In case you are looking for a kick-ass country record, you can put the map aside for a moment and just hit play below or use that map to navigate to the nearest record store and purchase a copy of the new Sarah Shook & The Disarmers album Years. It came out on Bloodshot Records on the 6th of April and it’s one of my favorite records of the year. A lot of the songs revolve around toxic relationships, but even the downhearted moments of the songs have certain bite and fearlessness that kick out the misery from the heart of the listener. A damn brilliant and badass record and I can’t wait to see the band live at STHLM Americana festival in June.

Sarah Shook & The Disarmers Website

Aaron Goldstein has worked with a lot of great Canadian artists/bands, including many of my personal favorites like Daniel Romano, Bry Webb & Matt Paxton (he was also here in Finland playing pedal steel on Daniel Romano’s first Finland tour a few years ago). Besides doing touring, recording and producing work with/for other artists, the man also writes excellent alt.country songs and releases them under the name Espanola. He just put out a new digital single. The lead track is an excellent countrified rock’n’roller Outside Saskatoon and b-side is a cover of The Tragically Hip song It’s A Good Life If You Don’t Weaken. More to come hopefully later this year.

Espanola at Facebook

One of my latest music obsessions has been this single by Future States and especially the song Bugaboo (Heaven is great too). I first heard it over at The Wild Honey Pie and instantly loved it. This beautifully arranged pop song is now out as digital single and was released by Golden Brown. I definitely need to investigate the back catalogue, because these Canadians seem to master this art of making rich and warm-sounding pop songs. Sort of takes me back ten years to the time when I was heavily into things like The Heavy Blinkers discography and the debut full-length Animal Bells from the Australian pop wizards The Crayon Fields. What a fabulous pop song.

Future States Website