I purchased this beauty of an album months ago and there’s a huge burden in my back, because I haven’t even mentioned it. Time to get that burden off, because my muscles are sore enough as they are. Anna Tivel is a songwriter from Portland, Oregon and her third album Heroes Waking Up came out in May on the always great Fluff and Gravy label. The album is full of moving songs, stories and characters. Excellent songwriting and extremely captivating music and my mind sort of sets up a visual scenery for these songs to take place. Here are a few examples from Heroes Waking Up. You can grap/listen the whole thing on her Bandcamp.

Anna Tivel Website

Another exhausting 13 hour work day. I think I need to start searching for a new job before this thing will wear me out completely. Thankfully there’s always music that can take care of the tired mind and will grant some reprieve to all this nonsense that one has to do to get by. I don’t have the energy for a long blog post, but this was a mighty good release Friday once again. New ones from Drive-By Truckers, Freschard, Luke Winslow-King and this solo debut from Water Liars frontman Justin Peter Kinkel-Schuster. The album Constant Stranger came out today 30th of September on Big Legal Mess and it sounds absolutely wonderful to me. Just what I needed right now and I’m fairly sure this constant stranger will soon turn into a friend that I hold dear. This is an excellent song called Laid Low from the album.

JPKS Website

I don’t follow power pop or whatever you want to call that melodic heaven with power chords, catchy hooks and harmony vocals nowhere near as much as I did 10 or 15 years ago. That’s kind of a sad, because that’s still and forever will be the foundation of my music taste. Maybe I had a little melodic overdose too somewhere along the way, because I don’t get as easily excited about power pop albums these days. I’m sure people are still making great records and I should just dig harder. I do every now and then check my trusted sources like Powerpopaholic and Absolute Powerpop to keep myself informed. I’m very pleased that they are keeping this thing alive, so old chaps with power pop hearts like yours truly can get their monthly fix.

Despite everything I said above I still love rockin’ pop music and I might be contradicting myself in this blog post. Ryan Allen and His Extra Arms from Michigan is one of the guys that I’m still following closely and listen to everything he puts out. His new album Basement Punk comes out this Friday 30th of September on Save Your Generation Records. I’ve had the chance the listen to it for the past four weeks and while listening to it I’ve felt fourteen years younger. Mal ‘n Ange has been my jam lately and it’s breathing life back into my pop addiction. It makes me want to make nostalgic trip to my record shelf and start blasting those all-time favorites by TFC, The Posies, Matthew Sweet, The Sugarrush, DM3, Popsicle.. and I probably will do that and I will be smiling all the time. So thanks Ryan for such a great pop record that turned out to be my very own Cocoon. This is Mal ‘n Ange. You can hear the rest and/or buy a copy on his Bandcamp page.

Ryan Allen at Facebook

M. Lockwood Porter from Berkeley, CA released his new album How To Dream Again a couple of weeks ago and it has been in heavy rotation ever since. The earlier albums Judah’s Gone (2013) and 27 (2014) were already rather convincing efforts and How To Dream Again takes this thing one step further. Besides still being a great blend of a large amount of first-class americana songwriting and a small share of good old rock’n’roll, the album tackles hard but true issues like social injustices in a very beautiful and moving fashion. This is like a theme running through the album although you will also stumble into some gorgeous love songs along the way. The album is now out on Black Mesa Records (USA) and Hidden Trail Records (UK/Europe). Here are a couple of amazing songs from the album. Reach the Top might not be the hit or even the song that I will listen the most times from this album, but damn that one strikes hard when you really listen to it and pay attention. Excellent songwriting.

And the music video for the album opener American Dreams Denied.

M. Lockwood Porter Website