Kelly McGrath - You and Me Today FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/Kellymcgrathmusic Kelly McGrath is a Nashville based songwriter whose talents defy easy categorization. Many listeners and merchants will label her as a member of the Americana genre, but her latest single demonstrates a singer, lyricist, and songwriter whose range is much wider than a narrow genre classification. There are similarities. There is no doubt of that. However, McGrath’s material has a much more personal slant than the genre’s usual assortment of pastoral invocations to worlds long gone or paeans to the simpler life. Her first three albums show a songwriter concerned with the same troubles plaguing us all, but able to express them in an unique, highly individual fashion. Those efforts reach their zenith so far with her latest single “You and Me Today”, an impassioned and quite musical confrontation with grief. Kelly McGrath does not flinch. She faces presumably the biggest loss of her life with wisdom beyond her years and talent that transcends any tragedy.
Christine Saadé - Get Together (Ft. Twisted Dee)
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/Christine.Saade.FB Canadian born musician, vocalist and songwriter Christine Saadé has recorded and released a series of well-received singles illustrating her audaciousness and vitality in the electronic dance music scene. Her newest single “Get Together”, a cut from the forthcoming EP release HYSC? EP 1, ups the stylistic ante quite a bit. She delivers a dance pop anthem for the masses that doesn’t cut corners but, instead, gives listeners a pyrotechnic and fully-rounded musical experience. The song features the talents of DJ Twisted Dee, but even one hearing will convince anyone that Saadé maintains the largest presence in this song thanks to a showstopper vocal. The song runs a little under four minutes in length. This shouldn’t be confused for a bare bones approach to songwriting in this style. She packs the experience of three songs into this compact package and the result is explosive.
Project TO - The White Side, The Black Side MI2N: https://mi2n.com/press.php3?press_nb=193642
As conceptual efforts go, the debut release from Project-TO surely rates as one of the more all-encompassing examples of the form released in the last quarter century. The White Side, The Black Side is a twelve song opus with a grad over-arching design. The first six songs are intended to reflect the album’s “white” side and rely on the big beats and airy flair common to most techno and electronica while the “black” side are meant to be photographic negatives of those same songs, but cast in a distinctly different manner while sharing the same running time. Some might wonder if the second set of six songs are little more than remixes – nothing could be further from the truth. Instead, it is better to hear the second set of six songs as re-interpretations of the same material from a completely different mood. The “black” side, unsurprisingly, is darker and leaner than its white counterpart. The production is simply superb thanks to Project-TO member Riccardo Mazza’s judicious hand manning the boards.
Bunny Sigler - White Christmas
URL: https://www.bunnysigler.net/bio
Since his 1960’s debut, Bunny Sigler’s voice has been featured on an assortment of recordings, solo and otherwise, that stand today as classics of the R&B/soul genre. The Philadelphia native, nicknamed “Mr. Emotion” by admiring fans, exerts an influence that has extended deep into the 21st century long after many of his contemporaries have either died or disappeared into obscurity. His songwriting has been included on recent releases from Jay-Z while he’s continued to write new original solo material and record. His upcoming album When You’re In Love At Christmas Time is Sigler’s entry into a traditional sub-genre that he’s never turned his attention to until this point. “White Christmas” is the first single from this new release and, while Sigler pays due tribute to the song’s long history, he also takes the song for unique turns that many past interpreters have never felt compelled to pursue. This is a musical production fully realized – arrangement and vocalist alike are working in perfect accord towards an ultimate goal.
Sterling Witt – Satyagraha
URL: https://www.sterlingwitt.com/
Sterling Witt’s already strong reputation as one of the most engaging guitar playing songwriters working today will likely only be further burnished by his latest full length release Satyagraha. This thirteen song opus, recorded and mixed by famed producer Steve Albini, bristles with an intelligent, questioning spirit that never simply accepts reality as it is given to him, but it also rampages and struts with undeniable rock and roll grit. Witt takes the album title from a word Indian spiritual and political leader Mahatma Gandhi used to describe the transformative power of objective truth in a world that rarely places any sort of premium on honesty. As before, however, this overarching thematic conceit never bogs the album down in wordiness – much like his guitar playing and arranging, Witt never uses two words when simply one will do and the result is an intense and highly focused affair that also spills over the rim with melody upon melody.
Kathy Muir - Second Life URL: https://www.kathymuir.com/ It is refreshing to hear an album so committed to presenting fully rounded material. Kathy Muir’s third album Second Life doesn’t just succeed on a musical level, but it scores big on a lyrical level as well. Muir’s lyrics are full of plain-spoken poetry and exquisite imagery in equal measure and never aspire to any sort of pseudo-poetic incomprehensibility. The musical qualities are abundant. Melodies abound and the instrumentation is beautifully tasteful without ever missing opportunities. The production gives the music a great sonic forum to reach the listener and the urgency of its sound keeps the songwriting sounding intimate from first song to the final track. This is an improvement over her two preceding albums, but the observation is no slight on those earlier efforts. Second Life is just that damn good.
Angie and the Deserters – You URL: https://www.angieandthedeserters.com/ Angie and the Deserters’ third recording, a six song EP titled You, is a slight shift in gears from her previous release Blood Like Wine. There are no real barnburners in this release comparable to Blood Like Wine’s bruiser “Country Radio” and, instead, Angie Bruyere and her fellow musicians sound like an artistic unit intent on exploring a wider emotional array than before. The same clarity defining the production on her earlier releases continues with this new studio confection and it results in a group of songs that sound cut live on the floor mere minutes after they finalized their composition. This fresh quality captures the band seemingly in a state of constant inspiration and there’s no question Bruyere is there with every word of her vocals. This is bracing and physical music delivered from a place deep within and geared for broad-based audience appeal.
Juliet Huns - Behind the Scenes URL: https://www.juliethuns.com/ The EP Behind the Scenes, the first release from Kenyan born and now Los Angeles based singer Juliet Huns, is an impressive introduction to a artistic figure poised to garner considerable attention. The three songs included are definitely pop tracks, but they aren’t your typical offerings. There’s an evolved sensibility here that’s certainly a cut or more above what the mainstream gatekeepers prefer. Huns simply isn’t pigeonholed easily. Describing her songs and performances as pop is scarcely even half the story. Much of the time, Huns eyes song construction the way rock bands approach it – orchestrated to induce tension – and her voice carries off those moments without a hitch. She is a powerful, fluid singer who can move through a range of emotions without overexerting herself or turning the vocal in a heavy handed direction.
Jokatech – Standing Still Symphony URL: https://jokatech.webs.com/ The latest two songs from indie hip hop songwriter and New York City native Jokatech are further entries in a successful artistic career. While Jokatech may not enjoy the same marquee notoriety experienced by more commercial performers, there’s little question after listening to his music that this is a songwriter and performer of rare distinction. His lyrical constructions are full of fire, intelligence, sarcastic humor, and the preening self-confidence while he shows the phrasing of a three decade or more veteran when delivering his songs. He is, essentially, an one man band responsible for the lyrics, melodies, and backing track and the responsibilities do not seem to have negatively affected his creativity. Instead, he sounds positively inspired. This is an artist unafraid of entertaining his listeners, but moreover, he’s unafraid to plumb into the depths of his life and return to the surface with something that might resonate or otherwise enlighten you.
Thomas Charlie Pedersen - Second Hand War FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/thomas.c.pedersen Thomas Charlie Pedersen, on his first solo album Second Hand War, cannot be accused of attempting to remake the wheel. Instead, he relies on traditional folk music forms and a solid approach in the singer/songwriter vein to convey his deeply reflective, witheringly honest, and unflinching lyrical narratives. Much of his lyrical point of view is first person, but don’t let that suggest this is solely some exercise in self-pity or self-punishment. Pedersen writes just as convincingly about other characters in his song as he does about himself or his fictional narrators. The music is lean, cut down to the bone, and the stripped back setting allows a chance for Pedersen’s voice and words to shine as never before. The result is a fourteen song collection where no two songs sound exactly alike and everything beats with a massive, all-encompassing heart. Second Hand War is real music made by real people for real people.
Porcelain People – Streetlights FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/PorcelainPeopleMusic/ First releases, in any genre, are seldom this good. Porcelain People are a duo compromised of Josh Thornhill and Fred Kalil. They hail from southern Louisiana and are serving up a particular brand of electro pop quite a bit unlike anything offered by their peers. Thornhill’s profoundly melodic and flexible voice matches up well with Kalil’s expansive and varied electronic textures. Piano, synthesizer, and keyboards are recorded with equal clarity and blended in quite an impressive way. No one component takes precedence in the mix and, instead, the duo have mixed the individual parts into a seamless and forceful whole. There are many highpoints scattered among the album’s thirteen songs, but there’s also no filler dragging things down. These are fully realized songs with imagination and technique working together in concert to produce the desired results.
Kim Vogels - Native
URL: https://www.kimvogels.com/
Being brought up surrounded by so many different cultures, Kim Vogels was drawn to the power and energy of the original sound of those worlds i.e. Flamenco, Klezmer, Celtic, early Persian, Gypsy, Native American, Folk & Blues etc. Even though these musical styles are all quite different from each other, they hold a similarity in their powerful connection to their culture. “Native” is the EP which also includes a promo video for the track “Call Of The Wild.”
