I should start making those year-end lists, but I still have a few dozen 2014 releases that I haven’t featured at all. Some that even might appear on those lists. So I try to shortly go through some of them before writing those lists later in December.

Red Jacket Mine is a Seattle-based group that has been featured here a few times over the years. Their new EP called Pure Delight came out a few weeks ago and I’ve been fully enjoying their soulful rock once again. Here is my favourite songs from the new one. It’s called Crow and features Shane Tutmarc on co-lead vocals.

Red Jacket Mine Website

Staying in Seattle. Next we have Paul Gonzenbach. He had his albums available for name your price deal at Bandcamp earlier in the year. I picked up four of them and paid 5-6 dollars. Which was criminally small amount based on how much I’ve enjoyed them during this latter part of 2014. Paul Gonzenbach used to be in The Jim Yoshii Pile-Up, but nowadays he is releasing fabulous music under his own name. My favourite out of these is last year’s Notify Your Friends: Everything Ends, but his 2014 releases are also excellent. This one is the opener from the album Drew Breath and it’s called Breakneck Speed.

Paul Gonzenbach at Bandcamp

Moving on Tucson Arizona where French born Naïm Amor is making some rather magical albums and film scores. His new album Hear The Walls has been a bit of a surprise favourite here at the onechord.net headquarters. It can turn the dark anxiety of Finnish fall / early winter into something serene, but colourful. This beautiful record is now out on Fort Lowell Records. This is Turn The Magic On from that lovely album.

And here’s a little short film about the man and guitars.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWpmyogl53k]

Naïm Amor Website

Why aren’t The Perfectos the famous? I really love this stuff. I first got into The Perfectos through John Davey. He was a guest at Youngblood podcast and he chatted about The Perfectos with the host(s). Then they played this song:

Ok, that might not be the second coming of the Christ or anything like that, but it’s a damn wonderful pop song and that’s all I needed to hear. I picked up everything from their Bandcamp, paid a few dollars and after that I’ve been a fan of The Perfectos. They are from Kentucky and have released four releases that are all truly enjoyable. Their 2014 release is called Songbirds & Wolves and this is a little different from (but equally magnificent) that rockin’ power pop of Better Off This Way. Here’s a pretty song from the new EP called Portrait.

The Perfectos at Facebook

And because John Davey led me to this, I suppose it would be a good thing to post a song from John’s wonderful new album Living is Trying. This has been one of my favourites during this fall/early winter and most likely will appear on my end of the year list when I make them later in December. This is the opener Left Arm from the new John Davey album.

John Davey at Facebook

I really love finding new music with the help of artists I love and this was a perfect example. Sometimes I think that I should try to make some sort of artist’s choice column where my favourite musicians would recommend their own favourite songwriters/bands. Ok, not exactly original idea and I’m not sure would musicians have any interest in wasting their time recommending someone else’s music instead of chatting about their own. This is probably not going to happen, but it’s something that I would personally love.

I can’t exactly remember how I found this album at Bandcamp a couple of weeks ago, but I’m extremely pleased that it happened. The music instantly won my heart over, I bought the download and this has been on heavy rotation ever since. I’m probably very late to this party, because it looks like Guy Capecelatro III has released a lot of music over the years. Based on Magnet mix-tape article I read, he has a lot of friends that I admire (like Sidney Lindner, Jill Andrews, Tim Showalter), so I probably should have stumbled upon this treasure of literate folk music of his way sooner. Thankfully I did found it now and I’ve been enjoying his new album Scatter the Remains a whole lot lately. Especially the songs Atoms, Scattershot and Stupid Moon are worth all the hearts. It’s certainly not the happiest album I’ve heard, but somehow those beautiful slow-paced melodies and that warm and kind atmosphere of the songs still makes me feel like I’m going to be just fine. I’ve been also listening to Guy’s older album North for the Winter and it’s equally wonderful. You can stream/buy the whole thing at Bandcamp. Here are some wonderful outtakes from Scatter the Remains that came out on Burst & Bloom Records in November, 2014. Music video for the song Unknowable + Stupid Moon and Atoms from the new album.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgvUkZjCRW0]

Guy Capecelatro III at Facebook