Miesha & The Spanks mix fire and ice, Love Machine take us back to the good old days, Haviah Mighty keeps good company, Chelsea Lovitt is in a real state — and we’ve barely scratched the surface of the longest Weekend Roundup yet. Gird your loins and dig in:
1 | Miesha & The Spanks | I Want Fire
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Calgary’s Miesha and The Spanks present the video for their latest single I Want Fire. It was shot at front woman-guitarist Miesha Louie’s family cabin on Lower Kananaskis Lake in Alberta. “We didn’t anticipate the sweeping breeze across the lake that chilled us to the bone every time it came,” she shares. Drummer Sean Hamilton “had his thick winter jacket on between takes, and I was wearing a big faux fur jacket throughout, but my feet were like bricks of ice. I was wearing pantyhose and thin red leather boots, and lost all feeling by the second take. Sean’s partner was there with bourbon, and performing warmed us up because we were rocking so hard just to stay warm. When we were done I tried to switch back to my winter boots, only to find my socks frozen solid. I had to ram my feet into the boots because they wouldn’t bend!” I Want Fire is another taste of what’s to come in Singles EP out on April 16.”
2 | Love Machine | That Mean Old Thing
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Psychedelic garage rockers Love Machine share their single and video That Mean Old Thing, in which they catch up with their own male demons in a sweaty club. Remember live music in crowded, smoky clubs? After almost a year with Corona, scenes like those in the Düsseldorf band’s clip seem like from another world. While Richard Eisenach’s footage lulls us into hazy memories of better times, Love Machine reveal the feeling of failure and powerlessness caused by excessive alcohol abuse. After screaming out their anger over toxic role models in their last single The Animal, now it’s booze — the national shrine and fuel of a dilapidated man’s world — that has to bite the dust. That Mean Old Thing is the fourth single from the album Düsseldorf – Tokyo, out Feb. 26.”
3 | Haviah Mighty | Obeah
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “After kicking off the year with Antisocial, award-winning Toronto artist Haviah Mighty shows no signs of stopping. Today, she shares Obeah — a song produced alongside her brother Mighty Prynce. Centred around Haviah’s Caribbean heritage, Obeah focuses on trust, spirituality, her close connection to family and a belief that the energies around you dictate what you allow in your life in order to prosper. Directed by Jesse Dart, the video features cameo appearances by Haviah’s father (who is sampled on the tune) and friends. “I’ve navigated life off the strength of my parents’ teachings, and one of those [notable] teachings is to be mindful of the company you keep and of those you call your friends. Being of Caribbean descent, I’ve heard many stories throughout my life of Obeah man and Obeah woman from family and friends, Obeah being an occult power and celebrated secret religion which disturbs the natural flow of events by way of spells, spirituality and hidden practices.”
4 | Chelsea Lovitt | State Of Denial
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Nashville artist Chelsea Lovitt released her video for State Of Denial, a track is featured on her latest album You Had Your Cake, So Lie In It. “I wrote this song on a harmonica in a field in Delaware the month before going in the studio,” Lovitt recalls. “It was five in the morning and I’d been listening to Dylan. I had ambitions and ideas for this record to be influenced by Blonde on Blonde of course, and since we were doing it on tape and in Nashville I’d been listening to that and Nashville Skyline obsessively. I wrote this when I was in love, after not ever really being in it. It examines psychological issues that maybe stem from being from Mississippi because for some reason we’re prone to be emotional hoarders and it’s hard to ‘sift through that pile’ when it comes to letting go and living in the moment or especially being in love.”
5 | Chaser | A New Direction
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “The water’s rising, the debts are unpaid, We’re left to clean the messes you’ve made.” Established in 2000 in the heart of the SoCal punk scene, Chaser made a name for themselves playing fast, catchy and melodic skate punk. The band’s latest single A New Direction is blast of timely and politically charged punk rock and follows on the heels of their single 2020.”
6 | Wolf King | Holy Serpent
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Wolf King have dropped the third single from their upcoming album The Path of Wrath. Titled Holy Serpent, the Bay Area four-piece’s signature sound of blackened metal is as potent as ever. Accompanying the single is a live in-studio performance video, shot at Rapture Studio in Hayward, CA, where Wolf King spent time recording their upcoming album with Cody Fuentes.”
7 | Fires In The Distance | Sundial
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Fires In The Distance unleashed a live video for Sundial, taken from their album Echoes From Deep November. Recorded in late 2020 at with new drummer Jordan Rippe, the set itself perfectly captures Fires In The Distance’s blend of melodic death metal and doom atmospherics. Sundial is the second song from the session to be released, with the rest of the performance to be released in due course.”
8 | Machinist! | Bask In The White Light
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “The official music video for Machinist!’s Bask In The White Light was directed/filmed by the band’s bassist Matt Zagorski. Vocalist Jeff Hill states, “I wrote this song after someone complained about a music video we released where a guy stabs himself in the stomach and spits up blood. It’s not overtly gory, but someone online was upset by it. It really messed me up because it never crossed my mind that anything in this spooky voodoo magic storyline would evoke that response. So, I thought a lot about art and censorship and what an artist owes the world and how outside pressure can affect art. I wrote Bask In The White Light about not wanting to live in a cookie cutter world with cookie cutter art.” It comes from a split 10″ EP with Dead Hand out on March 19.”
9 | Shannon McNally | I Ain’t Living Long Like This
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “With her new album The Waylon Sessions, the prolific and wide-ranging Shannon McNally set out to revisit the songs and spirit of Waylon Jennings, a legend with whom she’s always had an ongoing fascination. “I have always loved his defiantly existential but immediately accessible common man’s music and how it boogies,” says McNally. But her collection of tunes ended up being not so much a tribute as it is a recontextualization; a nuanced, feminine rendering of a catalog long considered a bastion of hetero-masculinity. “The world has changed a lot since these songs were first recorded,” says McNally. “I have never heard a woman sing any of them, but these tunes are poignant and relevant to me and to women in general right now. As a songwriter, bringing a song to its full potential so that a larger or different audience can connect is all I’ve ever cared about.”
10 | Corb Lund | Horse Poor (ft. Jaida Dreyer)
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Corb Lund will release a deluxe edition of his album Agricultural Tragic on March 19. It features four bonus tracks recorded during the original sessions. Today he shares the video for Horse Poor, a previously unreleased fan favorite featuring Jaida Dreyer. Lund says: “Horse Poor is a song about the common western affliction of having too many ponies and not enough money. I helped my friend Jaida Dreyer write it, and she claims it’s a true story. That’s my hero and pal, Tom Russell doing the wedding vows on the recording, and our old buddy Colin Linden in the video (as a nod to his role as preacher from my favourite Coen Brothers’ film Intolerable Cruelty).”
11 | Gypsy Pistoleros | Lost In A Town Called Nowhere
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Gypsy Pistoleros have released the iconic single and anthem for the underdog Lost in a Town called Nowhere. It’s the first track taken from upcoming album The Mescalito Vampires. Described as the album they always promised to make, this release sees Gypsy Pistoleros fully embracing their fiery flamenco/rumba passion crossover punk rock ’n’ roll leanings with a Latin Rock equivalent of Appetite for Destruction. Gypsy Pistoleros are best described as being the ideal house band for the fictitious Titty Twister bar of Robert Rodriguez’s From Dusk till Dawn. Mixing Ennio Morricone’s tense, tumbleweed atmospheres, the Gipsy Kings’ manic Mediterranean energy, the New York Dolls’ raw glam spark and a surplus of prime GN’R attitude, the Pistoleros’ sonic style is captured to the full with the release of an album they have always threatened!”
12 | Aerial East | The Things We Build
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Brooklyn singer-songwriter Aerial East released her new album Try Harder on Friday. Over 12 tracks, East’s elegant desert folk finds peace within a universal feeling of groundlessness, creating beautiful odes to those of us who feel like our edges are rough and perhaps we don’t always quite fit in. The release is accompanied by a video for The Things We Build. Says East: “The Things We Build is about being from nowhere really, and struggling to feel ownership over a life you are building with someone who seems to have a more solid foundation.”
13 | Laila Biali | A Case Of You
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Juno-winning artist Laila Biali graces us with her stunning cover of the classic Joni Mitchell song A Case Of You. The captivating video was captured live off the floor at Revolution Recording Studios. “My first experience hearing Joni Mitchell’s music was when I was still a music student at Humber College,” shares Biali. “Hejira and Mingus were the obvious starting point for a Jazz novice as equally interested in the musicians accompanying Joni as in Joni herself. But then along came Blue. That was the one, the album that triggered a lifelong fascination with Joni and her songwriting. She made my heart ache with every feeling, love and loss in the same breath. No song captures that more for me than A Case of You. I think it’s the ultimate Valentine’s song because it can reach you no matter where you’re at — whether you’re in love, longing for it, or mourning it.”
14 | Alicia Blue | Blackbird
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Sometimes when you’re pressed so thin, crushed so flat that there’s no ‘You’ left, you can’t speak of the trauma,” explains L.A.’s Alicia Blue about the heavy subject matter of her new single Blackbird. “The unfathomable pain, too big, too vast to allocate energy towards, because your number one focus is, of course, to survive. To give an ounce of energy to this pain would surely annihilate you. An obstacle course race to the finish line; one misstep and you’re out.” While the themes may be weighty, Blackbird is airy, poetic and immediately engaging. Recalling the interwoven texture of Hozier with Taylor Swift’s impeccable ear for melody, Alicia tackles the complicated nature without anchoring the music.”
15 | Valleyheart | Scenery
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Marked by introspective lyricism, mournful melodies, lush blankets of driving guitars and wistful vocal deliveries, Massachusetts’s Valleyheart are equal parts boldness and beauty. Led by singer/songwriter/producer Kevin Klein, the four-piece formed in 2016 with the idea of rearranging Klein’s haunting folk songs (written in his home closet studio) into dynamic rock statements. Scenery lyrically touches on the idea of feeling stuck emotionally, mentality and even physically — and the ways we tell ourselves we need to change our environment to change ourselves. The track examines the way we shake up our surroundings in search of mental clarity and peace. With a simpler approach, the song finds inspiration from the likes of some early 2000’s alternative rock and creates its energy through a consistent groove and blend of drum machines and natural elements.”
16 | Wildboy Cooba | Heladero (ft. Chimbala)
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Rising international artist Wildboy Cooba has launched his new single Heladero. The interpreter of the urban genre, as he identifies himself, returns with a fun and energetic single featuring Dembow recording artist sensation Chimbala. Heladero, which translates as the Ice Cream Man, is a new dance song with contagious lyrics which samples the iconic Mr. Softee Ice Cream truck jingle.”
17 | Mxrty The Pxrty | Wannit All
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Mxrty The Pxrty is the alt/hip-hop project of Angelino rapper Martin Dovali. He says, “Wannit All is my debut track! It’s an anthem for any individual who has grinded their whole life and never gave up with massive unapologetic aspirations. In collaboration with longtime friend & producer Steve Wilmot, we teamed up to create a powerful, groovy bop with a chorus you’ll be singing with conviction throughout the day.”
18 | Eddie And The Getaway | Silver Linings
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Nashville by way of Arizona’s Eddie And The Getaway embody a fresh yet throwback sound that fuses 2000s pop-rock with the American storytelling of modern country. Eddie Eberle emphasizes the meaning behind “the getaway” stating, “It is not only about the music; it’s also about the freedom-filled lifestyle that surrounds it and these songs are the soundtrack.” His latest single Silver Linings “is about seeing through the tough times to find the good in them. I co-wrote and co-produced it with Lincoln Parish of Cage The Elephant after a conversation about how we have all gone through our own highs and lows when it comes to love and happiness. And as a new artist, I want my music to be a breath of fresh air and uplifting for the world.”
19 | Noble Oak | The Sun Dancing In Her Hair
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Vancouver electro dream-pop artist Noble Oak just released his latest project Stories. A veritable return to his musical beginnings, Stories is an instrumental piano EP. To celebrate, Noble Oak also shared the stunning performance video for the latest single, The Sun Dancing in Her Hair. Noble Oak’s Patrick Fiore says: “These five pieces are a return to the beginnings of my musical world. Since about as far back as I can remember, I have sat at the piano and played whatever came into my mind. Occasionally I would record what I played, and these pieces are five of those such recordings.”
