Esther Rose - Nathaniel Bellows - PD Martin - Tom Jenkins

Esther Rose - Chet Baker.

Esther Rose has signed to New West Records and will release Safe to Run April 21, 2023. The 11-track set was produced by Ross Farbe in New Orleans, LA and Placitas, NM and is the follow up to 2021’s acclaimed How Many Times. Alongside longtime collaborators Farbe and Lyle Werner, Safe to Run also features the acclaimed New Orleans based band Silver Synthetic on many songs, Cameron Snyder of The Deslondes, as well as Alynda Segarra of Hurray for the Riff Raff on the title track, a gorgeous duet that directly merges the personal with the global, superimposing feelings of spiritual displacement onto the larger, looming dread of climate grief.

Safe to Run is the quiet culmination of years spent fully immersed in a developing artistry, and presents Rose’s always vividly detailed emotional scenes with new levels of clarity and control. Her songwriting transfigures the chaos and uncertainty of a life in progress, but here she introduces a newfound pop element that attaches unshakably catchy hooks to even the darkest stretches of the journey. The album’s production takes a giant step forward. Across all of the tracks, the open-air, live-in-the-room sound she tended towards in the past was exchanged for an exploration of multitracking and overdubs.

Of the song, Rose says, “Someone sent me a DM, asking ‘do you remember me.’ I was transported into a decade-old memory; a weird weekend with a crew of dangerous college preps, a car crash. What came out is this short study of my townie life in Ann Arbor. As I was writing this song, it occurred to me how lucky I was to have survived that time of willful recklessness. I wanted to empathize with my younger self, like, ‘it’s alright, you were 23. You were out of control. I got you now. You’re okay.’”

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Nathaniel Bellows - One Small Thing.

“One Small Thing” imagines an internal and external space of reprieve, peace, and calm, away from our present day’s environments of tension, challenge, and turmoil. The song asks the question: If such an idealized place seems out of reach, what are the “small things” we can do today to make such a space feel possible?

Bellows selected the musicians who performed on “One Small Thing” based on his appreciation for their subtle, artistic approach, and their ability to connect to–and express–the emotional core of a song. Nova contrasts Bellows’ low, gravelly voice with soaring, angelic vocals. Malcolm Burn’s nuanced bass lines organically cleave the melody, singing in a beautiful, thoughtful way. Steve Decker’s open, impressionistic, even jazz-inflected drumming breathes new life into the architecture of the song through a varied series of textures and undercurrents.

The contrast of growing up surrounded by the quiet beauty of the natural world in rural New England and now living in New York City’s urban landscape creates tension in Bellows’ music. The songs are an ongoing dialogue between internal, reflective wonder and an external sense of outward, urgent searching.

Bellows works in three creative fields simultaneously–writing, music, and visual art– exploring a cohesive artistic point of view among the three mediums to undergird his songs. He says, “I explore emotional terrain with these various creative outlets in an attempt to understand–through different vantage points–what matters to me.” He writes about memory, affect, family, legacy, the natural world, human frailty, injury, redemption, and resilience. He says, “I’m interested in unresolved images and fragments of unfinished thought and dialogue.” The engine of most of his work–writing, music, and artwork–is the constant process of reconciling the past while existing, in an ever-changing state, in the present day.

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PD Martin - Strip It Down.

PD Martin and his band hit the trail as a straightforward blues-trio. But twelve bars ain’t enough and soon they are leaving the main road. 

Gig by gig, song by song, they make their way through a wetland of blues and funk, ever groovin’ to the rhythm of the almighty Soulbeat. The record you are discovering here is a report of this exciting journey. “Soulbeat Incarnate” is a diverse collection of eleven original songs. 

From the raw blues of “Artificial State of Misery”, over the funky hooks of “Come to Bed” to the extremely danceable groove of “Strip It Down”, this album, produced by JB Biesmans (Travellin’ Blue Kings), is compelling from beginning to end!

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Tom Jenkins - It Comes In The Morning, It Hangs In The Evening Sky.

Welsh Singer-songwriter Tom Jenkins has revealed a brand new video for “It Comes In The Morning, It Hangs In The Evening Sky”, the title-track of his spectacular latest solo album (out now). The official video arrives as Jenkins confirms a string of live fixtures for the new year ahead, including support shows with Cardinal Black, Frank Turner and Bastille as well as sold out headline shows in Cardiff and Trowbridge.

A sprawling and cinematic track that unfolds like a great epic told in three parts, “It Comes In The Morning, It Hangs In The Evening Sky” pins together tender vocals with cascading drum rolls, unhinged guitars and meteoric instrumental flourishes.

Of the new song, Tom explains: “”It Comes In The Morning, It Hangs In The Evening Sky” is probably the most epic track on the album, and had to really live up to the name. The song draws influences from the likes of Jeff Buckley, Daniel Johns of Silverchair and Big Thief. Lyrically, it focuses on the feeling of dread and how it creeps up on you.”

The title-track of an equally expansive and exploratory new studio album (out now, via Xtra Mile Recordings), ‘‘It Comes In The Morning, It Hangs In The Evening Sky’ is the singer-songwriter’s follow-up to 2019 solo debut ‘Misery In Comfort’.

Recorded in the depths of lockdown, Tom started tracking the album in a disused barn on an old laptop with just one microphone and a 2010 version of GarageBand. Realising he was completely out of his depth, he turned to lifelong friend and producer Todd Campbell and the pair began to turn the collection of songs into a full-length album at his studio in South Wales.

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