URL: https://christinesaade.ca/

Christine Saadé has a diverse background that imbues her musical work with unexpected flavor. Much of the surprise comes from its unusual juxtaposition with modern musical genres like dance pop; it spins the formulas powering these forms in a distinctive and highly individual direction. She’s produced an impressive body of musical work in a short amount of time that cuts across multiple genres without a single misstep and her songwriting efforts, no matter what style she assumes, are aimed solidly in a positive direction in the hopes that have an uplifting effect on listeners. Her latest release “Get Together” continues in that vein. It’s a buoyant exhortation for union between people instead of division and framed with clear, precise production that throbs with energy and warmth. She works with popular DJ and producer Twisted Dee on this track and her influence further strengthens an already impressive outing.

FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/magicmusiccolorado  

Americana doesn’t get much better than this. The debut album from Colorado based Magic Music represents the result of forty plus year wait. This band of talented genre devotees is far from some purist tribute to folk, bluegrass, country, and blues. Instead, the six piece have such a command over the fundamentals of those styles that they are able to use them as vehicles for self-expression and transform their formulas into signature touches. They’ve recruited a star-studded coterie of collaborators to further strengthen the performances. Bill Payne of Little Feat fame joins the band as well while Scarlet Rivera, Bob Dylan’s violinist from his mid 70’s studio release Desire and Rolling Thunder Revue tour, influences the release with the distinctive gypsy color of playing. There’s an abundance of music on this release but none of it is difficult to contend with and, frankly, the band seems incapable of making a wrong decision through. They avoid self-indulgence and keep the songs short and concise.  

URL: https://apassagetothestars.com/

The fourteen song ambient collection from Ricardo Alves, Hope, is a highly artful musical statement in a genre that is often derided or pre-judged as self-indulgent. The bulk of the songs on Hope are filled with intense emotions and moods that veer from bleak, icy hopelessness to quiet yearning and all points in between. The primary instrument driving these songs is, naturally, synthesizer, but the electronica conjures up a variety of other sounds that are surprisingly natural sounding despite their origin. Electric piano, brass sounds, and an assortment of percussion tones are well utilized in Alves’ attempt to weave mood and musical coherence together in one package. The ambient variations that Alves summons over the course of this collection has a great arrangement of colors and tempos that aren’t presented in an outright aggressive manner, but rise to claustrophobic levels at certain points.

Primary URL: https://redbeltmusic.com/

The first release from Milwaukee, Wisconsin’s RedBelt is a reminder that rock music may be moribund in terms of commercial visibility, unfortunately overtaken by pop and hip hop as the music of choice for many young music fans and concert goers, but that its artistic life remains as vital as ever. The immediacy provided by the four piece band setup has been recognized since the nineteen forties and fifties when classic country and blues artists first banded together in such configurations. Much of RedBelt’s power on their debut album Beautiful Surround comes from the combustible chemistry that they manifest between its four members. They, perhaps, overreach some by including thirteen songs on Beautiful Surround, but listeners should probably regard that as evidence of the level of inspiration they felt during the writing and recording process for this debut.

YOU TUBE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWeaQvREJiY

Team Love Records, co-owned by songwriter Conor Oberst and Nate Krenkel, has built its reputation on fielding some of the most creative songwriters and bands working today that are, more than likely, overlooked by the mainstream music buying public and giving them a supportive forum for releasing and promoting their work. In the case of Jemima James, Team Love has done a marvelous job of rehabilitation. The release of When You Get Old, paired with James’ 1979 never-released debut At Longview Farm, exposes fans of Americana music to one of the great unheralded talents of her generation. When You Get Old is a recent recording and amply demonstrates that James’ talents didn’t fade at all in the interim since those halcyon late seventies’ days but, instead, have only broadened and deepened since then. They are distinctly different releases, but put together as they are, they unintentionally provide a bit of autobiography in musical form and reveal much about James’ compelling journey from the folk rock world of the late 1970’s up to today. 

E-MUSIC: https://www.emusic.com/album/martin-x-petz/broken-man/16952110/ 

Songwriter Martin X. Petz has released a handful of exemplary albums since his mid-2000’s debut and the latest entry to his discography, Broken Man, incorporates all of the elements that distinguished those earlier releases while showing obvious, across the board growth. The nine tracks on this album have a great balance between Petz’s country/folk influences and his Midwestern rocker inclinations. The one constant, if there were no other, is Petz’s voice – it has a muscular tone while possessing gentle, yet dramatic, phrasing. His commanding vocals are, nonetheless, comforting as well and add a lot of value to the song’s more intense passages. He also knows when to switch things up; certain passages require a more dispassionate, even deadpan, delivery and he picks his spots well. The songwriting has a more secular feel than some of Petz’s earlier more spiritually minded recordings, but even when Petz has always stood apart as a songwriter who can convincingly write about the effect of faith and spirituality in his life without ever sounding preachy or harsh. Even shorn of metaphysical or philosophical matters, Petz’s writing is testimony.  

URL: https://www.djangomack.com/

These kind of performers never get old and the best of them bring a big part of themselves to every song they do. Forget influences. Django Mack, for sure, will remind you of some other singers, especially on “’Round Christmas”, but he’s far more than just some trivially talented imitator. Instead, this is an artist who can pick up the mantle of longstanding forms, shake them around, and make something different from them. He can even tackle the longtime tradition of musicians releasing Yuletide themed songs for the holiday season and not sound hammy or melodramatic with the results. There’s a highly stylized vibe affecting every second of “’Round Christmas” that sounds almost like Texas blues with the emphasis on reverb and distance-miking that the guitars receive, but it also takes on that slow blues swing that’s so common in the genre. He’s got an ably bodied crew of musicians backing him up on both songs here.  

FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/Kellymcgrathmusic 

The first single from Kelly McGrath’s fourth release, “You and Me Today”, arguably marks the zenith of this young performer’s career. The single is top shelf Americana with a soft commercial edge thanks to the modern production and the song’s numerous melodic attributes, but its merits run deeper. “You and Me Today” is also fearlessly mature and examines one of the most shattering and pivotal moments in a person’s life – the death of a parent and all the attending feelings of regret. McGrath examines this theme with a singing voice with enough power to blow out your speakers while also possessing the ability to lull listeners to sleep or make them weepy without ever cheaply pandering to the audience’s expectations or emotional needs. It’s further laudable that, despite such weighty subject matter, McGrath shows greater artistry by condensing this experience down to a song barely clocking in at over three minutes. There’s no self-indulgence here.  

FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/souleye 

Souleye hit the national music scene with the release of his 2002 album Soul Sessions and the eight albums that have followed since then rank among the most unique work in rap and hip-hop history. Souleye set out, from even those earliest days, to bring something different to this genre and that commitment to standing out from the pack continues with his latest single “Follow Your Heart”. This common phrase might be considered cliché by some, but Souleye isn’t an artist who traffics in clichés. Instead, he invests this title with both a personal and larger meaning that any feeling and deep thinking audience will be able to relate to, plus it is married to a musical arrangement that shows great intelligence and, likewise, has enough rhythmic excellence to encourage anyone listening to start moving in response. Wrapping up his weighty message with such a strong musical foundation makes it even easier to digest its import, but Souleye’s own vocals are the primary vehicle through which he communicates meaning. He communicates it spectacularly well.  

BANDCAMP: https://jemimajames-tl.bandcamp.com/ 

Jemima James spent the last half of the 1970’s working at Longview Farm Studios spending time around some of the era’s great performers and artists. She harbored talents and ambitions of her own that lead to writing and recording material she intended for her debut album, but the songs were never released. She soon stepped away from the music industry altogether, married, and pursued her living in another way. She continued writing songs during this time period and one of her children, Willy Mason, inherited his parents’ youthful passion for pursuing a musical career. He told his new label Team Love Records about his mother’s unreleased album from thirty plus years ago and, suitably intrigued, label founders Connor Oberst and Nate Krenkel pursued the tapes and have ensured that this lost classic of 1970’s folk rock sees a proper release. At Longview Farm has ten songs that dabble in a number of styles but rely, primarily, on James’ obvious command of the Americana genre.