I’m finally on vacation and it’s time sink deep into new music. So if there’s something you want me to hear, now is the best time to send it over. I don’t know how much will I actually write during the vacation, but I’m definitely going to fill my iPod with new music, put the headphones on and rest by weary body and mind by listening to beautiful songs. There will definitely be some blog entries as well, but I don’t want add stress to my vacation by making promises that I might struggle to keep. Resting after a ridiculous work load is right now far more important than this little lousy blog.

I started tonight by listening to the duo tour EP Riley Pinkerton and Henry Black did a while back. It’s been something that I’ve been eager to hear, but haven’t had the time to listen to it properly until now. I got into Riley’s music when her EP Do You Have A Car came out in early 2016. I don’t think I ever wrote about it, but I really liked it and I’ve been following her ever since. My first introduction to Henry Black happened when Riley started posting cover videos on FB (like this) that she did with Henry. I’m a sucker for vocal harmonies and these two singing together just sounded heavenly beautiful to me. After falling in love with those covers, I tried to find everything I could about Henry, but didn’t find a whole lot. Thankfully things are about to change, because first there’s this duo EP and in August he will release his debut solo release Folk Is Dead. I’m extremely eager to hear it, because these two have a good thing going on. This EP might not be the most polished release, but I love these songs just as they are presented here and after a few spins the buy now button became irresistible. Here’s one gorgeous song from each songwriter from this lovely EP.

Riley Pinkerton Website
Henry Black Website

Milwaukee’s roots wizard, multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Joseph Huber released a new album The Suffering Stage a couple of months ago. I first fell in love with his songs when I bought the final album of The .357 String Band. His songs like The Days Engrave were the ones that I really loved. I’ve followed him ever since and have all the earlier solo albums.

If you make a best of Joseph Huber album with songs like Coming Down From You, An Old Mountain Tune, The Days Engrave then oh my what an album that would turn out to be. Extremely talented songwriter and the best songs are just out-of-this-world good. Maybe he hasn’t always been capable of keeping that insane level throughout a full album, but every release has still find its way to my heart. A few filler songs on each record is hardly an issue anyway. 99,99% of records have them. The Suffering Stage is an excellent addition to his strong song catalogue. This is Diminished Things from the new album.

Joseph Huber Website

I’m not sure am I going to do a mid-year best of lists. Probably not worth it. However, I did do a mid-year playlist. It’s mostly for myself, but I’ll post it here as well in case someone wants to take a listen. It’s already ridiculously long and I owe a beer to anyone who actually listens to it all way through. It’s not a definite best of the year list either. I’m sure I forgot a lot of stuff and several important ones like Leah Senior, Will Johnson, Fiver, Guy Capecelatro III aren’t available on Spotify. This is still a little under construction, but I’ll post it now, because the next work week will be horribly busy and I probably won’t have time to make it better. I might fix the order of the songs sometime later, because now there’s not a good flow and the songs are in completely random order and therefore it’s a little all over the place. I also might add another 20 when I notice what I forgot. Anyway, here are some 2017 songs that matter to me. Songs that I hold dear.

Canadian duo Kacy & Clayton will drop their new song collection into record stores and our hearts on the 18th of August. Siren’s Song was produced by Jeff Tweedy and will be released by New West Records. The wonderful first single The Light Of Day is out and available and Nakasone Folk also directed this gorgeous (albeit disturbing) music video for the song.

Kacy & Clayton Website