Damien Jurado has a new album The Horizon Just Laughed coming out 4th of May on Secretly Canadian. I haven’t really been super excited about the last few Damien Jurado albums, because I just wasn’t that much into the experiments and the sonic adventures. However, the reason for that is mostly my own narrow-minded music taste and objectively there’s nothing wrong with the albums. Damien Jurado gets to decide what Damien Jurado sounds like, not some Finnish twat who writes a blog in his bedroom. And I do quite like the last few too, but I loved everything before them. This first outtake Over Rainbows and Rainier from the forthcoming album on the other hand, oh my, everything about this song. Damien is fully back in the love column. What a quietly monumental song. Song of the year caliber. I can’t wait to hear the full-length in a few months.

Damien Jurado Website

I think I have a whole lot of listening to do. Clint Michigan led me to the solo music of a former The Moldy Peaches member Toby Goodshank. It looks like this NY-based songwriter has about 14 or 15 solo albums available and your badly educated blogger had heard none of them before last night. It might take a while to introduce my heart to that most likely amazing collection of songs, but better late than never and all the other cliches. His latest album Dream On Me came out on the 9th of March and I’ve been listening to it a lot during this weekend and I love it. Such a beautiful warm-sounding folk rock / indie rock album. I’ve only scratched the surface of it, but I’ve already felt both smiles and tears on my face. <3 gave out, Call Me Dad, I Can Just… Spinning.. oh well all of them actually are just so damn good. Here’s a couple of personal favorites. Buy/listen to the whole beautiful thing over at Bandcamp.

Toby Goodshank Website

A long time favourite John Calvin Abney is preparing a release of his new full-length album Coyote that is due out 18th of May on Black Mesa Records. He is a great songwriter and musician from Oklahoma and his 2016 album Far Cries and Close Calls is very dear to me. Since then he has toured as the lead guitarist for John Moreland, but somewhere along the way he also found the time to write a new magnificent solo album. The first outtake Every Now and Then premiered earlier in the week at Glide Magazine and it sounds marvellous to me. He also has a new split single with Tim Easton on the Different Folk label. A lot more about Coyote and John Calvin Abney closer to the release date.

John Calvin Abney Website

Time flies too fast and I struggle to feature all the beautiful music that is being released. I’ve been meaning to write a longer piece about this, but let’s at least do a quick return to The Village Ordinary album The Needle Spins. Louisville musicians John Pedigo and Chad Acton have written a great banjo-driven folk album and I absolutely must share the song Partly Cloudy on this blog. It’s very affecting, heartfelt and it’s kind of like a shoulder to lean on. One of my absolute favourite songs of 2018 so far. Follow the bandcamp link to listen/buy the whole album.

The Village Ordinary at Facebook