Americana Highways brings you this premiere of Diane Hubka and the Sun Canyon Band’s song “Home,” from their forthcoming album You Never Can Tell, due to be released on January 28. The song will be released on December 8. “Home” is Diane Hubka on vocals and rhythm guitar; Rick Mayock on guitar; and Joe Caccavo on bass. Rolling hills, faces, “and I wanna go home” are all hallmark images of Diane’s introspective folk style. Her songwriting will soothe and calm your wayward jitters.
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For many artists, the ultimate goal is to make music that’s both artistically valuable and appealing enough to attract an audience.
Paige Su is striking that balance. The classically trained Taiwanese singer-songwriter’s experimental pop music has earned her invitations to prestigious international music festivals such as Harpe Au Max in France and the No Maps Creative Convention in Japan, as well as Golden Indie Music Awards where Su just earned 2022’s Best Live Performance.
But Su’s sound – stemming from her multi-instrumentalism (electric harp/piano/synths/flute/ bansuri/ drum programming & more) – isn’t just for the adventurous. It has also landed her tours and performances with Eastern pop stars like Yoga Lin, Joanna Wang and Waa Wei, as well as a record deal with a major label – a deal she has since ended in favor of an independent path.
“The fact that I can play a world music festival and a jazz festival and an indie rock festival, all in the same month? I think that’s great. Not a lot of people can do that,” Su said. “And the best part is that I feel comfortable doing all these different things now. I feel free.”
You can hear that freedom on her stunning new album You’ll Live Forever in My Songs, an 11-track collection that blurs the lines between pop, classical, jazz and experimental music, while at the same time tracing Su’s own life-journey from darkness and the specter of death to lightness, acceptance and, above all, love.
The arc of the album is tied directly to Su’s own experience in 2020 and 2021, when she was diagnosed with cancer and then went through a year of treatment during the COVID-19 pandemic, which only heightened the isolation of the experience (she is in remission and feeling great now).
“When you go through things like that, you come out with a completely different take on life,” Su said. “You see what’s important. You understand the weight of life itself and how nearsighted we are most of the time, chasing things that don’t really matter when living by itself is such a marvelous thing.”
In early 2021, after a period of creative dormancy, songs started flowing out of Su – sometimes in the middle of the night, when she would quickly record a voice memo to capture the idea.
“Then I’d write something the next day and they would make sense together. The lyrics and the music all came out in about a month’s time,” she said. “I just felt like something was shining down on me.”
Su recorded You’ll Live Forever in My Songs with her husband and close collaborator Cody Byassee at home, in studios across Taiwan and at Leon Russell’s The Church Studio in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Highlights include the song “Involuntary Adventures,” which grapples with the unpredictability of life and sounds like Radiohead covering an ultra-cool collision of jazz and trip-hop, as well as “Things Will Never Be The Same,” a deeply intimate piano ballad that serves as the pivot point in the album’s journey from dark to light. And then there’s the title track, which appears twice – first as a home-recorded demo (complete with Byassee and the couple’s son in the background talking about breakfast), and then as the album’s gorgeous closer, featuring a backing chorus of dozens of Su’s friends and family.
“I will always be singing right here for you my dear, my love,” she sings in the song’s chorus, as if she’s speaking from the great beyond. “Whenever you need me, whenever you miss me, I’m right here.”
Su grew up in Taiwan studying classical music before falling in love with jazz while hanging out in record stores. For college, she went to the renowned music school at the University of North Texas, where she double majored in harp and flute performance and met Byassee, who was on campus studying classical percussion. Once they were together, the couple moved to Taiwan, where they focused on Su’s music and spent a lot of time in India, soaking in the sounds. After releasing an EP in 2011, Su signed with Sony Music, which put out her debut full-length, We Are All Lonely Souls, in 2017.
Sony wasn’t quite the right fit, however, and Su left the label in 2019 feeling like she needed to pivot from Mandopop and take control of her music. And that’s when the cancer diagnosis came along, followed quickly by COVID-19.
“It was extremely humbling. I felt like I had my life back and I had all these plans, and within three months, everything changed and none of that stuff really mattered,” she said. “Life has a funny way of making you slow down and appreciate the things you have – human connection, love, family and friends.”
What followed was a time of uncertainty and struggle, simple living, strength, recovery and, ultimately, the rebirth that is detailed so beautifully on You’ll Live Forever in My Songs.
“I think when something like that hits you, you question everything,” Su said. “For me, facing the darkness in life is very natural, and the deeper you go, the more beauty you’ll find.”
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Heartland Canadian indie rockers The Sarandons deliver defiant optimism on their debut full-length album Sightlines, a rich body of work replete with spirited rhythms, lustrous synths, punctuated guitars and delightfully rugged vocal harmonies, produced by Dan Hosh (Wild Rivers, City and Colour, Glorious Sons) at Double Car Recording and Trench Recordings in Toronto. The Sarandons have shared stages with Dakota Mill, Mattie Leon, Julie Title and more.
The Sarandons are the fully collaborative endeavor of Toronto music stalwarts Dave Suchon (vocals, guitar), Damian Coleman (bass, vocals), Edmund Cummings (keys, vocals), Craig Keeney (lead guitar) and Phil Skot (drums), who have been creating together in different projects for over a decade and a half.
Coming into view – hard on the heels of 2021’s Outrunning EP – The Sarandons’ Sightlines (out January 27) underscores the power of retrospection and resiliency, embracing discomfort as a means to move forward in a heartfelt journey of coming to terms with death, family and the imminent future. Though menaced by the heft of heartache, The Sarandons burn brightly with hard-won lyrics, gauzy guitars, stark countermelodies, and sparkling solos, carving out time and space for respite to succor existential dread.
Album opener “Letting On” cashes in with bristling honesty, soliloquizing in between blips of joy emitted from elated shrieks of pitch-shifted guitars: “Have you come for my ghost? / Are you here just to even the score? / Well you ain’t letting on / The only thing you’re thinking of / Just some higher law for you.”
“So Long” chews through all the doubt heretofore, anticipating a midlife breakthrough where Suchon sings, “It took me 10 years to remember / To realize which side I’m on,” as Craig Keeney acts casually in between wiry guitar solos akin to Albert Hammond Jr. and Phil Skot camps out with claves and a chilled out four-on-the-floor. It’s also plain to see why “Sightlines” is the title track, as Damian Coleman’s infectious, counterpoint basslines churn wistfully atop dance floor-ready grooves steeped in post-punk rhythms, and Keeney re-emerges with another blissfully blistering guitar solo to set said dance floor on fire, while Suchon screams, “take me back,” as if to say, “you reap what you sow.”
Elsewhere on the record, nuanced roots music and honky-tonk charm worms its way into the heart of tracks like “State to State” and “Too Many Whiskies,” where careful deliberation and complacency go to die; despite Cummings’ best efforts to lift spirits with bouncy, yet understated piano, not unlike Sky Blue Sky-era Mikael Jorgensen of Wilco, unspoken truths begin to caramelize – as fate would have it – baked in years upon years of doubt and entropy. The end result amounts to an album that capitalizes on melancholia and the strengths of nostalgia, parsing absolutes by way of unrelenting notions of a predetermined lifestyle, where the narrator considers death in lieu of growth for a very brief moment.
“Maybe that’s a part of some of the reflection I’ve done over the last year,” says Suchon. “Coming to grips with autonomy. There was definitely something that shook loose in me. Why shouldn’t I be happy and who but me is responsible for creating that happiness? Why shouldn’t everyone be fully realized and allow themselves to find their own path?”
The irony is rich with songs like “Headlights in the Day,” with “shadows slipping past” in dreams untold, as the narrative comes to a close, and lyrics like “being returned as bits and pieces to you, honey” beg the question, “what kind of path have I lead for years on end, without ever asking any questions at all?”
“Bristling honesty… blips of joy emitted from elated shrieks of pitch-shifted guitars.” – The Spill Magazine
“Dripping guitar tones, billowing keyboard melodies, and defiant bass / drums all contribute to the textured sound of The Sarandons. Songs are bittersweet, rich with nostalgia and tell stories that are familiar but just out of reach.” – Aesthetic Magazine
“Beautiful… anthemic sounding indie rock with folk and Americana elements to it.” – York Calling
“With steady rock movement, lead singer David Suchon swings through a synth-laden track, surrounded by warm low and end and expressive guitar color. “Caught in a Dream” boasts a 70’s rock feel and tactile lyrical creativity, spinning us into a web of tangible psychedelia.” – Glide Magazine
“Drifting into the warm, nostalgic waters, Toronto quintet’s psychedelic waltz gently floats into your consciousness, lightly propelled on shimmering waves of piercing fretwork — and buoyed by dusty vocals and dark lyrics that nudge the song out of its acid-washed reverie and into the cold hard light of contemporary discomfort.” – Tinnitist
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Austin, TX heart-on-sleeve folk-rock/Americana band Under The Rug took leave from their mobile home and traveled across the U.S. to Los Angeles to record their third full-length album, Homesick For Another World, produced by Oak House Recording owner and David Fridmann understudy David Peters (Blake Mills, Empress Of).
Western Canadian Music Awards’ “Breakout Artist of the Year” Ariel Posen – described by Rolling Stone as, “A modern-day guitar hero” – contributes slide guitar to the record. Under the Rug have been featured at American Songwriter, Rolling Stone India, Atwood Magazine, Americana UK and even received a co-sign from The Mountain Goats’ John Darnielle.
Lead singer, songwriter and guitarist Casey Dayan, guitarist Sean Campbell, and drummer Brendan McQueeney have taken a fanatical and steadfast approach to DIY marketing, which has helped grow the band’s audience exponentially since their 2019 debut album Pale King. With their sophomore LP Dear Adeline, the band has grossed over $100,000 within the first month of their CD campaign, and have received tens of thousands of comments from a fierce fanbase on social media, including 300 members at $20/month from their own home-brewed membership service, The Secret Hideout.
Under the Rug – possibly one of the hardest working indie bands out there right now – used the time afforded to them during lockdown to expand their musical horizons. Drummer Brendan McQueeney learned piano and Dayan took on mandolin. They also incorporated unusual percussion items from washboard to a ticking, antique watch to articulate the album’s heady themes.
“The pandemic was a big shift in terms of the musicianship and how seriously we took it” McQueeney says. “I think that’s reflected in the music. We found a pocket that makes sense for us. That comes from just doing a lot of looking in the mirror and being willing to push ourselves.”
Homesick For Another World is a meditation on alienation. It combats the grim realities of life and death and loneliness with levity and heartfulness, offering urgent lyrics in a playful manner that prioritize magical realism, surreal humor, and piercing insights on modern malaise.
Album opener “Turkey Vulture” kicks off with a wistful tremolo from plaintive mandolin and elegant, understated piano in unison with its soul-baring sentiment: “Something in my body’s breakin’ / Wake up pale and shaking / Nothing is ideal / But I am fine.”
The theme continues to churn on “Bolo Tie” with more gently articulated arpeggiation from mandolin, a larger-than-life chorus with cavernous drums, reverberated guitars, blissed-out bass fuzz, sparkling synths and felted piano melodies that beget the closing cruncher: “At my fingertips the things I need / The problem is I don’t know what I want.”
Homesick For Another World’s Beatles-esque production flourishes underscore Dayan’s unique songwriting perspective. “Lonesome & Mad” underlines these elements with its agile hooks and crackling slide guitar from Ariel Posen, offering warm melodies and a wordless chorus in the outro. Dayan is practically snarling by the end: “I feel like I wanna go home / But I am home / And here I will wait by the door / Like an old dog / Hearing the footsteps of all the strangers / Who are just passing by.”
Packing a decade’s worth of friendship and songwriting in a beat-up van, Under the Rug’s on–the-go work ethic has yielded an expansive record, written on the road to Los Angeles, brimming with hope and hard-won truths from the heart. They’re a band that believes putting the work in manifests success.
Dayan seconds this notion: “You have these moments where you look in the mirror and say, ‘Are we really going to try and keep doing this?’ It’s hyper-competitive. It’s like this insurmountable thing that people laugh about when you say it. It always comes back to going harder on learning and practicing. How the fuck are we going to do this? By working harder.”
On Homesick For Another World, Under The Rug delivers moments of consolation to assist the pangs of grief felt by its narrator, such as the “You won’t ever be afraid, ever again” refrain in “Panacea,” or the benevolent church organ that bookends closing track “El Presidente.”
“So much of my songwriting has been exploring this idea of things feeling wrong and dealing with it,” Dayan says. “I was in this mindset that we have these people who are listening to us now, and it’s insane how many people are listening. Are we going to just paint everything as grim? Is there an upside to this feeling? Is there something comforting? If I were writing this song to my son or daughter, would I tell them it’s all miserable?”
If anything, Homesick For Another World manages to pull people together in unexpectedly moving ways by acknowledging that we’re all searching for those unknowable answers together. At its heart, the record takes an optimistic outlook. Dayan suggests, “Sure, maybe there is respite in that your loneliness and suffering does end somewhere. You’re always looking for a cure to your suffering. But also, maybe the cure, the end, is the scariest part. In a way, that flip-flop was comforting to me. Or surprising. And I really think that…if you surprise yourself with your songwriting and you learn something in the process, there’s this weird sense of life that makes it into the work.”
“Darkly comic…builds like a rousing, emotional ballad.” – Rolling Stone India
“Friend, this music is really good.” – John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats
“A truly beautiful, heart-wrenchingly human breakup record: A collection of raw, honest songs that power through life’s darkness to once again see the light.” – Atwood Magazine
“8 out of 10…A five-year project that proves some things are worth taking your time over and may be even better for it.” – Americana UK
“A beautiful, three-dimensional portrait of the grieving and healing process.” – Spill Magazine
Today’s Song of the Day is “On the Sparrow” from Lazerbeak’s album, Lava Bangers II, out now.
