Big personal changes tend to be creative goldmines for songwriters, and country singer-songwriter Caleb Caudle has had no shortage of them over the last few years; the young outlaw relocated back to his home state of North Carolina and stopped drinking. These two transitions provided a wealth of inspiration for his latest album, Carolina Ghost, which drops February 26 via This Is American Music. Check out the album’s first single, “Steel & Stone,” below. LISTEN HERE…
On a chilly evening in early December, the East Nashville skyline was aglow in a bright, periwinkle haze. Not the haze that neighborhood troubadour Todd Snider sang about on one of his many tributes to his side of the Cumberland River, the kind that emanates from a tightly rolled joint smoked next to the local liquor store. On this night, the light came via a massive, multi-story rig from the set of ABC’s Nashville, filming an upcoming episode here, in the “hip” part of town. It was the sort of blue glow that’s usually reserved for the deep-sea section of aquariums, where kids press their noses against the glass to get a better look at the sharks, leaving snot trails in their wake.
It’s appropriate, anyway — lately, East Nashville, and its music scene in particular, has felt more and more like a fishbowl. For the past few years, as Americana has morphed into the new rock & roll and outlets from The New York Times to The Guardian have examined everything from the lure of its coffee shops to its music-making garages, the attention has turned a town into a trend, a place into a verb. Once known as somewhere starving artists flocked for cheap housing and cheaper beer, but feared by tightly-wound suburbanites, it’s now a stop for tour buses looking for guys like Avery Barkley, the “dead sexy East Nashville hipster” on Nashville. READ MORE…
This has been a weird December for New Yorkers: warm weather, heavy mist, darkly cloudy skies. Forecasts predict a Christmas nearing 70° and no snow until mid-January. That makes Sara Rachele’s “Merry Christmas Baby” the answer when your family asks you to put on music this week — or, if you’re a Christmas orphan, just the thing to listen to alone on Friday morning.
Rachele’s new track is a reverb-drenched, macabre take on saccharine winter classics that deserves play even when the snow melts; it might be about Christmas, but with its heavy haze, psych guitars, and Rachele’s slow-burn croon, it could easily soundtrack a heady, humid beach bender, too. The track is darker than Rachele’s earlier (and equally good) output, which shares the same retro stylings but often opts for a cleaner pop sound. The progression into thicker effects suits her voice, which floats through the more complex production without sounding out of place or getting lost in the fuzz.
Unsurprisingly, Rachele draws comparisons to Julee Cruise, whose memorable appearance on Twin Peaks defined their shared brand of surreal doo-wop-inflected ballads. But Rachele’s is an updated version that takes its roots a little more seriously, and one well worth catching live when she plays Rockwood Music Hall on December 30. Whether or not she plays this song post-25th is up to her, but either way it’s a gift for anyone who prefers unsettling chills over shiny holiday spirits. Listen to Sara Rachele’s “Merry Christmas Baby” below. LISTEN HERE…
Caleb Caudle has already proven he’s a top-notch singer and songwriter, a true alternative to mainstream Nashville country minus the outlaw pose. The North Carolina-based artist’s breezy brand of Americana is authentic and thoughtful, sonically somewhere between folks like Ryan Adams, Steve Earle and Jason Isbell, and country icons like Kris Kristofferson and Gram Parsons. He’s a hard-working independent artist who’s been burning up the road, playing countless shows, and honing his craft for years. And now that a trio of simpatico Nashville-outsider contemporaries by the name of Isbell, Sturgill & Stapleton have suddenly kicked the doors open for new and refreshing sounds in country music, he’s poised for a breakthrough.
Caudle’s new album, Carolina Ghost, is out Feb. 26 from This Is American Music, and lead single “Piedmont Sky” (premiering today at Paste) offers up a down-home preview of what’s to come—which is a whole lot of evocative and impressionistic Southern lyricism, wrapped in an impeccable mix of vintage and contemporary country sounds.
Raised just south of the Virginia/North Carolina border, Caudle has shared bills with artists such as Isbell, Robert Ellis, Justin Townes Earle and many other Americana A-listers. His last record, 2014’s Paint Another Layer on My Heart, was a critical favorite that landed him on more than 40 year-end lists. And now, with Carolina Ghost, Caudle has penned an album inspired by a new relationship and a recent move from New Orleans back to the Piedmont.
Recorded at the Fidelitorium in Kernersville, N.C., Carolina Ghost mixes Caudle’s voice with the swoon of pedal steel, the swell of B3 organ, and layers of acoustic and electric guitar. The end result is pure Caudle, shot through with the optimism of a road warrior who—nearly a decade into his career—has discovered not only the thrill of hitting the highway, but the comfort in putting down roots. LISTEN HERE…
Today, we’re pleased to premiere the video for “Raincoats,” the latest from Atlanta indie band The Head. The track, which was taken from their Millipedes EP, taps into the lineage of gracefully weird Southern college rock, arriving at a sound that’s at once off-handed and elegant, warmly melodic yet just a touch askew. WATCH HERE…
This morning, we’re thrilled to bring you Star-Splitter‘s brand new music video for “Afterglow,” a dreamy electro-pop ballad that’s haunting, hypnotic, and all sorts of catchy. The track is taken from duo’s recently released maxi-single of the same name, which, despite its meager tracklist, has consistently dazzled since dropping back in October. WATCH HERE…