Fresh Track: Sam Moss “Flowers” Featured Track Music Features by Brian Carroll - January 9, 20180 Like the endless swirling cyclone of light flakes, circling around our yard within the confines of the tall pines, the reverbating guitar lines of Sam Moss's latest single float in a delicate dance. Seeming to lift from the ground moments before hitting the remains of their predecessors to join the blanket of white, there is such a beautiful airy quality to Moss's music and "Flowers" is no different. The songwriter's voice is a soft, not quite a whisper, flow of words that swims alongside the swaying notes of the guitar and pattering drum. I feel cozy inside the margins of Moss's songs. The trickling of notes from his guitar flows in an effortless, tranquil wave that washes over your head as
Fresh Track: Aurora Birch “Semantics” Featured Track Music Features by Brian Carroll - December 8, 2017December 8, 20170 Aurora Birch's "Brightness" crept up on me. Almost without warning word of the album began to explode in my news feeds on social media from mutual friends sharing and spouting its praises. Upon listening, I couldn't share the same sentiment any stronger. to deem a thing a river is to say it never ends the mighty mississippi has no little fleeting friends if i were to look, if i were to look with an older set of eyes i would see more things as rivers, for i’d live to their demise After a few solid listens through, the third track, "Semantics", sticks with me again and again. The singer-songwriter's voice engaging in a soaring, weighty battle with the strings of the arrangement. A battle that
Fresh Track: The Ballroom Thieves “Only Lonely” Featured Track Music Features by Brian Carroll - November 29, 2017November 29, 20170 The Ballroom Thieves might as well be the official sweethearts of Boston music. The band has earned that rightful place through calloused fingers and upward creeping odometor digits over the past few years. Seemingly always on the road and the latest single from the band dovetails that emotion beautifully. The latest track blends wispy Laurel Canyon warmth and vibes with their signature harmony woven tapestries of sound. Its amazing to think that cellist/bassist/vocalist Calin Peters was mostly harmonizing and leading a song or two during sets a few years back. It would seem this latest project sees her in the driver's seat a bit more, as far as writing is concerned. A certainly welcome and worthy endeavor as as her emotive
Fresh Track: Grace Morrison “I’m The Apple” Featured Track Music Features by Brian Carroll - November 14, 20170 The title track off of songwriter Grace Morrison's enters slowly, sultry and as she begins to whisper in the listeners ear "how do you stay high when you're so low..." one may expect the song to remain at that pace, in that reclusive kind of hush. But the song lifts and falls with the thud of drums and Morrison's airy vocal. Right after the 2 minute mark, she really opens up and flexes her vocal muscles for a brief instrumental reprieve. There is something fresh and undiluted about her voice. So much so that even when singing "how can you touch me when you don't know / I hear you tell her that you love her on the phone" that purity
Fresh Track: Prateek Poddar “Emma” Featured Track Interviews Music Features by Brian Carroll - November 9, 20170 I first met singer-songwriter Prateek Poddar through the now "indefinitely hiatused" EBASS community. Poddar at that time was bright eyed and excited about the scene circling around him. Excited to catch new performers, excited to have opportunities like the Lizard open mic. Just a genuinely good dude to be around with an incredibly infectious attitude of being positive about art. Prateek is still that way, but two or so years later finds his songwriting more polished, his delivery with a bit more smoothness than the grit previously in his vocals and with a keen focus on where he wants his music to be. He just released a new single called "Emma" where we find a bit more relief and melancholia in
Fresh (Spooky) Track: Brian Wright “Scary Noises” Featured Track Music Features by Brian Carroll - October 31, 2017October 31, 20170 There's a lot of pretty terrible kid's music out there these days. Trust me, my nephew was just up 2 weekends ago from Jersey and I wanted to stick my chainsaw into my ear canals after listening to some of the theme songs from his favorite shows...yeah. Enter Guitar God and one of the finest songwriters I've come across in the past decade, Brian Wright. Wright (along with help from some young friends) just released this new track 'Scary Noises' in time for Halloween. A fun little diddy and a good message for the young uns'. Probably not Wright's most poignant writing to date, but you can tell in the performance he had a blast with this. "Scary Noises" featuring Cool Breeze
Fresh Track: House Sparrow “Tie A Rope” Featured Track Music Features by Brian Carroll - October 27, 2017October 27, 20170 There is something slightly lo-fi about North Adams based House Sparrow's album "Eat Honey, Taste Mud". The acoustic guitar sounding almost like it was recorded through a harmonica mic. Tin can-ish and metallic in its texture. The band allowing creaks of the floor and between take banter to seep into their songs. Its honest. "Tie A Rope" was a track that struck me the most in listening to our album of the week pretty much all week long. Singer Francesca Olsen's voice is reminiscent of one of our favorite Boston bred bands, Honeysuckle's Holly McGarry. Jazzy in nature, but dovetailing beautifully with the self described "freak folk" that the band identifies as. The track grows and grows from that initial bedroom
Fresh Track: Jonah Tolchin “Charlottesville” Featured Track Music Features by Brian Carroll - October 26, 20170 In a world where we wake up to another horrible event happening in the world every single day it is often lost on us to reflect and remember those that were effected by events even last week. But, we have music and artists to help us to do so and present it in beautiful and contemplative way. This week singer-songwriter Jonah Tolchin released a track to help us all reflect a little and hopefully make changes in the world as a result. About the track Tolchin said," It's up to us to remember the past and not get distracted in this fast paced world. My hope is that this song will bring some reconciliation to the people affected by the events in
Simply Put, This Shit Rocks – The Low Cards “Suffer” Featured Track Track Reviews by Brian Carroll - October 5, 20170 Know that feeling the second a song kicks in and your immediately reaction is "holy shit, this is going to take me for a ride". The latest single "Suffer", from Providence based The Low Cards is that kind of a song. Songwriter and guitarist Dan Baker came my way via the usual channels a number of years back. Playing the same dives and swapping each others records when we once shared a bill. I was immediately hooked on his plaintive and candid writing style. Songs like 'This Ain't My Home' completely shook up my ideals of what a good song should be. Prior to hearing Baker meaning drenched in metaphor and literary device and afterwards realizing that THESE were the kinds
Song Premiere: Mark Erelli, “Ophelia” (The Band) Featured Album Featured Track Music Features by Ken Templeton - September 28, 2017September 28, 20170 For those of us of a certain, ahem, vintage, we remember all too well our sweaty palms and awkward hopes as we passed somebody a mixtape of songs to say all we couldn’t say. The cases were decorated with careful and deliberate handwriting. There were themes and titles, as if naming albums, and there was an art to timing out the songs on each side so that every second of tape was used. Well, Mark Erelli made you a mixtape! These are songs that have informed his career as a songwriter, musician, and singer. They are from a wide variety of artists, genres, and time periods and it is a damn fine album. We’re please to premiere one of the