Greetings, Earthlings! Songs, we got ’em! A mind-bending four (4) songs this week! Count ’em, go ahead, they’re all there!
Mount Moriah – Lament from Hueism Pictures on Vimeo.
Mount Moriah come from the fertile Chapel Hill, NC scene that in the past has raised up Superchunk, Archers of Loaf and the Flat Duo Jets-and more recently Megafaun. You might roll your eyes to learn that bandleaders Heather McEntire (ex-Bellafea) and Jenks Miller (ex-Horseback) met while working at a record store, but get over it. Scenesters or not, this is great music that pulls Southern Folk roots into a post-punk mindset to compelling results. Their self-titled debut album will be released April 12, on Holidays for Quince Records.
mp3: “Lament” by Mount Moriah
Jennifer Castle deserves your attention first and foremost because her new album Castlemusic is being released on April 26 on Calgary’s Flemish Eye label. FE came on the scene in 2004 with stunning debut albums from Chad VanGaalen and The Cape May. Since then their roster grown very slowly to include Women, Braid and Ghostkeeper, all forward-thinking acts who’ve found success within the Canadian indie rock scene and occasionally beyond. Castle’s previous album You Can’t Take Anyone was released on Blue Fog, a label so legit, it doesn’t even have a proper website–though you can shop their wares via Sonic Unyon. Blue Fog recording artist Andre Ethier recently told Damian Rogers for Canadian Interviews that “They’re almost happier if no one hears about the records, because, whatever the reason that label exists, it’s not to sell records.” The cosmic folk on the track below proves that Jennifer Castle belongs among the esteemed company she keeps.
mp3: “Neverride” by Jennifer Castle
Roxanne Potvin is best known as a blues artist. With Play–her fifth album, due April 19–she moves impressively into dark pop terrain. The album was recorded in Vancouver with Black Hen head honcho Steve Dawson, who knows a little a bit about helping roots artists expand their horizons without compromising what made them interesting in the first place.
mp3: “You Told Me” by Roxanne Potvin
Thunder Power is a group out of Omaha, NE. They’ve released three EPs since 2005, but now they’re trying to raise a few bucks to do up a full-length recording. “Night Creatures”, the song heard and seen below, is pretty great stuff, even if I can’t make out a single lyric.
Thunder Power: Night Creatures from Love Drunk on Vimeo.
Emmet Matheson is an independent investigator of knock-knock jokes & a collector of Mexican detective novels who blogs at A Bulldozer With a Wrecking Ball Attached. You can e-mail him at: bulldozerDOTwreckingballATgmailDOTcom