Eureka California - Low Roar - A Different Thread - Anna Coogan - Mike Adams At His Honest Weight

Eureka California - Only Birds No Feathers.

Background - Eureka California announce SXSW dates and debut new track 'Only Birds No Feathers' from their new 7". In just under a year since releasing their last album “Versus,” Eureka California are back with a new single,  “Wigwam.”

The band had a set plan in mind when going into the studio: get in and knock it out and release a single to hold over ‘til recording the next full length. With “Versus” they went overseas to the UK and recorded with MJ at Suburban Home, but for “Wigwam” they decided to record here in their hometown of Athens, Georgia, with Dave Barbe (Sugar / Mercyland / Dave Barbe & the Quick Hooks) at his Chase Park Transduction Studio. 

Wasting no time, they recorded and mixed the single in one afternoon. A single on a tight budget, three tracks in under 8 minutes, hand-decorated sleeves -- everything about this is economical. Facebook here, tour dates on our tour page.

Fast paced beats and a guitar riff in full control, gives 'Only Birds No Feathers' a short, sharp, shock, feel and at just over two minutes long, you can catch your breath and dive back in.


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Low Roar - Bones (feat. Jófríõur Ákadóttir).

Background - Low Roar - the name under which Ryan Karazija records and performs - is excited to announce the upcoming release of a new album. Once In A Long, Long While… will be released via Nevado Music on May 5th.

Recorded in London with longtime collaborator Mike Lindsay (Tunng), Once In A Long, Long While… is the follow up to 2014's 0, which earned Karazija a large new audience after his music was discovered by iconic Japanese video game creator Hideo Kojima. Kojima used Low Roar's "I'll Keep Coming" and "Easy Way Out" on two high-profile trailers in 2016 for his Death Stranding video game starring Norman Reedus, Mads Mikkelsen, and director Guillermo del Toro.

Born in the San Francisco Bay Area to a mother of Mexican descent and a Lithuanian father, the frontman spent his formative years playing in bands around Northern California before relocating to Iceland in 2010 where he recorded Low Roar’s self-titled debut in his Reykjavik kitchen. Quietly building buzz, he cut the critically acclaimed follow-up, 0, in a converted garage in 2014 before going on to grace the stages of ATP, Eurosonic, Airwaves France, The Great Escape, Lowlands, Iceland Airwaves, and beyond.

After touring the world in support of 0, Karazija spent most of 2016 as a solo traveller, visiting everywhere from Iceland, Sweden, and Poland, to the Bay Area, and Mexico before settling permanently in Warsaw. During this time, he carefully assembled his third full-length record.Website here, Facebook here, tour dates on our tour page.

Already getting noticed the song 'Bones' is a lo-fi tune where the vocals are seemingly discreet and merge beautifully with the gentle soundtrack.

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A Different Thread - Big Crane.

Background - Travelling singer and songwriter Robert Jackson and versatile classical cellist Isaac Collier combine with stunning effect to create their own unique blend of Brit Folk/Americana for the debut EP from A Different Thread, ‘Home From Home’, released 15th April 2017. Jackson’s distinctively soulful voice, vibrato harmonica and driving acoustic guitar combines with Collier’s enchanting and often improvised playing to give ‘Home From Home’ a refreshing and impulsive edge. Together they create something special, raw and cultured with their songwriting summoning imagery of adventure, bitter romance and synchronicity.

A Different Thread first met whilst busking a mere matter of months ago with the culmination of their talents making an immediate impact with BBC Bristol instantly snapping the pair up for 2 live sessions. Since their inception, the duo have been on an upward rise, attracting the attention of international musicians, Brum & Scilly Radio, BBC 6 Music and BBC Introducing.

The captivating ‘Home From Home’ EP features a host of internationally renowned musicians based in Bristol including guitarist and singer/songwriter Lewis Creaven, vocalist and singer/songwriter Ruth Royall, Andrew Hughes (Drummer of BBC2 featured Johnny Cage and the Voodoo Groove) and Alicia Best, Appalachian Folk singer/songwriter from North Carolina. The Folk/Blues/Country blend in the debut EP from the innovative pair includes tones from early Bob Dylan, David Grey, Robert Johnson and Joni Mitchell. Songwriters Willy Mason and Evan Dando are also evident, as well as more contemporary influences such as Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, The Felice Brothers and Old Crow Medicine Show. Facebook here, website here.

The first of four songs on their debut EP is 'Big Crane'. It's an easy going modern folk song, where the music unfolds and builds at a delightful pace, whilst the highly engaging vocals and harmonies add melody and feeling. The EP is a must.

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Anna Coogan - Collateral.

Background - Ahead of the album the new single Collateral has now been released. Anna Coogan has been preparing for this moment her whole life, ever since she was a girl growing up in Boston, influenced by her classical opera training and her father’s protest albums by Phil Ochs and Bob Dylan. After several efforts with her Pacific Northwest-based alt-country band north 19, a pair of well-received indie solo releases and a collaboration with producer JD Foster (2014’s Birth of the Stars), Coogan’s latest is a stylistic breakthrough. Anna Coogan will release The Lonely Cry of Space & Time on April 28.

The album, a virtual two-person effort which features Willie B (Brian Wilson) on drums and Moog bass, combines Coogan’s three-octave soprano vocals, electric guitar soundscapes and pointed social commentary into a fierce cohesive piece which combines the personal and the political, in a musical hybrid of rock, country, pop and classical opera into a unique whole.

There have been many attempts at rock opera in the past, but The Lonely Cry of Space & Time is something different.  Call it operatic rock, a genre previously explored by the likes of Kate Bush, Jane Siberry, Lene Lovich, Yoko Ono and Freddie Mercury, among others. Coogan studied opera at the prestigious Mozarteum University of Salzburg in Austria, before moving to Seattle, where she worked as a fisheries biologist in Washington State and Alaska, which goes a long way to explaining her frequent use of water as a metaphor.  In fact, a drought in the Finger Lakes region of New York where she lived in part was a factor in the immediacy she brought to the new album. Website here, Facebook here. 

At it's heart 'Collateral' is a stripped back and straight to the chase rock song. Add in Anna's vocals and the track expands with melody and passion, demanding the music steps up to the pace, resulting in a powerful and heady response.

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Mike Adams At His Honest Weight - The Lucky One.

Background - Mike Adams At His Honest Weight shares the video for "The Lucky One" a new track distributed by Joyful Noise Recordings. When talking about the track Mike says, "Our video for "The Lucky One", is a hardcore tribute to a portion of Zbignew Rybczynski's 1990 experimental masterwork, "Orkiestra". My day job is at a community television station, and I happened to catch the "Funeral March" segment of Zbig's film on our channel as I passed by. It was beautiful and hypnotizing, and I immediately wondered how it was made. So, having the advantage of cheap and powerful technology at our disposal, Zac (Canale) and I set out to dissect the original and make this shoestring-budget tribute version by guessing and stabbing at that "how" question. Meanwhile, twisting it into shape with our own symbolism and metaphor. The themes of the song and the video have to do with luck and superstition, uncontrollable other factors and circumstances."

Mike Adams At His Honest Weight is the flagship recording project of Mike Adams (duh). Musician, writer, TV host, parent, humorist, friend, nimble agitator, these are all adjectives that describe Mike Adams, the man. But, in another realm, he's a complex mixture of Star-stuff, somehow equally at home whether he's at home, or performing for a captivated drooling audience.

For the most part, these songs are written and recorded by Mike, alone, in his room before they're handed off to friend and trusted confidant, Adam Jessup, for further production and polishing-off. I suppose Mike sees the arranging and writing process as an escape fantasy into his own mind where he's safe and in control. Of course, he's wrong about that. What he's really doing is flipping himself inside out; internalising his experience and exposing his veiled vulnerability in a grotesque public evolutionary process for the whole world to see. Obviously. But, he's a sensitive guy, so if you don't tell him, neither will we. Facebook here, tour dates on our tour page.

What's not to love with 'The Lucky One'. The video put an immediate smile on my face, the music is feel good and natural. Add in a fascinating mood switch half way through and this becomes one gem of a song.

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