Pony Bradshaw – Bad Teeth
I had extremely high hopes for the Pony Bradshaw album Bad Teeth, because the first outtake Josephine was/is a mighty fine candidate for the song of the year award. Bad Teeth is finally out and available at Bandcamp and it mostly fills my expectations. Ok, perhaps nothing else completely reach the same mountain high level of Josephine (Work comes close), but that would have been an unfair assumption, because that is such a monster of a song. There’s no shortage of great songs on the album and there’s so much to love. Especially the latter half of the album is friggin’ awesome. Work, Bad Teeth, Lafayette and Josephine is one hell of a way to finish an album. These slow tempo ones really drill their way into my heart. A very impressive album.
Bone Moon – Thresher
Bone Moon is the new moniker of Ochre Room frontman Lauri Myllymäki. He released the debut Bone Moon song/video Thresher on 20th of May and as expected it sounds absolutely magnificent. The start of this new adventure is very impressive and I’m so eager to hear more and see how this thing develops in the coming months and years. Ochre Room was very dear to me and Lauri is such a damn brilliant songwriter / vocalist / musician. Sami Pöyry directed this beautiful music video for the first Bone Moon song Thresher.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGhModLHB-E]
Luke Bell – Sometimes (video)
American country singer-songwriter Luke Bell will release his self-titled album on 17th of June and I’m very eager to hear it, because I really enjoyed his previous one Don’t Mind If I Do that I bought from his Bandcamp a while back. Actually the only unfortunate thing about this new album is that some of these songs already appeared on Don’t Mind If I Do. However, in this case it’s perfectly understandable to use some of that excellent older material, because not that many people heard it and these songs deserve and demand to be heard. This video track Sometimes is one of those (should-be) hits that was on the earlier one, but I still love it and there’s not many places I’d rather be right now then at that bar singing along to Sometimes with Luke and other heroes like Patrick Sweany and Erin Rae.
[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=3p2oXxQgvwQ]
Also highly recommend this Luke Bell video
[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=TFjRViiH5nY]
Kalispell – Printer’s Son (new album June 3rd)
Here’s another shout out of great things to come this summer. Kalispell’s wonderful album Printer’s Son will finally see the light of the day thanks to Cartouche Records. I backed the Kickstarter project so I got the digital copy sometime last year and absolutely fell in love with the album. It would have been in my top 10 for the year, but I asked Shane Leonard about the release date and he told me it will come out officially in 2016. Therefore I left it out and saved it for my best of 2016 list.
Shane Leonard is a multi-instrumentalist and producer who has worked with Field Report, J.E.Sunde, Stray Birds etc. Hopefully Printer’s Son will turn him from liner note wizard to a front row hero. Kalispell deserves a lot of love. The album is a thing of great beauty where old Appalachian music gently collides with modern folk music. The pre-order is now up on Cartouche Records website. I think I might have to pick up that vinyl myself as well, because that early digital copy is not enough. The excellent first outtake from the album Windfall is now available and you can hear it below.