For his third album Escaping Southern Heat, Ross Adams is once again bringing the heat with passionate narrative storytelling, this time backed by the members of Jason Isbell’s 400 Unit band (guitarist Sadler Vaden, bassist Jimbo Hart, keyboardist Derry Deborja, and drummer Chad Gamble) and American Aquarium’s former member Whit Wright on steel guitar. READ MORE…
Coming across like a slightly more melodic Protomartyr, Negative Instinct is powerful post-punk. The work of Washington, DC, artist Binding Spell (Roger Poulin), the impellent rhythm section provides some serious horsepower. READ MORE…
WEBSITE | FACEBOOK | TWITTER | INSTAGRAM
Kiely Connell – Calumet Queen (out November 12th, 2021)
Hailing from Hammond, Indiana and currently based in Nashville, Tennessee, Americana artist Kiely Connell blends working-class Rust Belt grit with Southern charm, defying regional classification and painting a detailed portrait of a life in modern America. On her debut LP, Calumet Queen, Connell pays tribute to her hometown near the Calumet River that shaped her personality while reflecting on the struggles one must endure to thrive in a harsh and often isolating world. “A lot of the songs on this album are about overcoming my struggles with depression and anxiety,” says Connell. “But it’s also a collection of stories about self-medicating with alcohol, and things I’d been observing in people close to me.”
Throughout Calumet Queen’s ten tracks, Connell plumbs the depths of Americana influence, combining breezy indie-folk with heavy swamp rock & roadhouse country twang. All of the tracks are supported by her dynamic vocals and poetic lyricism in a style that has been described as “Western Gothic.” Song to song, Connell’s sound is beautifully restrained, never overproduced or bombastic in its presentation, a product of Connell’s steadfast vision and confidence in her songwriting.
To record Calumet Queen, Connell teamed up with her longtime collaborator & guitarist Drew Kohl as well as producer Don Bates, recording live out of Bates’ home studio to preserve the spirit in which the songs were written. To round out the sessions, Connell brought in drummer Taylor Jones, bassists Jess Perkins and Cameron Carrus, steel guitarist John McNally, cellist Chris Perdue, and fiddle player Lauren Saks. “We recorded everything live in Don’s house, mostly with me and Drew in the same room, and then we’d only dub in things like cello or steel guitar,” says Connell. “I wanted the record to sound how I sound at my shows. I feel like because a lot of my songs are very personal, it’s something that I don’t feel like I can capture emotionally if I hadn’t been just playing it all with my guitar and my friends.”
Calumet Queen kicks off with its title track, a jangling Americana track that showcases Connell’s expressive vocals as she likens her life’s path to the river she long called home. The calumet river flows through an industrial area and despite man’s best efforts to contain it, it follows its own course. The upbeat, triumphant atmosphere of “Calumet Queen” stands out in the context of the record as it lures listeners into a false sense of calm before shifting towards the darker content of the rest of the album, paralleling the unpredictable nature of the Calumet River itself.
The bluegrass-tinged “Clear My Mind,” explores abusive relationships and the cycles of fear and manipulation that keep victims from being able to escape. Meanwhile, “Blues That Really Burn,” serves as an intimate, moving portrayal of a depressive episode after working so hard to pull yourself out of the last one. “It’s frustrating to know that depression isn’t something you can really control,” says Connell. “Sometimes you find yourself back in certain situations and are frustrated with yourself because you finally got to a point where you felt like you were going to be okay, and then you’re knocked right back where you started again.”
Elsewhere on the album, the roadhouse country ballad “Nobody’s Business But Mine” takes an honest look at self-medication and society’s voyeuristic obsession with those who are struggling with alcohol abuse. “People love to judge you when they have no idea what you’re going through,” says Connell. “You can be self-aware that you’re at a low point, but everyone around you makes it worse by judging and looking down on you.”
The Celtic-tinged indie-folk track “Disappear” closes out Calumet Queen with a vivid portrayal of the overwhelming, spiraling thought patterns that accompany a panic attack, Connell’s somber poetry and brooding vocals spinning terror into beauty as she sings, “I’m not afraid to die, I’m afraid to disappear” in the album’s final moments.
Although Calumet Queen is Connell’s first LP as a solo artist, her musical journey began shortly after birth. Her mother, a professional singer and actress, taught Connell to recognize and repeat melodies as an infant, a head start that found Connell leading church choirs throughout her childhood. As a teenager, Connell picked up her first guitar from a pawn shop and immediately set to work, first learning Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” before beginning to write songs of her own, honing a craft that would ultimately lead her to Nashville to embark on a solo career.
With Calumet Queen, Connell officially enters the next phase of her career, establishing herself as an emotionally resonant lyricist with an exceptional, unique vocal delivery that sets her apart from the sea of modern Americana artists. It’s only a matter of time before Connell claims her crown.
WEBSITE | FACEBOOK | TWITTER | INSTAGRAM
Georgia Feroce – Moon Signs (out October 29th, 2021)
In the search for purpose and meaning, many of us look to the stars for answers about our destiny, our romantic compatibility, or even our own identity. From late 2019 and throughout 2020, Los Angeles indie-pop singer/songwriter Georgia Feroce found herself gazing toward the heavens from the confines of her home while processing the complex nature of heartbreak, loss and emotional abuse, finding comfort in the wisdom of the cosmos. And thus, Feroce’s brilliant, emotional debut LP Moon Signs began to take shape.
Moon Signs is a twelve-track collection of resonant indie-rock songs that find Feroce parsing the often contradictory emotions that follow the demise of a romantic, if flawed, relationship. While pop structure and sensibility lie at the heart of Feroce’s sound, throughout Moon Signs she regularly experiments with orchestration and tone, creating a unique-yet-familiar sound that seamlessly combines ‘90s-inspired bedroom-pop tracks with sparse piano ballads, acoustic confessionals, and crunchy barroom rock & roll songs.
In lesser hands, Feroce’s juxtaposition of disparate influences could feel disjointed, but Feroce’s thoughtfulness as a songwriter and focus on crafting a cohesive album makes it work. Each of the twelve tracks on Moon Signs are written as an analog to a specific zodiac sign, with the qualities of each sign informing the style, tone and perspective of each song. Rather than focusing on the traits associated with the common sun signs, however, Feroce focuses on the characteristics of moon signs, a secondary aspect of one’s astrological profile that represents the emotional side and the subconscious self. “I knew I wanted to make an album where each individual song represents a sign,” says Feroce. “I wanted to focus on moon signs, though, because they deal with your inner self and your emotions, and that’s exactly what songs are, they come from your emotions, not necessarily what you present to the world.”
Feroce started working on the songs that would become Moon Signs in 2019 as a way of processing her feelings in the wake of a dysfunctional relationship, writing raw, confessional and at times scathing songs about the realities of heartbreak and emotional trauma. Though the bulk of Moon Signs was written by Feroce alone, when it came time to record, she linked up with Grammy Award winning producer Tone Def (OutKast, Green Day, Briston Maroney) to bring her vision to life. To round out the sessions, Feroce recruited guitarist Tim Galloway, her longtime bass guitarist Edward Baida, and drummer Will Brunet to play on the album. “I like having this sort of creative control because there’s no need to strictly stick to convention,” says Feroce. “For me, there’s no formula for writing. When something is not forced, and is authentic and real, that’s something special and that’s what I enjoy about writing. What I like about working with Ed and these guys is that I could come in like ‘Here is the melody, here are the chords’ and they’d just fill it in.”
Moon Signs opens with the breezy, jangly surf-pop of “G.O.M.D.,” an homage to J. Cole’s song of the same name, but with Feroce reclaiming the phallocentric shove-off for a new era of feminism. “There’s not an equivalent for women,” says Feroce. “I was feeling like this man I was with didn’t respect me because I was a woman, so the only thing that was going to get through to him was to talk to him like a man.”
The following pair of songs, “Maybe It’s Not You” and “Cocaine,” each are built on ‘90s alt-rock inspired guitars, and tackle different perspectives on love and heartbreak, with “Maybe It’s Not You” focusing on the fear and self-doubt that can arise after a powerful love turns sour, and “Cocaine” focusing on regret and the toxic pull of nostalgia after escaping an unhealthy relationship.
Elsewhere on Moon Signs, Feroce explores the complexities of gender dynamics in the modern world, such as on “Like Everybody,” a reminder to the privileged men of the world that even when things are bad, it’s worse for marginalized groups. On the other hand, “I Don’t Want To Be A Man Anymore” finds Feroce reconciling that it’s important to accept people for who they are and acknowledge that their struggles are also valid. “‘I Don’t Want To Be A Man Anymore’ and ‘Like Everybody’ are opposites,” says Feroce. “But what it really comes down to is just trying to empathize with people and understand that you will never truly understand.We all make mistakes and we all hurt each other sometimes, and I think the world would be nicer if sometimes we just remembered to have empathy for each other and be kind no matter what, and be kind to yourself because that’s what makes you kinder to other people.”
Although Moon Signs is Feroce’s first full-length record, she has been working up to this release for years, studying music in college and honing her craft as a songwriter while making a name for herself in LA’s local scene. In 2016, she released her debut EP, Cat & Mouse, and in 2019, released a collaborative single, “All My Friends,” with Matt Koelsch, produced by Rilo Kiley’s Pierre de Reeder.
Although her sound has changed over the years, evolving from the more traditional acoustic folk-pop of Cat & Mouse to the genre-fluid alt-pop of Moon Signs, Feroce has continued to make memorable, honest & moving music by writing for her biggest fan: herself. “There are so many talented people in this world, there’s so much good music,” says Feroce. “You can’t chase that, you just have to write for yourself. It sounds corny but it’s true, if you become successful from something you don’t love or believe in, it probably won’t last and you won’t be happy. I’m happy with what I’ve done, and I really hope that shines through when people are listening to this record.”
Between the two of them, Megan and Shane Baskerville have played just about every kind of American music you can imagine. Born in Wisconsin and based in the Southwest—with a lot of rambling in between—they’re veterans of punk scenes, bluegrass circuits, ska bands, even hip-hop acts, all of which informs their work with the School of Rock franchises they operate in Arizona. But nearest and dearest to their hearts is country music, which allows them a unique opportunity to meld all these disparate interests, and to air their darkest secrets. Defined by Megan’s force-of-nature vocals and Shane’s inventive guitar playing, Daughter of Country is a memoir set to music, every word the God’s honest truth, as the husband-wife duo re-create the sounds pioneered by their heroes, while putting their own personal spin on the genre.
“Fearing the Dawn” is a country-blues shuffle of a song on which Bill Filipiak sings of coming to terms with his father’s death—not an easy journey as he confesses, “It took five years for me to say goodbye to you” and then, perhaps just as hard to accept, “now the world is expecting me to fill your shoes.“ Speaking of the song, Filipiak emphasized these themes: “There’s something about that moment when you realize, ‘I’m the eldest in the family, I’m the patriarch now’ and facing that new dawn, that’s scary as hell.”
As a producer for the Grand Ole Opry, Bill has worked with, befriended and learned from an impressive list of artists including Ray Wylie Hubbard, Keb Mo, George Thorogood, Allison Russell, Lera Lynn and Sarah Jarosz. And for the last five years, taking inspiration from these luminaries, he’s embarked on a solo career of his own.