Here’s my summer in a nutshell: I get up, do some work, look out the window, see that it’s a beautiful day, and head outside to sit on my patio and soak up a little sun. Cut to 20 minutes later, when the clouds start to roll in, the sun disappears, a chilly breeze picks up and the first raindrops appear. Happens every damn time. Oh well. On the plus side, here’s a slate of new singles and video from some of our country’s finest musical artists — and none of them will rain on your parade:
Charlie Houston | Pink Cheetah Print Slip
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “ ‘I know you’re gonna miss this’, Charlie Houston wryly declares in her queer breakup anthem Pink Cheetah Print Slip, before it explodes into a high-energy indie-pop track that falls somewhere between Wet Leg and Le Tigre. The rollicking fuzzed-out single from her debut album tells the story of an ex-girlfriend leaving her to date a dude in a band. ‘I hope he’s shit on stage and all his songs sound the same,’ Houston spitefully exclaims. “The hardest part of a breakup is not the actual breaking up,” Houston explains. “It’s when someone moves on. Obviously, this is unavoidable, but it’s shockingly worse when your ex-girlfriend moves on with a dude that you know… who also just so happens to be a musician.” The track arrives with an official visualizer courtesy of The Reggies, the director duo behind videos for bbno$, Meghan Trainor and Dillon Francis.”
Zdan | Save Me (Rock n Roll) Live
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “I give you a second new tune live before it’s even out on record. Save Me (Rock n Roll) was recorded by Jace Kayarte at the historic Basement in Nashville. This continues the drops every month this spring and summer. Are you loving it? Are you all caught up so far? Share and TURN IT UP.”
Ghostkeeper | Raven
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Cîpayak is a Cree term that translates as ‘the ghosts are dancing’ and it is often used to describe the Northern Lights. Originally in the running as an alternative to the Ghostkeeper band name, Shane and Sarah finally adopted it as the moniker for their collective visual art practice. Their debut show included music the two had cooked up with tech wizard and longtime engineer Brad Hawkins, and following this initial jolt of inspiration, the three began descending to the basement for a string of collaborative, off-the-cuff sessions. These sessions quickly became defined by new working methods that were the direct inverse to those that have produced the ‘Ghostkeeper sound’ to date, and the three uncovered some truly fresh new sonic territory for the band. “Brad would come down to the basement, Sarah would work up a drum beat, and I’d start improvising, coming up with different vocal ideas and other melodic parts, finding the songs in the sounds,” Shane recalls. “It was all about being immediate, with no premeditated ideas.”
Numb Talking | Walk With U
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “The solo shoegaze/rock project of Sufian M., Numb Talking’s debut album Dead Leaves And All is a loud and psychedelic diary of fatigue, adult life changes and the joys that can root even in the toughest times. Downtuned guitars, manic delays and meditative lyrics invite the listener to feel the exhaustion of grief and acceptance, the lightness of burdens dropped, and the mischief of madness. Incorporating glitching and degrading delays on vox and guitar, Walk With U came about from a heavy yet playful conversation and walk with a friend. The structure of the song had been conceived via voice notes in the woods. The music explores the electric guitar’s timbres and potential to vocally express without word, setting tension/connection between the spoken and unspoken. From distorted arrangements to dreamier reprieves, the instruments play with energy and fatigue among layers of synthesis, distortion, and expression of the voice and its disfigurement.”
Mo Kenney | Signs Of Life
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “On their fifth studio album, From Nowhere (out Sept. 6), Mo Kenney embraces the textures of ambiguity and the rich blur of being, failing, and becoming. As they shift through lush arrangements that touch on dreamy folk, sparse alt-country, and warm, hazed-out lo-fi pop, everything is up for interpretation and nothing is fixed. In their lyrics, Kenney opts instead to defy definition, making room for non-linear and fragmentary sentiments that challenge their own feelings about personal growth, acknowledge the slippery and shadowy nature of memory, and build love songs that conjure the bonds of friendship just as much as they hint at romance. On the darker Signs of Life, Kenney addresses an unbearable and obscure fissure; with recalling a loss of innocence in idyllic rural Nova Scotia, mixing sun-kissed organ with cryptic, unsettling choruses. “When writing this song I was considering that sometimes how you are taught to love isn’t the best way,” Kenney says. “There can be unlearning to do as you move through your life and discover things about yourself. There can be parallels between early relationships and how you navigate romantic relationships.”
Golden Feather | Never Give Up On You
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Hamilton’s Golden Feather dive deeper into the worlds of funk and yacht rock on Never Give Up On You, a horn and bass-driven number that at first listen comes off as a straightforward love song. In reality, band member Bradley Germain explains that Never Give Up On You is “more about self care and self love than it is romantic love. I have thought of others when singing it — appropriated moments to live inside this. Ultimately, I’m looking in the mirror and wanting to be worthy of love. Also — this was a watershed moment for the band. This was a stylistic shift, away from the folkier to the funkier. A lot of dynamism in this one.”
Michael Bernard Fitzgerald | Forever And Always
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Following the success of his most acclaimed record to date, Love Valley, Calgarian singer-songwriter Michael Bernard Fitzgerald is set to release his sixth album Horizon Lines later this year. Created throughout the transformative journey of fatherhood, the new music continues to weave together soulful sounds and introspective words, reaffirming a dedication to crafting songs that speak to the heart. Fitzgerald is sharing the album’s second single, the bright and driving Forever and Always, co-produced and recorded with Josh Gwilliam. Its pristine acoustic guitar and anticipatory percussion provide the backdrop for what Fitzgerald refers to as a song akin “to the dance we do when finding a partner and building a love.” There are hopes and dreams we have for ourselves in love and then there is also the capacity we have to give and receive that care. So much growth is needed to truly partner, to truly get past parts of ourselves to really become a team.”
Harkness | View From The Moon
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Harkness releases his new single View From The Moon, a summertime song full of warm and colorful vocal harmony in the Brian Wilson tradition. The heart of the song reminds us that all we need is our imaginations to reach the highest highs in both our bodies and souls.”
