Country, Americana, Folk, Power Pop, Indie Pop
A quick video post, but an important one. Elephant Micah is a long-time favourite of mine. Last year Western Vinyl released his excellent album Where in Our Woods. The highlight of this beautiful album was the last song Rare Beliefs. I’ve listened to it so many times that my math skills aren’t good enough to count them all. Rare Beliefs is a rare beauty and a song that I hold dear.
[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=Pg7mgm5suUs]
One of my biggest music heroes, Emitt Rhodes, just released a new album. His first in 43 years. This is a huge deal. He is a big part of the history of pop music. Ok, maybe not world famous in the grand scheme of things, but incredibly influential and definitely a huge part of the history of pop music that I’ve (and a lot of other people) experienced. First as the leader of the excellent 60s pop group The Merry-Go-Round and then releasing four perfect or near-perfect solo albums in the early seventies that gave him the nickname “The One Man Beatles”. I can monstrously recommend all of those. They are cornerstones of my music education. If you want a starting point, I would go with the self-titled solo album, but you really can’t go wrong with any of them.
But enough about the past. It has been a few years in the making, but finally we have a new Emitt Rhodes album called Rainbow Ends. It came out on Omnivore Recordings on the 26th of February. I’m just spinning it for the first time on Spotify (I will pick a physical copy from a record store later) and it’s safe to say that Emitt hasn’t lost his touch. This is sounding mighty fine to my ears even on first listen and it’s very clear that the man can still make heavenly good pop music. Even though Emitt himself of course takes the spotlight, the album also has a real all star cast. There’s appearances from people like Jason Falkner, Jon Brion, Roger Joseph Manning Jr, Aimee Mann, Susanna Hoffs etc. Oh my. It’s like two generations of pop geniuses working together and creating a little bit of magic. My 90s pop heroes backing Emitt Rhodes in 2016. I couldn’t possibly ask for much more. Great to have you back Emitt.
[youtube=http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vwklFEv0Z68]
Going through all the promo e-mails is a tough task, because even my tiny amateurish blog/website gets hundreds of them every week. Thankfully there’s a reward there sometimes (albeit not very often) and I end up finding a treasure that I probably wouldn’t have found otherwise. Songwriter Dori Freeman from Galax, Virginia and her self-titled debut full-length is one of these rare treasures. The album was produced by Teddy Thompson and it’s a real, sincere and beautifully sung collection of americana songs. I could listen to her sing all day long even if the songs weren’t that good and there’s nothing wrong with her songwriting either. This is Go On Lovin’ from the album that recently came out on Free Dirt Records.
I haven’t selected an album of the month for almost a year, but this album Mowing by Michael Nau inspired me to bring this feature back to the blog. I fell in love with this one like 17 seconds after I started listening. Here’s what happened. I was browsing my Bandcamp feed and saw that Mr. Hi54lofi had bought this. I did remember the album announcement from a couple of months ago and knew that I need to check it out once it arrives. However, I had forgotten about it until saw it sitting there on my feed and I instantly hit play and almost instantly I fell in love and started writing overenthusiastic tweets about it. Fast forward a few days and our relationship is still just as strong as when our hearts collided. A remarkable album.
Michael Nau has a great band called Cotton Jones with his wife Whitney, but unfortunately that lovely band has been on a hiatus lately. Solo-Michael now comes to the rescue by delivering an album full of sweet and timeless folk-tinged pop sounds. According to the press release it’s more like just bits and pieces recorded in different sessions and that he just wanted to get these out of his system and didn’t really plan on creating an album. Nevertheless, the end result is the best thing I’ve heard in 2016 so far. The down-to-earth, low key beauty of it is completely irresistible. It’s remarkable that something that is in a way so small, can have such a huge impact. I love everything about this album. Sometimes it falls close to Bahamas-like sweet and charming pop songs and other times it might be in the same ball park as Little Wings and his careful sonic experiments. One thing is certain. It’s absolutely magnificent all the time.
Mowing by Michael Nau is now out on Suicide Squeeze Records. This is Smooth Aisles from the album.