When it comes to production, DC artist Roger Poulin, aka Binding Spell, is a proponent of making do with what you have. Though his new album English Basement makes him sound like an interstellar voyager moving at time-dilating speeds, voice echoing off space capsule walls, it gets its name from the underground apartment he’s been confined to since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic–a modest setup, but with everything he needed to construct a pocket post-punk universe. READ MORE…
New York-via-Boston troubadour Adam Silvestri returned last year with his third full-length album as Radiator King, Unborn Ghosts. The record sees Silvestri distilling his mix of punk, dusty Americana, and blues into his sharpest pastiche yet, pulling touchstones like Tom Waits, Bruce Springsteen, and Joe Strummer into a more cohesive whole. Now Silvestri is back sharing the video for one of the record’s highlights, “Haunts Me Now,” premiering with Under the Radar.
“Haunts Me Now” finds Silvestri grappling with the ghosts of the past, haunted by faces and names of his youth. The spectral folk ballad breaks into a raw punk howl by the end, carried by Silvestri’s sandpaper vocals and powerhouse drumming from Brian Viglione of The Dresden Dolls and Violent Femmes. The accompanying video gives vision to these memories, tracking through carefree teenage escapades and an ensuing haunting tragedy.
Cello and violin aren’t exactly the lead instruments one would expect to drop stunning indie-rock compositions. Yet Takénobu brings an explosive mix of art-rock and all-encompassing new-wave that sounds as if Arcade Fire unplugged and holed up in a coffee bar.
Takénobu is the middle name and band and artist name for Nick Takenobu Ogawa. It is a combination of the Japanese Kanji characters in his father and grandfather’s names, and loosely translated means “Iron Will”. He is joined in live performance and on the new album Always Leave a Note by talented wife Kathryn Koch.
Glide is premiering “Peachy Keen,” which takes simple pop new-wave pleasures and mingles those hooks with an artistic flair reserved for jazz and symphonic works. Call it neo-classical-wave, yet we’re digging on this enrapturing effort due off Takénobu’s upcoming LP Always Leave a Note.
Americana Highways brings you this video premiere of Walter Parks’ version of the spiritual song “Wade in the Water,” from their forthcoming album Unlawful Assembly, due out on Sept 10th on Atomic Records. Walter Parks was the sideman for Richie Havens for a decade. Unlawful Assembly was produced by Stephen Williams (Sade, David Byrne, De La Soul), recorded at Atomic Sound in NYC, and mixed recorded and engineered by Merle Chornuk.
Matthew Check is a lifelong singer/songwriter whose musical career shrinks the distance between genres, finding its own balance of American roots-rock, contemporary Jewish folk, children’s music, and bluegrass.
The music project of Brazil-born/NYC-based musician Matt Jones, Two Cent Revival is a fresh approach to Americana. It’s not only an homage to pioneering old-school country and blues, but it also bursts with inspiration from jazz, bluegrass, garage rock, rockabilly, and indie-pop. READ MORE…