Four Arms to Hold You, International music

Four Arms to Hold You: Shane Leonard, Jo Schornikow, Adam Ostrar & Joanna Sternberg

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I’ve been super slow with my blog writings, but this time I wanted to quickly feature the album that matters the most to me right this minute. It comes from Eau Claire, WI and it’s the new Shane Leonard album Strange Forms that just came out on the 31st of May. It’s starting to look like Shane Leonard is going to rule my year end lists in December, because this solo album is a lock just like the albums he produced for Anna Tivel and Clara Baker (probably Her Crooked Heart too, but haven’t listened to that enough at this point). Anyway, Strange Forms is now out and available and it’s a tremendous album full of beautifully arranged warm-hearted folk songs. Title track Strange Forms and Postcard Laundry are the (should-be) hits and Maybe Next Year takes my breath away. Everything else works too. Extremely highly recommended.

Shane Leonard Website

Next I am again stepping into the Keeled Scales treasure vault to dig up the beautiful new album from Australian songwriter Jo Schornikow. This softly shining and quietly mesmerizing album carries a name Secret Weapon and came out the 29th of March. This is my personal favorite song Martingale.

Jo Schornikow Website

The label of the previous pick came from Austin, Texas, so let’s stick there for a little while to enjoy a magnificent song from the new Adam Ostrar album The Worried Coat. This lovely work of art came out on Super Secret Records on the 5th of April. Personal favorite is the gentle sway of Bloody Waves and you can listen to it below. However, this just one side of this engaging story that ranges all the way to 70s British folk vibes. So take a moment or two and spend it in the comfort of The Worried Coat.

Adam Ostrar Website

Wrapping up tonight’s Four Arms to Hold You story with one of my favorite songs of the year. Joanna Sternberg is a New York-based songwriter and her new album Then I Try Some More is due out on 12th of July on Team Love Records. My expectations are sky high, because I’ve loved both advance singles that have been released so far. This is the powerful first single This Is Not Who I Want To Be.

Joanna Sternberg 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 #44

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Another week, another weekly playlist.

Hurray, I’m on summer vacation part 1. I try to use part of it to catch up on the emails and write some blog posts. Of course I need some rest from absolutely everything too, so there will be quiet days too.

The biggest release of the week for me was the new solo album from Shane Leonard. I’ve said it many times, but I’m a big fan of his work. Besides making this marvel of an album, he has produced some of my favorites of the year (Anna Tivel, Clara Baker, Her Crooked Heart). Ian Noe, Natural Bridges and Her Crooked Heart were others in my big four this week, but there were also lots more. The list contains songs from the new albums by The Resonant Rogues, red steppes, Rose Hotel, Kitty Kat Fan Club, Wayne Graham, Charlie Collins, LeAnna Eden, Jenn Grant and Doug Seegers. A couple of older ones too from Irish Mythen, The Infinites, Vilma Flood and Alanna Eileen (Don’t know how I managed to miss the Alanna Eileen a couple of weeks ago, because I had checked it at least dozen of times since February whether it’s available). A couple of gorgeous EPs too from Erin Rae, Carl Anderson and Nico Hedley (ok, not sure does two songs count as an EP, but it says so on Spotify. Well whether it’s a single or EP doesn’t really matter. What matters is that it’s brilliant. Thanks to Dan for this one).

The Finnish release week was pretty strong too, because there’s full-length albums from Janne Tapion Sisäinen Avaruus and Matti Sakari, an EP from Local Al and new singles from Havut, Maustetytöt and The Flaming Sideburns. I’m very fond of that Janne Tapion Sisäinen Avaruus album. It’s so great.

On the singles front, there’s a new awesome RF Shannon song. Gabi Hartmann is a completely new one for me, but I really like the song. Further proof that going through giant vault of promo emails is sometimes worth it. Megan Palmer, Nathan K., Espanola were some other personal favorites, but every song would again be worthy of a namedrop in this text too. Molly Parden gets some bonus points for covering The Gin Blossoms classic.

There’s definitely some sad songs here, but like Matthew Ryan sang in one of the finest songs of the year. Hope is not absent from these songs. Love yourself and others. That’s all for now. Several blog posts should appear next week and as usual the playlist on Sunday. Take care.

1. Shane Leonard – Maybe Next Year (Strange Forms, Wayward Chicken, 2019)
2. Her Crooked Heart – Pleasant Valley Reservoir (To Love to Leave To Live, 2019)
3. Natural Bridges – Clouds (Residual Daydreams, Royal Oakie, 2019)
4. Ian Noe – If Today Doesn’t Do Me In (Between the Country, National Treasury Recordings, 2019)
5. The Resonant Rogues – Autumn Of The World (Autumn of the World, 2019)
6. Hideout – I Won’t Give Up (single, 2019)
7. Erin Rae – Can’t Cut Loose (Putting On Airs 4 Track Demos EP, Single Lock Records, 2019)
8. RF Shannon – Wild Rose Pass (single, Keeled Scales, 2019)
9. Alanna Eileen – April (Artifice, 2019)
10. red steppes – High Growth (Arcs, Native Cat Recordings, 2019)
11. Gabi Hartmann – Always Seem To Get Thing Wrong (single, Secret Sun Recordings, 2019)
12. Rose Hotel – Would You Believe Me (I Will Only Come When It’s a Yes, 2019)
13. The Infinites – Miriam Stein (The Infinites, First Humans Records, 2019)
14. Kitty Kat Fan Club – Send Me a Message For the Holidays (Dreamy Little You, Asian Man Records, 2019)
15. Stanley Brinks & The Wave Pictures – Sober In Barcelona (single, Fika Recordings, 2019)
16. Nico Hedley – Hydrangeas (Late Bloomer / Hydrangeas EP, Whateve’s Clever, 2019)
17. Janne Tapion Sisäinen Avaruus – Hiljaisuus (Maapallon Hautajaiset, Lumpeela Julkaisut, 2019)
18. Havut – Unessa (single, Lumpeela Julkaisut, 2019)
19. Matti Sakari – Laulu kaislikosta (Valoraitoja, 2019)
20. Maustetytöt – Se oli SOS (single, Is This Art? 2019)
21. Local Al – Selkään puukottaja (EP 1, Soliti, 2019)
22. The Flaming Sideburns – Soulshaking (single, Bad Afro Records, 2019)
23. Megan Palmer – I’m Doin’ Fine (single, 2019)
24. Carl Anderson – Bottom Of the Bottle (You Can Call Me Carl EP, 2019)
25. Wayne Graham – If Thought Could Kill (Songs Only a Mother Could Love, Celebration Records, 2019)
26. Jacob Faurholt – The Dark Isn’t Right (single, Raw Onion Records, 2019)
27. Nathan K. – Brightly (single, 2019)
27. Matthew Milia – Puncture (Alone at St. Hugo, Sitcom Universe, 2019)
29. Molly Parden – Found Out About You (single, 2019)
30. Charlie Collins – Mexico (Snowpine, Mirror Records, 2019)
31. Jenn Grant – Our Love (Love, Inevitable, Leovela, 2019)
32. LeAnna Eden – Ease Your Soul (Ease Your Soul, Chapman, 2019)
33. Irish Mythen – Deep Dark Woods (Little Bones, 2019)
34. B. Knox – Deep Dark Love (single, Three Mast Records, 2019)
35. Shawn Hess – Picture From a Magazine (World Away, 2019)
36. Doug Seegers – Out on the Street (A Story I Got To Tell, 2019)
37. Reece Sullivan – Lamentations (single, 2019)
38. TK & The Holy Know-Nothings – Hard Times (Arguably Ok, Mama Bird Recording Co, 2019)
39. Espanola – A Lesson (single, Surly Young Records, 2019)
40. Sean W Spellman – Baby Blue (single, 2019)
41. Kirby Brown – Little Miss (single, 2019)
42. Signe Marie Rustad – Die With Your Boots On (single, Die With Your Boots On Records, 2019)
43. David Smalt – On The Mountain (single, Palo Sante Parade, 2019)
44. About You – Boundless Angel (single, 2019)
45. Cross Record – PYSOL My Castle (single, Melodic Records, 2019)
46. Palehound – Black Friday (single, 2019)
47. Florist – Shadow Bloom (single, Double Double Whammy, 2019)
48. Vilma Flood – Fan Of You (Moodswinger, Rusty Music, 2019)
49. Faye Webster – Hurts Me Too (Atlanta Millionaires Club, Secretly Canadian, 2019)
50. Sufjan Stevens – Love Yourself (single, Asthmatic Kitty, 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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Four Arms to Hold You, International music

Four Arms to Hold You: red steppes, Reb Fountain, Merival and Erin Durant

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Beginning tonight’s journey through music from Oakland, California with a spectacular live performance from Nika Aila States. She releases music under the name red steppes and her new album Arcs will be released this Friday 31st of May by Native Cat Recordings. This is a mesmerizing live version of album outtake Madera.

red steppes website

Crossing the pacific and moving to Auckland, New Zealand for the new Reb Fountain single Faster. I’m quite new to her music and I am still in the middle in the process of introducing my heart to her songs. However, it’s been a really good match during these first few months I’ve had her songs on my side. Faster is the first single and outtake from the forthcoming Reb Fountain album that is due out on the 27th of September.

Reb Fountain Website

Next stop Toronto, Canada where songwriter Anna Horvath aka Merival is getting ready to release her debut full-length Lesson on the 21st of June. You can already find three excellent singles from her bandcamp. My personal favorite is the latest one No Brakes. Max Parr also directed a gorgeous music video for this moving song. Watch it below and check out the other beautiful songs on her bancamp page.

Merival at Facebook

Final destination tonight is New York and the songs of Erin Durant. I’ve been planning to make a some sort of Keeled Scales special feature, because the label is having such a strong year. I still might do that special too, but let’s begin by sharing a single or two from the forthcoming Erin Durant album Islands that is due out on the 21st of June. All three singles have been enchanting, elegant and timeless and I can’t wait to hear the whole record. This one is going to be a beautiful treasure.

Erin Durant 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.

Continue Reading