International music, News

Roseanne Reid, Iain Micah Weigert, Kate Vargas and Lily Dabbs

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Hey look, another round up posts of songs and albums that I happen to love. Other vacation things to do today, but there’s time for one quick blog post. We shall begin from Edinburgh, Scotland with Roseanne Reid’s debut full-length Trails. This beautiful album came out out Last Man Music on the 5th of April. Teddy Thompson produced and Steve Earle makes a guest appearance, but Roseanne Reid and her captivating folk and country songs are the real star here. Here’s two gorgeous outtakes from the album, a music video for Amy and the first single I Love Her So. You’ll need to hear the whole album though (Levi is probably my biggest favorite, but these were easier to embed to a blog post).

Roseanne Reid Website

Next up is Iain Micah Weigert from Nashville, Tennessee and his 2019 album Dust to Mud that came out on the 24th of February. The highlight is the beautiful duet Wishful Drinking with Caitlin Anne Webster, but everything else works too. Here’s an early Nightingale Rodeo video of the same song and another excellent album cut. As usual, listen to/buy the whole album by hitting those links in the bandcamp player.

Iain Micah Weigert Website

Moving on to New York and getting ready to gently sway with the latest Kate Vargas single Nothing Turns My Lock. She is exploring old-fashioned jazzy horizons on this marvellous new single and it works perfectly. Here’s a gorgeous live in studio video of Nothing Turns My Lock. Filmed by Rob Dezendorf in Dubway Studios in NYC.

Kate Vargas Website

Last destination on this tour is Athens, Georgia and a new album from Lily Dabbs. I don’t know anything about her, but I really like this self-titled record that came out on the 25th of July. I just found it because I always go through new americana releases on bandcamp and listen to them (if I like the cover art). Her beautiful timeless voice instantly grabbed my attention and soon I discovered she was also able to write really good songs. Here’s one of them called Nowhere Road.

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, International music

Shotgun Jimmie, Bad Heaven Ltd, Wojtek the Bear and Butcher the Bar

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Continuing with these vacation crafts with another small round up posts of songs and albums that I love. Tonight the journey begins from Canada with the new Shotgun Jimmie album Transistor Sister 2 that was released by You’ve Changed Records on the 2nd of August. This follows up the original Transistor Sister eight years later and it is another super catchy and immensely charming collection of short pop treasures. Here’s a making of video and one (should-be) hit from the new record. Buy/listen to whole album by hitting the bandcamp links on that player below.

Shotgun Jimmie Website

Next we travel south to Philadelphia, USA. Strength is the new album from Bad Heaven Ltd and it came out on the 2nd of August. I’m not very familiar with John Galm’s earlier work (I know I probably should know the band Snowing), but better late than never and all the other cliches. Therefore I arrived into the arms of Strength without any expectations, but I’ve found it to be a good place to stay. Darkness and hope travel hand in hand as does beauty and distortion. It all cuts me through me in a good way. Here are my early favorites Cross and 100 from the album. Again hit those links in the bandcamp player to hear/buy the whole great album.

Bad Heaven Ltd at Facebook

Moving across the ocean to Glasgow, Scotland albeit the band name Wojtek the Bear might suggest that this is a Polish indie pop band. I had not heard anything about them before I saw this new video/single A Long Wait for Bad News on my twitter feed while searching new songs for the weekly playlist. I started listening and was in love in a split second. Partly because it reminded of the legendary Finnish indie band Sister Flo, but mostly because it’s such a fantastic pop song. The digital single in question is now out on Scottish Fiction and will appear on physical 10″ vinyl later in the year.

Wojtek the Bear Website

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Final destination tonight is Manchester, UK and the new Butcher the Bar album III that came out 14th of June on the most excellent Spanish pop label Bobo Integral. This is a real pop bliss right here. Beautiful melodies and sweet pop jangle. A must for Teenage Fanclub fans, because that’s where the mind drifts several times and that’s obviously never a bad thing. Joel Nicholson and Co have done really well. Here’s a couple of personal favorites. Rosa and the music video for Haunts. And same as above, follow the links on the player for the whole experience.

Butcher the Bar at Facebook

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, International music

Little Wings, Florist, Jordan Moser & Justin Peter Kinkel-Schuster

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Tonight this little round up begins from California with the sweet sounds of the new Little Wings album People. Physical copies have been out for a while, but it’s now out in the digital world too. I bought my download just a while ago and I’m listening to it for the first time while I write this. So I don’t have a clear picture of what are my favorite songs or so forth, but I already know that I’m going to love this record. Here’s Kyle Field and co and Cliff’s Face from the new Little Wings album.

Little Wings Website

Traveling on to Catskill Mountains to experience something quietly monumental and absolutely mesmerizing. The new Florist album Emily Alone came out on the 26th of July on Double Double Whammy and it’s a very special record. It’s dark and vulnerable, but somehow still so soothing and beautiful. It’s difficult to describe the walk I had with this album. It’s like we carried each other out from the dark and for that I’m grateful.

Florist Website

Continuing with huge recent favorites. Jordan Moser is a singer-songwriter from Austin, Texas and his album Long Night came out on the 26th of July on Keeled Scales (who are putting some real pressure on Mama Bird Recording Co in the imaginary best record label in the world battle. Just joking of course. There’s no battle. Just hugs and kisses. I love both dearly). Anyway, this is a tremendous album full of gorgeous literate country folk and sang beautifully by Jordan Moser with more than a little help from Molly Burch who features on every song. A pure bliss from first note to last.

Jordan Moser Website

And let’s wrap tonight’s little blog entry in Oxford, Mississippi with a song from an album that’s not out yet, but it’s definitely one I’m waiting eagerly. Justin Peter Kinkel-Schuster’s (from Water Liars) new album Take Heart, Take Care will be released on the 30th of August by Big Legal Mess. The stunning title track has been out for a while. Check it out below and then join me in counting the days until the release. I’ll need some, because I’m horrible at math.

Justin Peter Kinkel-Schuster 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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Playlist

OCTA Weekly Playlist Episode #53

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Another week, another weekly playlist.

I tried, but it was too difficult to skip this list this week, because so much good stuff came out both internationally and in Finland. I’ll try again next week. On other news, I’ve been mostly planning that 18th anniversary festival and it’s going on quite nicely. If you want to be a part of it either as an artist or as a member of the audience (in both cases this happens wherever you are), hit those links in the right column for more information.

The biggest album release of the week was the new Tyler Childers album, but there’s so much more and most of them seem to be excellent based on very brief listening at this point. New albums came from Mike and the Moonpies, RF Shannon, Shotgun Jimmie, Bad Heaven Ltd, Karine Polwart, Angela Perley, Elaina Kay, The Teskey Brothers, Joseph Robert Krauss, Tenement & Temple, Native Harrow (euro-release), Jade Imagine, Jordan Jones, Taylor Hollingsworth, Matt York, Edan Archer, Deadbeat Beat and Rainy Eyes. That took a while to write let alone listen. The Paranoid Style also makes first appearance this week, I missed that a week ago. There’s also a new EP from Andandending.

Three new great Finnish albums too this week from verões, The New Magnetic North and Pykäri. The new single from Tyynyt is the fourth Finnish entry to this list.

And as usual a ton of new singles. For examples new ones from the forthcoming albums from Esther Rose and Leslie Stevens. Really looking forward to those. Vincent Neil Emerson is another big favorite this week. He is a new one to me, but I will keep an eye on him after this wonderful tune. Everything else would be worthy of a name drop too, but you’ll find them from the list below.

That’s it for now. I’m on vacation for one more week, so I’ll try to do some blog posts early in the week. Later on I need to catch the Pat Reedy concert somewhere in this country, because he is coming over to play in Finland late in the week. All the best and love.

1. Mike and the Moonpies – If You Want a Fool Around (Cheap Silver and Country Gold, Prairie Rose Records, 2019)
2. Tyler Childers – Bus Route (Country Squire, Hickman Holler Records / RCA Records, 2019)
3. RF Shannon – Ballad of a Thin Place (Rain on Dust, Keeled Scales, 2019)
4. Shotgun Jimmie – Fountain (Transistor Sister 2, You’ve Changed Records, 2019)
5. Bad Heaven Ltd. – Cross (Strength, 2019)
6. Karine Polwart – Whatever’s Written In Your Heart (Karine Polwart’s Scottish Songbook, Hegri, 2019)
7. verões – Something Precious (verões, 2019)
8. The New Magnetic North – Letters on the Floor (Letters on the Floor, 2019)
9. Angela Perley – Local Heroes (4:30, 2019)
10. Elaina Kay – Saint (Issues, Rockin’ C Records, 2019)
11. The Teskey Brothers – San Francisco (Run Home Slow, Decca Records, 2019)
12. Vincent Neil Emerson – Letters on the Marquee (single, La Honda Records, 2019)
13. Esther Rose – Lower 9 Valentine (single, Father/Daughter Records, 2019)
14. Joseph Robert Krauss – Catch Myself (Do You Feel Better Now?, Tone Tree Music, 2019)
15. Leslie Stevens – Sinner (single, LyricLand, 2019)
16. Tenement & Temple – Loving Arms (Tenement & Temple, Thrum, 2019)
17. Native Harrow – How Do You Do Things (Happier Now, Loose Music, 2019)
18. Jade Imagine – Gonna Do Nothing (Basic Love, Marathon Artists, 2019)
19. Jordan Jones – How to Be (Jordan Jones, Beluga Records, 2019)
20. Pykäri feat Nick Triani – Pumped Up With Memories (O, PME Records, 2019)
21. Tyynyt – Matto alta (single, Nefer Maglev, 2019)
22. Queen of Jeans – All the Same (single, Topshelf Records, 2019)
23. Anna Ash – Apologies (single, 2019)
24. Spirit Family Reunion – Would You Would or Would you Won’t (single, 2019)
25. Taylor Hollingsworth – Back of the Line (Tap Dancin’ Daddy, Flower Moon Records, 2019)
26. Matt York – Bruisable Heart (Bruisable Heart, 2019)
27. Darrin Bradbury – Talking Dogs & Atom Bombs (single, Anti-, 2019)
28. Christopher Gold & The New Old Things – Wander (single, 2019)
29. The Highwomen – The Chain (single, Elektra Records, 2019)
30. Lillie Mae – A Golden Year (single, Third Man Records, 2019)
31. Edan Archer – Younger Man’s Game (single, Journey Proud, 2019)
32. Bonny Light Horseman – Bonny Light Horseman (single, 2019)
33. Andandending – All Inside (Lots in Thought EP, Sound of Music, 2019)
34. Rachele Eve – Love Is a Wheel (single, 2019)
35. Molly Burch – Your Party (single, Capture Tracks, 2019)
36. Long Beard – Means to Me (single, Double Double Whammy, 2019)
37. Pretty Matty – Another Shot (single, Get Better Records, 2019)
38. Deadbeat Beat – Baphomet (How Far, Arrowhawk Records, 2019)
39. The Paradoid Style – Expecting to Fly – Economy (A Goddamn Impossible Way of Live, Bar None Records, 2019)
40. Jason McCue – Shadows (single, 2019)
41. Cataldo – Ding Dong Scrambled Eggs (single, 2019)
42. Frog – It’s Something I Do (single, Audio Antihero / Tapewormies 2019)
43. Tim Bluhm – The Only Solution (single, Blue Rose Music, 2019)
44. Tanya Tucker – The House that Built Me (single, Fantasy Records, 2019)
45. Rosier – Vie penible (single, Famgroup, 2019)
46. Rainy Eyes – Moon in the Mirror (Moon in the Mirror, 2019)
47. Angel Olsen – All Mirrors (single, Jagjaguwar, 2019)
48. Florist – I Also Have Eyes (Emily Alone, Double Double Whammy, 2019)
49. Jordan Moser – Between the Stars (Long Night, Keeled Scales, 2019)
50. Philippe Bronchtein – Beneath the Bridge (Oregon Air EP, 2019)

Playlist link

Oh and do buy the vinyl/cd/download. Spotify and other streaming services are perfect for these introductory purposes, but try to buy at least the music that matter the most to you

If you are looking this after a week has gone, the embedded Spotify will show the latest playlist. I’ll just update the same playlist because a) if someone wants to follow it, they can just follow that one list and will get a new set of songs each Sunday b) so that I don’t have a trillion of different playlists on my Spotify account.

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