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“Sonically and thematically, ‘So Nice’ feels free… uplifting… The chorus melody and harmonies soar, lifting the listeners and bringing light into our days. Such delight is both refreshing and welcome in challenging times.” – Americana UK

Raveis Kole – In the Moment (out Apr. 28)

Bellingham, Wash. folk duo Raveis Kole have charted on Billboard, participated in Folk Alliance and AmericanaFest, shared bills with Justin Townes Earle, The Wailers, Cory Henry, and more, and now are gearing up to release their new LP In the Moment (out Apr. 28), an album about being present, not taking life for granted, and making loving connections with yourself, others and our planet.

Laurie Raveis and Dennis Kole met by jamming together at a music festival in Montana a decade ago. So it made perfect sense that the pair, now married and comprising the singing-songwriting duo Raveis Kole, should get back to the simplicity of playing and singing together on their effortlessly engaging new album In the Moment.

Playing everything on the album themselves, the duo worked with producer Matt Smith in Austin to add texture through instrumental experimentation—embellishing their songs with banjo, ukulele, lap steel, harp guitar, cavaquinho, tambourine, shakers and foot drums. They whistle and mimic horns with their voices to up the colorful ante.

“It’s exciting for the two of us to create this full sound,” Raveis explains. “It’s a challenge to be able to do all these things, to bring in different colors, textures and harmonies to create the right vibe for the lyrics and still be locked in.”

Penning pandemic-inspired tunes started to lose its luster for Raveis Kole. “The times are what they are,” says Kole, “but we didn’t want to focus on feelings of loss and isolation; and we wanted to go back to celebrating other people, instead of looking at them as potential disease vectors,” Kole jokes. “Let’s celebrate the importance of other people in our lives, that feeling of being connected to something bigger than yourself.”

The pair decided to create the rhythmic pulse with their acoustic guitars instead of with traditional bass and drums. “The thought was let’s make it more vulnerable, more intimate, less about big production,” Kole says. “Let’s make it about us two. What would it sound like if you came to see us at a concert or event? Sort of the stripped-down version of things. This album, as a whole, is our most authentic, unfiltered, intimate work to date. We are out there exposed. We aren’t relying on session musicians to come out there and give us protection.”

Raveis Kole also kept things lively on In the Moment, their second full-length LP, by changing up styles and moods from song to song. There’s a light-hearted feel to songs like “Sticky and Sweet,” which harkens back to acts like The Roches with its whimsical lyrics juxtaposed against earnest music, and “Kismet,” which might be the funniest duet to celebrate marriage since John Prine & Iris DeMent’s “In Spite Of Ourselves.”

Raveis Kole can turn on a dime from cute jokes to moments of breathtaking beauty. “So Nice,” with its soaring melody and gorgeous harmonies, was inspired by a performance the duo did shortly after the pandemic shutdown ended and the gratitude they received from that crowd.

“I couldn’t help but reflect on the simplicities of life unfolding,” Raveis says, “that sense of expanded joy because people hadn’t been able to participate fully in life and were almost glowing with excitement to be out, to be together, enjoying live music.”

Their scenic hometown of Bellingham, Washington seeped into the songs as well. “Everything here is on a grander level and it’s quite stunning,” Raveis says. “The connection with nature helps ground you and helps you appreciate the present moment, which does flow through many of our songs. That theme of loving connection, of being present and willing to pause and think openly by paying attention, opens up a potpourri of inspirations and seeds the feelings of being a part of something greater than yourself, something shared and universal.”

If you listen to Raveis Kole long enough, you might start to feel your own kinship with both nature and other human beings intensified, which is the goal. “While it’s fun to see your name on a Billboard chart, at the end of the day, it’s there and it’s gone and just a nice memory,” Kole says. “What really satisfies me, and the whole reason I got into music in the first place, is that it helps me feel connected to other people. I love music. Music satisfies my desire to be creative and stimulated and challenged, and also gives me the chance to meet other people. Evidence of that was I met Laurie and we connected.”

When the key-changing, boisterous sing-along “Wherever You Go” fades out at the end of In the Moment, don’t be surprised if you feel like you’ve heard something truly unique that stands out in a musical landscape full of derivatives. Kole sums it up best: “We try to be the best version of ourselves and not the second-best version of somebody else.”

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DIANE HUBKA & THE SUN CANYON BAND – YOU NEVER CAN TELL (OUT JAN. 20)

Los Angeles folk & roots outfit Diane Hubka & The Sun Canyon Band’s debut album You Never Can Tell (out Jan. 20) dances from ’60s folk, delta blues and lilting ballads to Texas swing and heartland country rock. Co-producer/arranger and bassist Chad Watson (Ronnie Milsap, The Burrito Brothers, Janis lan) brings together Hubka’s honey-toned vocals and rhythm guitar, Rick Mayock’s melodic vocals and expressive guitar work and legendary guitarist Albert Lee’s (Emmylou Harris, Eric Clapton) exceptional mandolin picking and one-of-a-kind guitar sounds.

Hubka is known across the country as a jazz artist. She fell for the style in college while taking guitar lessons from “a jazz guy,” she said. That’s where she first heard influential vocalist Carmen McRae sing. “I knew then I had to be a jazz singer.” Hubka said.

She moved to Washington D.C., where she soaked in the city’s jazz scene, and then to New York City, where she studied voice, piano and guitar, received a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and became an integral part of the city’s jazz scene for two decades.

“I really do believe in on-the-job training when it comes to music,” she said. “There’s something about playing in front of an audience that’s so rewarding. It ups your game.”

Hubka recorded three albums in the Big Apple, including one with legendary saxophonist Lee Konitz, before moving to Los Angeles in 2005, where she recorded three more albums, and even made it big in Japan, touring the country multiple times.

In early 2017, however, everything changed. Upset by the outcome of the U.S. Presidential election, Hubka turned away from a lifetime of jazz and went in a new direction – one that just felt right.

“I wanted to sing protest songs, and union songs,” she said. “And I think I was just ready to try something different. After all those years playing jazz, I suddenly felt a calling to get back to my acoustic and folk roots.”

Before her time in D.C., NYC and L.A., Hubka grew up in the Appalachian mountains of Western Maryland. A child of the ‘60s folk revival, with a mother who sang in a folk group, she was a big fan of Peter, Paul & Mary, Joni Mitchell and Neil Young. So she tapped into those roots, bought an acoustic guitar and started performing her new Americana repertoire at a coffee shop a couple blocks from the Pacific Ocean.

Five years later, Hubka and her Sun Canyon Band are releasing their debut album You Never Can Tell, a sprightly and seamless blend of breezy Americana, Western swing and California folk-pop that recalls the work of ‘70s country-rock icons Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris. The album is split between originals (written by Hubka and Mayock) and covers of classics by artists like Bob Dylan, Randy Newman, Chuck Berry and Guy Clark, and it features the playing of legendary English guitarist and mandolinist Albert Lee, best known for his work with Harris, The Everly Brothers and Eric Clapton.

“I’m happy to pay homage to this great American music that I love, while putting my own spin on it,” Hubka said. “I like bringing life to songs that I think are great.”

You can hear her and the Sun Canyon Band doing exactly that on tracks like Guy Clark’s “Baton Rouge,” dressing it up with kitchen-sink percussion and Zydeco vibes, or “Albuquerque,” an instantly hummable ode to clean air and small-town life. Written by Rob Carlson, it’s a Western swing song that gives Hubka plenty of space to flex her jazz chops.

Similarly, the band seems to comfortably inhabit “Shady Grove,” steering the traditional song into a deeply rooted groove. “We did it more like the Grateful Dead version, rather than the Doc Watson version,” Hubka said. “It’s fun to take bits of inspiration from everywhere and come up with my own.”

The most affecting song on You Never Can Tell, however, may just be Hubka’s original, “Home,” which uses images of blue skies, lush fields and rolling hills to evoke the personal freedom and warm memories of her Appalachian home. It’s a sweet, easygoing folk song that spotlights Hubka’s talent for drawing beauty from simplicity.

“I get my spirituality through nature, and ‘Home’ is about leaving the city and getting back to nature,” she said. “It’s about the simple values that I grew up with in the ‘60s & ’70s– anti-commercialism, anti-materialism. I’m inspired by those values and I feel them coming out in this music.”

Now, it’s time for Hubka and her band to share that music with others. They’re planning to play live as much as possible, both at conferences and on tours of the West coast, with an eye toward recording and releasing more music soon.

Making You Never Can Tell, Hubka said, has freed her up to rediscover her musical roots and reconnect with the sound that resonates deep within her soul.

“I’m a stronger singer now. I’m more physically and emotionally connected to these songs. And, I’m a more mature musician because of this project,” she said. “It’s been an important part of my journey to completely reinvent myself! ”

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Sparxsea – “Forever Love” (out Nov. 10)

Portland, Maine indie folk-pop artist Sparxsea, aka Chelsea Toussaint’s new single “Forever Love” (out Nov. 10) is a gentle and moving ode to love and the changing seasons of our lives. Sparxsea heals us and herself with her soulful voice and dark story of hope.

This song was written in the aftermath of a codependent and tumultuous seven-year relationship, and brought to life by the sympathetically emotive drumwork of Jerome Deupree (Morphine), the tender classical guitar picking of Tim Reynolds (Dave Matthews Band) and the steady hand of producers Will Bradford (SeepeopleS, TheWorst) and Will Holland (Pixies).

“Him leaving was the second big loss of someone close to me,” Sparxsea says. “Before that, my mother passed away from an opiate overdose. I was in a big depression, my lowest point. He had lost his father right before I lost my mother. We were both traumatized. It was a rollercoaster of hot and cold right up until the end. But that ending allowed me to let go. It set me free from that critical version of myself that I was pushed into as a child. It was a disintegration, and I started over with an entirely new friend group.”

Sparxsea’s poignant lyricism flows through lush guitars and accompanying piano lines, proving her to be a dynamic and accomplished songsmith. “There were days when love was hard to find / Then days when love was burning fire.” Sparxsea lost herself in the push and pull of this tempestuous emotional sea, reminiscent of her childhood and dealing with alcoholic parents fighting until 4am, wondering if this would be another night when the cops would be called. Her chorus of “Set me free so I can be forever love” is a battlecry to herself to find stability, mental health and freedom. This is forward-thinking, thought-provoking, sophisticated pop music of the highest order.

“This song is about being able to forgive ourselves.” Sparxsea says. “I made the ‘Forever Love’ video as part of my healing journey connected to my mother’s death. She was a beauty queen, and got into a bad motorcycle accident that disfigured her face. That’s when she changed, something in her that she couldn’t heal. The green dress I wear in the video is similar to her dress in the beauty pageant. The dress represents the different seasons of life, moving from a princess bedroom and the barn to the flowers in the snow. No matter who’s around you, you can still be surrounded by love.”

Raised in northern Maine by loving, supportive, musical, abusive, alcoholic parents, Sparxsea and her sister spent days in nature, while nights at home were a battlefield. Existence swung between two opposite worlds, with mornings forced into fresh starts from the deterioration of the day before. Peace became an ultimate goal. Sparxsea quietly dreamed of becoming a singer, years later awakening as a dentist and first in her family to graduate college. The sudden loss of her mother fractured Sparxsea’s family and sent her into a depression that birthed EP SHINE (2018). The record would go on to open doors for her and serve as a catalyst to her career. Her uplifting single, “Alive” (2016) was recently used in the indie film Dole Mates (2022) and dark pop single “Don’t Let The Fire Die” (2019) was on the Damnationland soundtrack and title track at the film festival.

During the 2020 pandemic and temporary layoff from dentistry, Sparxsea released her first single “Little Wooden Boat” from forthcoming LP On the Sea (out 2023), illuminating personal and societal fears of imperfection and the unknown. Its video stars Maine-based solo sailor Holly Martin on her ongoing expedition around the world. In late 2020, Sparxsea released “Chariot”, a serenade to lifelong adventure, sung from stunning lupine fields in midcoast Maine.  

 “Forever Love” will be the third single from On the Sea, a liberating album of discovery that features Nikki Glaspie (Nth Power, Beyoncé), Tim Reynolds (Dave Matthews Band), Nate Edgar (Nth Power, John Brown’s Body), Jerome Dupree (Morphine) and Dana Colley (Vapors of Morphine, Morphine). It’s currently being produced by Will Bradford (SeepeopleS, theWorst) and Will Holland (The Pixies) at Chillhouse Studios in Boston, MA.

“This upcoming record is all about freedom, liberation and discovery,” Sparxsea says. “These songs are attached to nature and the sea, how big the world is, and setting out to see what’s there. Realizing there’s a whole ocean out there just waiting to be explored.”

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LUNA Clipse – LUNAtic LP

NYC rapper and poet LUNA Clipse harnesses the fire of his bipolar disorder and forges it into a gift on his new LP LUNAtic, a collaboration with GRAMMY-winning producer Jerry Wonda (The Fugees, Mary J. Blige, Santana, John Legend, Beyoncé). LUNAtic tells LUNA’s story from first diagnosis, to forced institutionalization, to Judgement Day itself.

Album opener “Lunacy” encompasses the spark of his diagnosis and exposes the nightmare of greed surrounding the American dream. “It was 2005 / those visions popped into my eyes / so either I’m a prophet of our times / Or the world just hadn’t yet become as psychotic as my mind,” raps LUNA. 

That leads into his song “Twin Towers.” A New Yorker through and through, the birth of LUNA happened in Los Angeles after a manic bipolar episode led to his being falsely charged with assault and arrested. He was sent to the Twin Towers correctional facility in Los Angeles where he learned first-hand the plight of the poor and mentally ill when he was abused by guards. There, he met others who had similar delusions and they’d spontaneously rhyme, spitting bars about the biblical apocalypse.

“I was down in the bowels / Of the twin towers / No, not the ones which blazed in flames… / That prison for the criminally insane / So inhumane to sick brains / That inhumane I became,” LUNA raps on “Minds on Fire” over a boom bap beat and a walking bass line.

“The Belly of the Beast” has a hopeful choral beat and its R&B choruses dip into funk bass and ambient elements as LUNA’s lush, poetic lyrics convey to us the experience of bipolar depression, and the inevitable ashes of the ecstasy of his mania.
“It’s such an inconceivable hell,” says LUNA. “This is a gospel song. It’s about finding God in my hell, finding the hope to hold on, and knowing God puts us through as much as we can take. Knowing I was in the starkest pits of the darkest abyss, only to find my brightest shine.”

“Van Gogh” is a tribute to his bipolar hero, highlighting the struggle of those living with mental illness who are misunderstood and mistreated by society. It opens with a gentle piano, moves into hard futuristic production and Camp NoWhere’s rich and soulful choruses.

LUNA embraces this quote from Van Gogh himself, from a letter to his brother, “What am I in the eyes of most people – a nonentity, an eccentric or an unpleasant person – somebody who has no position in society and never will have, in short, the lowest of the low. All right, then – even if that were absolutely true, then I should one day like to show by my work what such an eccentric, such a nobody, has in his heart.”

“He didn’t see that dream,” says LUNA, “even as he hangs in the pinnacle of prestige. People leave MoMA or his interactive exhibits and see one of his own homeless and alone. When they see the crazed look in his bloodshot eyes, gushing with the fire that brushed the sky they just admired—they’ll walk across the street apart from him, and me, and his dream. Van Gogh is a reminder of all the broken hopes that made his bold strokes—the manic twitch of his hand that managed to dance his panic into a perfect flow, and make his stars glow.”  

At one point at Twin Towers, LUNA was gassed, passed out, and woke up in solitary confinement. He had a hard time distinguishing reality, and wasn’t sure if it was all a delusion, but other inmates assured him it happened. He punched the window and broke his knuckle. He stared at the window and started convulsing. “I wanted my soul to escape through my eyes and out that window,” LUNA says.

The magically celestial and bittersweet “Starry Nights” continues his love affair with Van Gogh, and is about finding a home in an uncaring world. Van Gogh saw the night sky as wild swirling orbs of color through the barred window of his asylum. LUNA savors the magic of those manic nights, a time when the world comes alive, that sweet spot before the music of his mind crescendos and crashes. “Glimmer in the Abyss” confronts the darkest pits of depression, from suicidal idiations to wrestling with the devil. “Hope blows away / And all my feelings start to fade / They say it’s an eternal flame / I could use a glimmer in the Abyss.”

“Dr. Feelgood” deals with LUNA’s revolving door of doctors, medication and institutions. “They pumped me full of meds,” LUNA says. “I gained like 50 pounds, and I was like a zombie when I finally got out.”

After LUNA was released, he had a chip on his shoulder from the abuse at Twin Towers and the discrimination he felt from being mentally ill. He just started getting it all out. “I was angry,” LUNA says. He fell in with a battle rap crowd at the legendary Pyramid Club on Ave. B “Everyone there would wear their pain like a badge,” LUNA describes. “They were the voice of the voiceless.”

LUNA was rapping for Wyclef Jean at an event, and one of those verses involved The Joker, and prophesied the tragedy that was soon going to befall his brother. Later, Wonda cast LUNA as a Joker-like figure in a video for Camp NoWhere, another artist Wonda was producing.

“Joker” feat. Tiffani LeBlanc brings us this Batman villain inspired take on mental illness, building masks, and the joke of the American dream from the persona of the Clown Prince of Crime and Harley Quinn. LUNA’s sing-song slam-poet rap style dances with Wonda’s propulsive and cinematic beat as he lyrically confesses his metamorphosis from the nice boy you knew growing up to the catalyst for the Apocalypse.

LUNA was scheduled to record and mix in the studio the day after his brother died in a car accident. LUNA was heartbroken. “Then,” says LUNA, “Jerry [Wonda] passes me the phone and puts Wyclef on. He said, ‘I want you to put the pain you’re going through into some lyrics.’ I got off the phone, and Jerry said, ‘I’m gonna give you two hours. I want you to do it while the pain’s inside you.’ “

“Judgement Day” finishes the album with the double meaning of the judgement LUNA’s felt due to his illness, and standing as God’s highest angel on actual Judgement Day. LUNA raps, “as they sink into the fiery pit / they’ll peer in to see / in the mirror of my tears / the reflection of themselves.”

LUNAtic is one man’s journey through bipolar and the stigma surrounding mental illness. The songs flow like episodes to a narrative that dramatizes how LUNA went from hating his bipolar and considering it a curse, to being proud of it and considering it his greatest gift. It’s a manic-depressive cycle that’s equal parts heaven and hell, from depression that’s taken him to the brink, to being an overmedicated zombie, to the spiraling mania that created this album.

“The most difficult part of the battle,” says LUNA, “was fighting the discrimination that leads us to see ourselves as small, that creates shame, robbing us of our pride and crushing our hopes. The hell I went through became my power. The ability to apply that drive to the creative gifts that come with bipolar, a gift that accounts for the statistic that 38% of Pulitzer poets were bipolar. My biggest hope for the album is to change the world’s perspective of bipolar disorder.”

To set up an interview with LUNA Clipse, or get your hands on press passes, advance music, hi-res photos, album art or videos, contact Baby Robot Media owner Steve Albertson.