Kelsey Waldon, Leslie Stevens, Malin Pettersen and Mariel Buckley

I’ve spent the first vacation days in planning the forthcoming 18th Anniversary Festival, but now I’ll start the usual catch up special and during the next week or so I will share a lot of songs I’ve loved during the last couple of months.

Today this music journey starts from Nashville, where country songwriter Kelsey Waldon is getting ready to release her new full-length album White Noise/White Lines. The album is coming out on John Prine’s label Oh Boy Records on the 4th of October (Kelsey Waldon is the first signing in 15 years). The excellent first single Anyhow surfaced a few weeks ago with a music video. Check it out below before setting a camp outside the record store.

Kelsey Waldon Website

Moving on to Los Angeles to meet up with country singer Leslie Stevens and her magnificent songs. Her album Sinner is coming out on LyricLand LLC on the 23rd of August and it’s going to be a stunner based on the three advance singles. Here’s Depression, Descent, but the other two are equally awesome, so check them out wherever you listen to music these days. I haven’t even heard the album, but I’m already pretty sure that you’ll find this one from my year-end list.

Leslie Stevens Website

Next stop, Oslo Norway and the new norwegicana single Pause from Malin Pettersen. It’s an outtake from her forthcoming six-song EP Alonesome that is due out on the 11th of October on Die With Your Boots On Records. Solveig Selj made a video for this beautiful and moving single.

Malin Pettersen Website

The final destination of this little blog entry is Canada and more precisely Calgary, Alberta. Casting Stones is Mariel Buckley’s latest single. If I’m not mistaken this powerful song is a b-side for her marvellous 2018 album Driving in the Dark. It’s definitely way too good to be left in the drawer, so it’s good to have it burning its way into my heart now in 2019.

Mariel Buckley Website

Four Arms to Hold You is an ongoing feature with a weird name. It might not contain a whole lot of words, but it does contain a whole lot of love towards the featured songs. Basicly this is just four albums / songs / artists that have done their part in holding me together and therefore I want to tell the world or the seven readers of this blog how much I love them. Not entirely sure do these kind of posts serve any kind of purpose and I do hope I manage to write longer posts too. Right now it just feels like the playlists and these kind of short posts are the only way to keep this dear hobby alive. Plus it’s really the music that matters, not my random ramblings and these posts will always contain magical music.

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Pat Reedy & The Longtime Goners Finland Tour 8.8-11.8.2019

Pat Reedy & The Longtime Goners are touring around Europe in August and September. The tour also includes four shows here in Finland (Maarianhamina, Lahti, Luvia and Helsinki). These great country bands quite rarely end up in Finland, so don’t miss these concerts. You’ll find the Finland dates below. If you live elsewhere in Europe, check out all the tour dates from his website and/or Facebook.

2019-08-08 Pub Ettan, Mariehamn (FI)
2019-08-09 Ravintola Tirra, Lahti (FI)
2019-08-10 Anchors & Motors, Luvia (FI)
2019-08-11 Bar Mendocino, Helsinki (FI)

Pat Reedy & The Longtime Goners Website
Pat Reedy & The Longtime Goners at Facebook

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Black Sea Dahu, Caroline Spence, Kacy & Clayton and Izaak Opatz

A quick video post for tonight. Last year I discovered Swiss band Black Sea Dahu thanks to my FB friend Karen and I’m becoming more addicted to their music every single day. I could listen to the live at FluxFM version of In Case I Fall For You and this new single How You Swallowed your Anger all day long. Here’s a Berlin sessions video of my favourite song in the world today. It’s an outtake from their forthcoming EP No Fire in the Sand that is due out on the 27th of September on Mouthwatering Records.

Black Sea Dahu Website

Next up is the new music video from one of my favorite albums of the year. Who’s Gonna Make My Mistakes is an outtake from Caroline Spence’s brilliant album Mint Condintion that is out now on Rounder Records. Here’s some sweet and clumsy love in form of a music video that was directed by Steve Voss.

Caroline Spence Website

There’s a new and most likely wonderful Kacy & Clayton album on the horizon. Carrying On will drop into the record stores and our hearts on the 4th of October. A couple of singles are already out and available on New West Records. Sunny Adams directed a great music video for this second single The Forty-Ninth Parallel.

Kacy & Clayton Website

And finally a small step back to Mariachi Static. It’s an album by Izaak Opatz that originally came out in 2017 and then Mama Bird Recording Co reissued it in the summer of 2018. However, it’s definitely worthy of a revisit any day just because it’s so damn good. This time there’s an additional reason. Michael T. Workman directed a fabulous new music video for album cut Not Yet.

Izaak Opatz Website

Four Arms to Hold You is an ongoing feature with a weird name. It might not contain a whole lot of words, but it does contain a whole lot of love towards the featured songs. Basicly this is just four albums / songs / artists that have done their part in holding me together and therefore I want to tell the world or the seven readers of this blog how much I love them. Not entirely sure do these kind of posts serve any kind of purpose and I do hope I manage to write longer posts too. Right now it just feels like the playlists and these kind of short posts are the only way to keep this dear hobby alive. Plus it’s really the music that matters, not my random ramblings and these posts will always contain magical music.

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Four Arms to Hold You: Harrison Whitford, Erin Durant, Bedouine and Lucy Roleff

A busy weekend, but first one of these round up thingies. The weekly playlist might also be delayed until Monday. I’m not yet sure.

A new UK-label Screwdriver Records starts it career with a bang by releasing Harrison Whitford’s amazing album Afraid of Everything on the 28th of June. It’s an album that deserves a lot of love and recognition and I couldn’t be happier about it getting a proper LP/CD release. Nashville-based Harrison Whitford is a long time collaborator of Phoebe Bridgers and he self-released this remarkable record about a year ago. The fragile honesty wrapped inside poignant and eternally beautiful songs has been quietly haunting me ever since I first heard the record. So take a listen below and follow my lead to the label website and purchase copy of Afraid of Everything.

Harrison Whitford at Facebook
Screwdriver Records Website

New Orleans-born and NY-based songwriter Erin Durant has already been mentioned on these posts, but hey nobody’s counting. And there’s several great reasons to mention her magical songwriting again like a) Her wonderful album came out today on Keeled Scales b) I haven’t posted the album opener Rising Sun which is a song that I love wholeheartedly. So let’s go back to Islands, a place of spellbinding beauty.

Erin Durant Website

There’s also a stunning new Bedouine album Bird Songs of a Killjoy in this beautiful planet of ours. Spacebomb released it a week ago on the 21st of June and it’s like a perfect antidote against the every day hustle of the modern world. A moving light breeze that evokes deep emotions.

Bedouine Website

Tonight this journey ends in Melbourne, Australia with the enchanting new Lucy Roleff album. Left Open in a Room came out on the 15th of May on Lost and Lonesome Recording Co, Little Lake and Oscarson and contains absolutely mesmerizing chamber folk songs that will drift your troubles away.

Lucy Roleff Website

Four Arms to Hold You is an ongoing feature with a weird name. It might not contain a whole lot of words, but it does contain a whole lot of love towards the featured songs. Basicly this is just four albums / songs / artists that have done their part in holding me together and therefore I want to tell the world or the seven readers of this blog how much I love them. Not entirely sure do these kind of posts serve any kind of purpose and I do hope I manage to write longer posts too. Right now it just feels like the playlists and these kind of short posts are the only way to keep this dear hobby alive. Plus it’s really the music that matters, not my random ramblings and these posts will always contain magical music.

Continue Reading