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NYC’s Radiator King has released long-awaited third album Unborn Ghosts. The record was produced by Shaul Eshet and Don DiLego (Jesse Malin), and features drummer Brian Viglione (Dresden Dolls, Violent Femmes), Jesse Malin guitarist Derek Cruz, and bassist Ed Goldson (Ghostface Killah, Passion Pit).
The brainchild of New York-via-Boston troubadour Adam Silvestri, Radiator King has shared bills with Jesse Malin, Pile and L.A. Witch, and has been covered recently by PopMatters, American Songwriter, New Noise and more.
Thematically, Unborn Ghosts and its hardscrabble characters travel many paths. The son of a prizefighter learns that there’s grace in dusting yourself off after being knocked down, and that sometimes the toughest fight is with one’s self. A salty ship’s crew, lost on the sea after an epic odyssey, struggles desperately homeward. Old bluesmen leave the farm—and the church—behind in search of transcendence and immortality. Strangers meet and fall in love, then years later, when the relationship ends, part and become strangers once again. Childhood friends dream about what they’ll become and cling to each other as life scatters them on the wind. The journey of an immigrant becomes a metaphor for the unmoored life of a touring musician grasping for a sense of home. Death steals an innocent child from this world but can’t extinguish her light.
Above all, though, Unborn Ghosts grapples with the idea that you can’t run from the past, that you must confront your demons. And that if you do, waiting for you on the other side is a future in which you can tap back into the spirit of youth, with all its curiosity, wonder and blank-slate possibility.
Here’s what the music press is saying about Radiator King’s Unborn Ghosts…
“Spectral, punk-tinged folk … grapples with the idea that you can’t run from the past—that you must confront your demons.” – THE BIG TAKEOVER
“Pensive, bittersweet.” – NORTHERN TRANSMISSIONS
“A rickety shanty of beat poet theatrics and profound insight.” – BEATS PER MINUTE
“Channels the spirit of rock & roll.” – NEW NOISE MAGAZINE
“Channels Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen.” – ATWOOD MAGAZINE
“Gorgeous … looks back on the innocence of childhood.” – POPMATTERS
“Brandishing a dilapidated trash-folk aesthetic through which he dismantles the foundations of a handful of genres, Radiator King’s Adam Silvestri positions himself as some sort of blues-punk oracle, a man outside the normal flow of time with the ability to twist our perspectives.” – BEATS PER MINUTE
You can pick up a vinyl copy here, or stream the record on Spotify.
New York-based duo Tender Creature’s most recent release, “If Anyone Asks,” is a unique blend of electronic music with a folky vocal, intertwining these two genres into a beautiful piece of vulnerability. The harmonies push the strength of the single even further. READ MORE…
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DAVID QUINN – LETTING GO
David Quinn likes to write in his old pick-up truck. Most of the songs on his second solo album, the sharp-tongued, open-hearted Letting Go, came to him during a ramble around the Midwestern countryside. “Driving is one of my favorite things to do. There’s something special about heading somewhere, but it’s not necessarily about where you go. It’s more about the ride there. There’s where stuff comes to me.” The ride there is one of the ideas Quinn addresses on this record, offering an idiosyncratic take on country music featuring some of the best players around. For him wandering isn’t just a passion but a compulsion. “It’s like what they say about some sharks: If they’re not moving, they die. Deep down I might have a little of that, because I’ve always gotta be doin’ something, always gotta be movin’ around.”
During one of those long drives in his pickup, Quinn got the idea for a new song that would determine the sound and the spirit of the album. “It all started with that first line, ‘I’m lettin’ go of everything that’s holdin’ me down.’ That line just hit me—this is what I’m trying to say. Then, I just built on that idea of letting go of all the groupings, all the expectations, whatever people end up putting on you.” That one line grew into a spry, two-stepping ode to transience, emotional and otherwise, with a killer guitar lick and a rambunctious spirit borne of long drives with the windows down and the radio up.
Examining freedom in its many forms, Letting Go is as musically adventurous as it is lyrically insightful. “I got pushed into this traditional country thing on Wanderin’ Fool, and I got tired of trying to fit into a genre. I love music and just wanted to let every influence in and not worry if it was a little different. I wanted to make the record I wanted to make, and hold strong to my instincts. So I’m excited to put this out there and say, This is who I am.” Songs like the barnstorming “Thunderbird Wine” and the woe-is-me “I Hope I Don’t” integrate a wide range of influences—from Texas outlaws to Bakersfield badasses, from southern rock heroes to Nashville cats. Wherever he rambles, however, Quinn remains rooted in the Midwestern soil: “It always comes back to John Prine. I got started in the Midwest, so he’s somebody I love.”
To capture that sense of musical freedom, Quinn assembled a crew of ace supporting musicians, starting with producer Mike Stankiewicz (Willie Nelson, Maren Morris) and keyboard player Micah Hulscher (Margo Price, Jim Lauderdale). “When I first met Micah, I was so intimidated. He’s probably the best musician I’ve ever played with. Right before he came in, I heard someone say he’s got perfect pitch. I thought, damn, I don’t really want to sing around him now!”
Hulscher brought in a few of his colleagues in Price’s backing band, including drummer Dillon Napier and guitarist Jamie Davis, along with pedal steel virtuoso Brett Resnick (Kacey Musgraves). Rounding out the band is guitarist Laur Joamets, a guitar virtuoso best known for backing Sturgill Simpson and Drivin N Cryin. His crackling guitar licks push “Ride On” along at a pedal-to-the-metal clip, as he becomes a musical foil to Quinn: Joamets darts in and out of the spaces around Quinn’s words like a gremlin in the works, then unleashes a rip-roaring solo that slyly underscores the jumpiness of the lyrics. “I ain’t gonna run and I ain’t gonna fight,” Quinn sings in his commanding twang. “Gonna ride that train southbound, gonna fly on through the night.”
The crew worked quickly to track Quinn’s songs without losing any urgency or buffing away any of their rough edges. “I’ve been playing three or four shows a week, so I’ve been playing these songs a lot. I knew pretty much how I wanted them to sound. So we tried to work quickly. I hate getting wrapped up in perfect—doing a bunch of takes and punch-ins. I’m just not interested in that, at all. I want to capture the sound of a band.” They prove dexterous and agile, especially on “1000 Miles,” where the relentless rhythm section and nimble guitars count the long miles along some lost highway and change tempo the way you might take a highway exit. Yet, Quinn exposes an undercurrent of melancholy in his performance, as though that constant and often exciting motion takes its toll: Lovers are abandoned, roots severed, friends left in the dust. “That one touches on not necessarily having a destination. The meaning is more in the moment of leaving.”
These are songs about new starts and the gumption it takes to make them. Perhaps no song demonstrates that lesson more clearly than “Born to Lose,” whose bluesy swagger makes the lyrics sound even more haunted (“There’s a crow calling out my name…”). “It’s about my struggle with depression, which is something I’ve dealt with for a long time. The verses are about that impending doom you feel, when you wake up with a dark cloud hanging over you. It’s something you have to will yourself out of every day, so there’s this constant back and forth. Writing this song let me say, ‘I’m not gonna let that stop me and everything is going to be fine.’”
Ultimately, putting those fears and worries and confinements into songs allows Quinn to let go of them. “You write it to get rid of it. I enjoy that process. It’s been fun, but strangely, I always end up learning new things.” It’s fitting then that Letting Go ends where it begins: The wistful closer “Maybe I’ll Move Out to California,” which dreams of a better, more settled life out west, picks up the same melodic and lyrical themes of the short “Intro” that opens the record. It’s a deft stroke of sequencing, one that portrays Quinn as a man who lives forever in that moment of leaving, where he finds joy and heartbreak and endless inspiration.Roots rock/Americana stalwart, Ned Hill – raised on the sounds of FM Radio, American Bandstand and drug store jukeboxes in the small town of Horse Cave, KY – has kept his sights on Music City, where he’s planted his feet for over 20 years, performing regularly at East Nashville’s The Five Spot, and touring the south, midwest and New England. While frequently collaborating with one of Nashville’s most coveted auxiliary players, Michael Webb (John Prine, Sturgill Simpson, Chris Stapleton, Hank Williams Jr), it’s no wonder outlets like No Depression, Associated Press, Nashville Scene, Elmore Magazine and Americana Highways have been singing their praises.
Time has been moving quickly, then slowly in a loop for much of 2020. The cycle of record releases has been affected, though it would take more than a plague to get artists to cease speaking their truths. Throughout 2020, music has kept flowing. We have gathered a list of (our version) the top albums for 2020. In order to grow, new blood needs to be pumping and many of the artists on the list have had either debut or breakthrough albums in 2020. The constant barrage of drama has brought a more Rock’n’Roll sense to both words and music. Messages in song has been a lot clearer, musicians like Lucinda Williams and Drive-By Truckers penning beliefs directly into the storyline. As in every year, we could have gone higher with the artists included, and we may have missed someone. Please feel free to give a shout and let us know, and we hope you enjoy the Top Albums So Far for 2020.