods felt it was a comfortable fit.
“The songs are about coping with loss, and wholesale changes, that sort of thing,” he says. “The title I suppose is trying to get at the temporariness of everything. Time speeds up when you get older, that’s an observable fact. It starts to feel like you’re always chasing some ineffable thing. It’s why your dad often had a slightly bewildered look in his eyes.”
Woods was raised in the small city of Sarnia, Ontario, to the sounds of country music, with a healthy dose of folk and pop, a combination that instilled in him a strong belief in the power of a memorable melody, the importance of everyday language and the impact of a well-crafted song. It’s not that Woods makes music that is a product of both country and folk; it’s that his songwriting shows how distracting the line separating the two can be. Whether they’re written about big ideas or seemingly minor incidents, broken promises or the hint of romance, Woods’ stories affect listeners deeply.
Throughout Hard Settle, Ain’t Troubled and its companion EP, They Are Going Away, what is clear is that Donovan Woods possesses a compelling voice made to tell stories – his stories, and ours. Although it gently rises just above a whisper, it cannot be ignored.
“Hard Settle, Ain’t Troubled” is Donovan Woods‘ fourth album, which most recently received a 2016 Polaris Music Prize nomination
Marissa Nadler is an American musician and fine artist based in Boston. Active since 2000, she is currently signed to Sacred Bones Records and Bella Union in the UK. Marissa recently released her seventh full-length studio album, Strangers, in May 2016.
Singing in a mezzo soprano , Nadler has received acclaim for her vocals. Her voice was described as one “you would follow straight into Hades”, and also “textured and angelic, with just a hint of pain captured within her iridescent falsetto”. She has a voice that, in mythological times, could have lured men to their deaths at sea, an intoxicating soprano drenched in gauzy reverb that hits bell-clear heights, lingers, and tapers off like rings of smoke”. Her music “is rooted in old-school country and folk
All Songs written by Marissa Nadler*
the Band
Marissa Nadler- acoustic guitar, vocals
Jim Callan- pedal steel
Orion Rigel Dommisse- rhodes, synth, vocals
Helena Espvall- cello
Ben McConnell- drums, percussion
Brian McTear- cymbal swells, drums, percussion
Carter Tanton- electric guitar, vibraphone, synth bass, bass, vocals, tambourine
*Puppet Master written by Marissa Nadler/ Carter Tanton
For those unfamiliar with his work, Keaton Henson is an English folk-rock musician and poet, whose work incorporates a range of influences from contemporary to classical.
His work is also intensely performative, despite Keaton’s famously intense anxiety that has, for much of his career, precluded him from live performance. From an early age, Keaton learned to “gild the domestic cage” of his introspective world with “images and songs and poems of his imagined worlds” – not to mention music.
Keaton’s eagerly-awaited new album Kindly Now was released in September and to gain an insight into the music that’s shaped his own as he’s battled with isolation, Its such a rewarding listen,
‘Kindly Now’, his fourth album, is actually much the same of the same Keaton formula, an analysis of his own depression and anxiety, mixed with a healthy dose of self-loathing. However, it does feature a new side to him, with songs sounding much fuller and more arranged than previously, and a vocal delivery that’s a lot stronger than previous albums. In the track ‘Alright’, Keaton almost sounds angry at his inadequacies, a surge of weight behind his words, unlike his usual self-deprecating whine. I think on the whole this is a braver album, with Keaton owning up to his shortcomings without asking for a dashing of pity. The track ‘Old Lover’s In Dressing Rooms’ is particularly beautiful, detailing a conversation adrift with tension and woe between Keaton and an ex (presumably so anyway). It’s a great songwriting technique and catches the mood of a certain type of closeness between two people, a feeling most if not all of us have experienced and can understand.
Keaton Henson has crafted a career from writing immersive and deeply sad indie folk songs. “Kindly Now”, is no exception to the rule, giving us a glimpse into his inner struggles. From failing to connect with others to coping with anxiety, Henson is both candid in his storytelling and, in parts, determined that he will overcome his troubles. Across the record, Henson’s quivering voice is the main attraction. With his disarmingly timid falsetto, Henson trudges through twelve bittersweet orchestral heartbreakers.
Opening track “March”, a mash-up of diced samples and textures, showcases Henson’s more experimental side before the record plummets into the more familiar-sounding and frail “Alright”. Tipping a hat to fellow folk connoisseurs Perfume Genius and Destroyer, the song is stirringly beautiful, Once again experimental in colour, the anthemic ‘Comfortable Love’ opens with swaying, lazily-picked guitars;
In “The Pugilist”, with its dramatic strings and torn melody, Henson fights his corner as a serious artist, (“Don’t forget me, I still have art in me yet”), and implies that suffering for his art is a small price to pay to feel alive (“To remind me I’m living, And that I still need it”). Filled with cascading guitars and shivering cellos, “The Pugilist” is the record’s standout and most heartbreaking moment.
In contrast, Kindly Now’s most upbeat moment is the soulful Afro gospel, indie rock “Holy Lover”. With this ode to Paul Simon’s Graceland, Henson nervously confesses “I think I love you, baby please don’t be afraid of me.” The song feels like a turning point for Henson, not only on the album, but in his personal life too.
The therapy continues on “How Could I Have Known” and “Good Lust”, as Henson continues to pick at the scabs of past relationships. Unable to let his insecurities dissipate, Henson sings about love like an awkward, heavy-hearted teenager, whispering lyrics “know that our love was real but I broke the deal all out I the cold, baby come hold me close, please don’t let me drown”, before the record comes to rest with the retreating sound of piano.
Shaking off labels such as the ‘British Jeff Buckley‘, Henson has grown into his sound over time. If Birthdays was his attempt at self-loathing, then Kindly Now is his attempt at therapy; as with the album’s artwork, Henson has painted a self-portrait of himself and plastered over his faults. Stitched together with lulling orchestras, romantic sentiments and quivering vocals, the anxiety-ridden Kindly Now is an obscured window into the mind of one of music’s most reclusive characters.
Thea Gilmore states I started recording a new album in May, songs I’d spent the previous winter writing. We were mixing said album by September and as the finishing line grew nearer I mused more and more on the events of the summer.
I had been recording as seismic social change happened, as Britain voted to leave the EU… recording as shocking news feeds appeared on my phone…recording the day after the Florida shootings, and on the day of Jo Cox’s murder.
My last few records had contained songs about love, relationships, parenthood, personal circumstances – but for the first time in a decade I knew I was making an album of songs which were my take on the tone of the times, the social and dare I say political climate… and by September we were living in a changed world.
Having felt that my new batch of songs presented a cohesive statement, suddenly – in amidst shock, numbness and bewilderment about all that had gone down – came a feeling that there was more I needed to say.
So in the course of 2 hours one evening during mixing I sat down at a keyboard and “The War” appeared.
And now I offer it up, prompted by a nagging notion that it should be heard in the dying days of the year which invoked it.
I humbly request that you watch right to the end of the video.
I offer it in love and respect to those to whom the year was not kind, and I trust that anyone listening hears not just the darkness in it but also the hope.
I can get a bit upset listening to Elliott Smith because I wish he had known a better time of life. I think he was amazingly talented, very clever, and understandably disappointed with much of what life had to offer him. Often, he sings with bitterness in every word, like he needed his songs to act as witness, judge and jury to one of the many injustices and pressures he perceived himself to be facing. But this one isn’t about alcohol, his parents, or the hollow soul of the record industry. Instead it’s a personal, honest song about missing a girl. I think he was a really vulnerable guy and I’ve got so much respect for the way he puts himself out there in this one.
From the awesome album Figure 8.
Lyrics:
I never really had a problem because of leaving
But everything reminds me of her this evening
So if I seem a little out of it, sorry
But why should I lie?
Everything reminds me of her
The spin of the earth impaled a silhouette of the sun on the steeple
And I got to hear the same sermon all the time now from you people
Why are you staring into outer space, crying?
Just because you came across it, and lost it
Everything reminds me of her
Everything reminds me of her
Everything reminds me of her
William Elliott Whitmore & Esme Patterson are both critically acclaimed and beloved by their fans for their distinct voices and style of songcraft. Whitmore’s hauntingly sparse rural twang and earthy, weather beaten vocals and Patterson’s dreamy 60’s soul-pop flecked indie sound might seem like a strange pairing at first, but these two seemingly very different songwriters have come together on this limited edition 7″ to do exactly what the title says… play each other’s songs. Two artists paying mutual respect to one another, showcasing each other’s unique songwriting prowess in their own thoroughly well-developed and road-tested style for a short musical detour.
A traditional housewife being cheated on by an insipid mansplainer – but wait. There’s a huge plot twist. At the end, when the housewife wanders around the house in the middle of the night, we find that the horrible man is actually slaughtering all of these women in their very own basement. Mitski brings all of the blood and gore into a somewhat sweet-sounding song, and adds even more detail to an already vivid story.
The Fat Angel Sings 