Sharon Van Etten hits her teenage years, Ariel Posen goes it alone, Tom Wilson hits light speed and more in today’s Roundup. This is not a test! Repeat! This is not a test! Unless it is!
1 Janis Ian learned the truth at 17. Stevie Nicks fell in love on the edge of it. Craig Finn and The Hold Steady dreamed of staying there forever. Now it’s Sharon Van Etten‘s turn to look back at that golden age. Two decades after the fact, the 37-year-old singer-songwriter and actress has a chat with her teenage self — and takes you on a tour of some of her old New York haunts — in the surging and passionate heartland noise-rock single Seventeen, the latest preview of her hotly anticipated Jan. 18 album Remind Me Tomorrow. SAYS THE PRESS RELEASE: “Seventeen originally began as a Lucinda Williams-esque dirge, but wound up as more of an upbeat nod to Bruce Springsteen, exploring gentrification and generational patience. Van Etten shows the chain reaction of moving to a city bright-eyed and hearing the elders complain about the city changing, and then being around long enough to know what they were talking about.” Learn the truth above.
2 How long is long enough? It’s one of those questions that nobody knows how to answer. Except maybe Ariel Posen. The Winnipeg singer-songwriter hotshot guitarist from Bros. Landreth steps into the spotlight with his debut solo LP — appropriately titled How Long. Get into the mood with this live video of the title cut, which toes the line between roots and R&B. SAYS THE PRESS RELEASE: “This album is 30 years in the making,” says Posen. “An amalgam of my influences, my upbringing and my life. This album focuses on reflection and looking back, but always moving forward.” Step into the practice room:
3 As if Tom Wilson‘s identity weren’t confusing enough already. The singer-songwriter, Junkhouse alum and Rodeo King — who also happens to be the man/myth/icon/iconoclast behind the musical mask of Lee Harvey Osmond — recently discovered his true Mohawk parentage, lineage and heritage, inspiring his upcoming album Mohawk. Based on the irresistibly snappy and breezy preview cut Forty Light Years, he has also discovered that he’s the illegitimate son of JJ Cale. SAYS THE PRESS RELEASE: “Forty Light Years is a “cannonball prayer straight to my mother’s longing heart … a timeless quest for bonding and the nagging desire for freedom all disguised in a groovy 3:24 burning saunter,” Wilson says. “I write these songs because I have to. I’ve finally earned that right. They often get dismissed as an offering from some ‘veteran rocker’. Allow me to fuck that shit for you right now…” You kiss your mother with that mouth?
4 Some folks say the devil is in the details. Not Abigail Lapell. For the Toronto roots-rock singer-songwriter, the devil is in the deep. As in blue sea. Hear what she’s talking about on the dark and delicious Devil in the Deep, the latest track from her upcoming third LP Getaway. SAYS THE PRESS RELEASE:
“Devil In The Deep is “kind of a rock anthem that’s equal parts religious symbolism and nursery rhyme,” says Lapell. “I’m fascinated by these very stylized, mythical kinds of language – the devil in music is such a timeless cliche, and water slash redemption imagery crops up a lot in my songs on this album. To me the devil figure in this song is something dark and enthralling but also a bit playful, like a trickster – maybe a good metaphor for the process of creating art.” Sing hallelujah:
