Hold the press, we have major news! There’s new music from Joey Kneiser & Kelly Smith. Seven inch split single coming up 23rd of September on Different Folk Records. Joey wrote both songs and sings one side and Kelly sings the other side. Kelly’s side is called Lost in The Wind and it’s already available in form of a magnificent music video. It’s an incredibly powerful song dedicated to everyone who has lost a sibling. Even though I knew it’s going to be special even before hitting the play button, it still took my breath away and stopped the time. Ever since I heard it, I’ve just been listening to it over and over again. You can watch the video below and pre-order the 7″ from Different Folk Records.
In a couple of weeks (September 17 to be more precise) this little amateur-ish blog turns 15. The summer flew by fast and I was too lazy to set up anything to celebrate this minor event. Minor in the grand scheme of things, but quite a big deal for me personally. Despite all its flaws, I’m still far prouder of this little hobby than anything I’ve achieved in the real work life. I don’t really know anything about music theory and couldn’t learn to play an instrument to safe my life, but One Chord to Another has never been about music critique or writing analytic pieces about music. The whole purpose has been just to love music passionately and wholeheartedly and share those crushes and lifelong addictions with the world or the few regular readers.
I’m not really sure what the future holds from now on. Even though I love doing this, this is also a giant drain on me, because I’m continuously stressed about not having the time and energy to write about everything that matters to me. The goal was to get to 15 and soon I will be there. I’ll finish this year as usual and figure out in January what’s the next move. I guess the options are a) just quit b) carry on as before c) find some new less draining method to continue this. C might be the preferred option at the moment, because I might not have the heart to stop completely, because onechord.net has been such a big part of my life for such a long time. As long as I could figure out the way to do it without the guilt of neglecting that and that awesome release. We shall see how it goes.
While I don’t have anything super special planned for this anniversary, I thought I’ll at least do what onechord.net is all about. So leading up to the September 17 blog birthday, I will be sharing the songs that I’ve fallen madly in love with during these 15 years of onechord.net. Mostly focusing to the last five I think, because I covered some important ones when I reached 10 years. It’s very obvious that I have to start this thing with my biggest song crush of recent years. Fuck The Government, I Love You by The Burning Hell. I’ve probably listened to this a few hundred times, but I just can’t get tired of it. You’ll find the song from the latest The Burning Hell album Public Library that came out in the spring on the great BB Island label.
Chris Staples has been on heavy rotation here lately. A month ago I fell in love with the first outtake Relatively Permanent from his new album Golden Age. That little tune is still one of my favourite songs of the year and I also bought the download of the earlier album, which turned out to be brilliant. The new album came out yesterday 19th of August on Barsuk Records . I haven’t listened to the whole thing yet, but I will buy a vinyl as soon as possible. However, there’s a new video for the title track Golden Age that I haven’t posted yet. The song is almost as good Relatively Permanent and somehow this video with renaissance costumes made me think of Gilmore Girls. So what’s not to love. I admit that I might be waiting too hard for the forthcoming Gilmore Girls comeback, because even such a far-fetched thing reminds me about that show.
And here’s that gorgeous Relatively Permanent as well.
Finnish soul wizard Tuomo Prättälä and americana/folk singer-songwriter Markus Nordenstreng joined forces, headed to Tuczon, Arizona and made an album with people like John Stirratt, John Convertino, Joey Burns, Jakob Valenzuela, Pat Sansone, and Gary Louris. That’s quite an all-star cast and I’m sorry for entering into this dreadful namedropping state. This namedropping of people I admire is making even me exhausted, but thankfully I can soothe my soul in the arms of a rather amazing record. It’s the music that counts and the fact that this features members of Wilco, Calexico, Autumn Defense and The Jayhawks will open a door or two, but the doorman still wouldn’t let them in, if the music itself was uninspiring and didn’t hold any value. Nothing to worry about the quality of the songs though. Everything works beautifully and the album Dead Circles contains some of the finest material these fine gentlemen have written over the years. Vanity Blinds is by far my favourite moment on this gorgeous album. Starts as a very classic Nordenstreng song that I’ve been enjoying since late nineties and rises to new heights with the gorgeous arrangements and beautiful instrumentation. A real work of art. The whole album is for the most part. Maybe a song or two feel a bit indifferent after a few spins, but that might be just me being an ignorant twat.
The album Dead Circles is out now on Grandpop Records. I highly recommend the beautiful gatefold vinyl (includes CD). There’s a couple of extra tracks too. So it’s not only the usual it looks and sounds better thing. You’ll get a little bit of extra by purchasing the vinyl.
Here’s the new music video for the song All Blue. I hope it’s perfectly ok to share this. It wasn’t on their website, but I found this from the director Paola Suhonen’s youtube and it was on their Facebook too. I’ll remove it asap, if there’s an issue.
