Major news if you ask me. Daniel Markham will release his new album Disintegrator on 6th of May. The regular readers of this little blog/website are well aware that I absolutely love the previous Daniel Markham album Pretty Bitchin’. It’s one of my favourite albums of this current decade. Needless to say that I’m extremely excited that there will be follow-up in a few weeks time. I just pre-ordered over at Bandcamp and can’t wait to get my hands on the album when it arrives. I will get back to this once I’ve actually heard the album. So far I’ve only heard this title track and opening track Disintegrator and I LOVE IT. Popmatters also has a premiere going on for the music video for the song. So follow this link, if you want to get both sound and vision.

As previously mentioned, the pre-order is currently going on at Bandcamp. This is Disintegrator.

Daniel Markham at Facebook

1st of April was a pretty great day for music and bad one for my bank account. Robbie Fulks, The Burning Hell, Woodpigeon and Charles Bradley all released new albums. The first three are all very dear and important to me and my feelings towards Charles might soon reach the same level.

Me and Robbie, we go way back. I think I started listening to him in the late nineties, when I heard his album Let’s Kill Saturday Night. I think that was among the first country-flavoured albums I grew into with Wilco, The Jayhawks and the likes. So Robbie was one of my gateway drugs into this thing country/folk thing that has become my biggest addiction. I did lost track of him in the late 00s for a few years, but Robbie’s songs have been With me for the most part of my adult life. His previous album Gone Away Backward in 2013 was the one that got me and Robbie fully back together. Perhaps Robbie doesn’t rock me anymore, but I’ve grown older with him and actually prefer to rest my weary head on the warm shoulder of the gentle sway of these folk tunes.

The new album Upland Stories is now out on Bloodshot Records and continues to the same direction that Gone Away Backward started. I think this might well turn out to be the finest album that he has written. Beautiful and warm folk/bluegrass sounds and wonderfully written stories set in the uplands. It’s both entertaining and deeply moving. It explores the humanity and keeps a warmhearted perspective (somehow even during the times it deals with the fragile and/or unsettling sides of people and their lives). Upland Stories is a great example of the fine art of songwriting. This is the opener Alabama at Night from this magnificent album.

Robbie Fulks Website

Richmond Fontaine’s new and final album You Can’t Go Back, If There’s Nothing To Go Back To is now out and available on Decor Records and Fluff and Gravy. I’ve only listened to it a few times, but it’s already safe to say that they are going out with a bang. The High Country was good, but perhaps a little too challenging for my limited taste. This new one on the other hand. Oh my. This sounds absolutely brilliant and I can’t get wait to get fully drawn into these songs and stories during the coming days/weeks. Richmond Fontaine is one of the very best bands of the last twenty years and will be greatly missed. However, when it’s time to step aside, this is a magnificent way to do it. Release a 5 hearts out of 5 record and go on a tour to support it.

Thankfully Richmond Fontaine’s final tour will reach Finnish shores as well. They will be here in a few weeks time. These are duo concerts, but I’m still sure that these are going to be something very special. The Finland dates are these:

Richmond Fontaine (duo) + Fernando Finland tour.

5.4 – Helsinki, FI – Korjaamo
6.4 – Tampere, FI – Telakka
7.4 – Turku, FI – Gong

This is Whitey and Me from the new Richmond Fontaine album You Can’t Go Back, If There Nothing To Go Back To.

Richmond Fontaine Website

Aimlessly browsing Bandcamp has been very rewarding lately. I’ve fallen in love with two albums during the past week. First that Nick Procyshyn album that I already wrote about and find absolutely thrilling and now this new Caleb McCoach album Vanity that I found yesterday and been listening to for hours and hours today.

Caleb McCoach is a folk singer-songwriter from Indianapolis and his new album just came out on In Store Recordings. There’s a serene and at times even hymnal beauty on this that fills my heart with warmness. Sure there’s a lot of sadness and fragility too, but somehow it gets overshadowed by the peace that runs through me while I’m listening to this. I can’t say I’m a very religous person, but a song like Love Yr Neighbor has a certain spiritual harmony that will find even the parts of my body that can’t be found from a human anatomy encyclopedia. The album sounds quite bare and lo-fi, but that’s actually a good thing and only adds to the intimacy and honesty of this little work of art. You can hear/buy the whole thing on his Bandcamp, but here are a couple of amazing songs from the album.

Small update a few days later:

This album is still so brilliant and I’ve spent a huge amount of time listening to it. Heavy issues so beautifully told. Painfully devastating human weaknesses and amazingly beautiful delivery go hand in hand. Vanity is a truly stunning album. I’m not sure does it really make sense, but it kind of does two things simultaneously, rips me open and makes me whole. It’s a real work of art.

Caleb McCoach at Facebook