Saturday, 8 March 2025
Zion Train - Colin Buchanan - Caroline Strickland - AJ Rosales
This is the new studio album from Zion Train which includes their hit single ‘Move To Love’ and is released on vinyl LP and digital formats. This album is produced by Neil Perch in the Alte Ziegelei studio and features the world reknowned Zion Train brass section along with vocals from Zion Train singer ‘Cara’ and the award winning poet Roger Robinson.
Featured on several tracks is Paolo Baldini playing guitars and bass guitar alongside veteran musicians – Trinny Fingers, Blacka Wilson, Dreada One and Professor Skank who hails from Crete.
For this album Zion Train return to their roots with copious amounts of analogue Dub mixing performed by Perch on his TAC Scorpion vintage mixing desk. With mastering at the Pressure Mastering, and artwork by the highly acclaimed anarchist artist Marko Gin from Croatia, this album presents Zion Train at their creative, anarchic best. ============================================================================
Colin Buchanan - River Song.
Colin Buchanan’s August 2024 Matt Fell-produced album “Memory Town” has achieved and exceeded the acclaimed singer-songwriter’s expectations for what has been his first country album in a decade.
“I’ve never stopped writing songs for my own projects, I just hadn’t got around to recording them. When Memory Town finally happened, I thought of it as a sort of re-introduction of Colin Buchanan the country artist to fans and to the industry”. The album was number 1 on the Australian Country ARIA album chart. What I Love About Country and The Bush Comes Back were #1 singles. Airplay was widespread, reviews were glowing. News of 5 Golden Guitar nominations capped off a remarkable 2024.
Enter Memory Town - Bonus 2025 Golden Guitar Edition. The digital version of the album receives three additional tracks; River Town, King With Coal Dust On His Hands and In Real Life.
River Song is the only co-write on Memory Town,” explains Colin. “It’s a song about the power of music to set us free - something we all cherished in those years of shutdown. I wrote it with James Gillard, my long-time musical collaborator. He has a CV as long as your arm - he’s a top producer, bass player, backing vocalist and guitarist.” The song reveals something of how the vivid lyrics of Colin’s songs hold a power to transport even their own writer in times of isolation and confinement.
============================================================================
Caroline Strickland - Martha’s Calling (EP).
Caroline Strickland is an alternative rock musician out of Brooklyn, New York. She is carrying on the tradition of rock champions PJ Harvey and Liz Phair, compared often to modern indie darlings like Lucy Dacus, Blondshell, Sharon Van Etten, and Devon Ross.
Her first EP “Watch” came out in 2023, released to critical acclaim. She has played live shows up and down the East Coast, with a signature duo set up that enthralls even the most timid live audience. Strickland’s music revolves around themes of self actualization and realization, analyzing the tension between our arrogance and tenderness, how we fall in love and how we let go.
Driving guitar and smoked out vocals are highlighted with the occasional one-string lick or tap on the piano, a sparse style that somehow fills the void. “Loving You Right” dropped August 30th, 2024 and was the lead single off the brand new five track swan song “Martha’s Calling.” This fabulous EP is released on Beacon, New York based independent label Good Eye Records.
============================================================================
AJ Rosales - Thunderclouds.
AJ is about to release his sixth album entitled Phasedrift. With a slightly more organic approach to production, these songs showcase the diverse palette that he is known for, while venturing into sonic territory that signifies drifting towards a new musical identity. The first single Thunderclouds was released on Feb 14th, 2025 (Engineering and mixing by Doug McBride (Gravity Studios) and Mastered by Greg Calbi and Steve Fallone at Sterling Sound). His previous releases are Manifestations, Ultramarine, Resistor, the Earth and Shoal EP, and Daughter Product (Fatigue), which have all garnered critical acclaim.
AJ's style is not easy to classify, but his progressively acoustic tendencies tend to dominate his compositions. His rhythmic, expressive and emotive delivery gets peppered with experimental colors, and an infusion of soulfulness. He draws comparisons to Pete Townshend, Cat Stevens, Nick Drake, and Bob Mould, however he delivers his own unique hybrid sound, blending multiple genres into a cohesive and modern sensibility that sounds like "AJ".
============================================================================
Tuesday, 10 November 2020
Michaela Bekenn - AJ Rosales - Muca & La Marquise
Michaela Bekenn recently released 'The Earth Has Music' and thankfully it came our way this week. The Toronto based artist has a multitude of skills which include creating intimate, refined and beautifully arranged singer songwriter pieces, as this track amply demonstrates. ===== Chicago singer-songwriter AJ Rosales has shared 'If Not Today'. AJ has drawn a number of impressive comparisons and his music is hard to pin down into any one genre, more importantly though this is one powerful and irresistible song. ===== We are also just catching up on Muca & La Marquise who released 'October Blues' unsurprisingly at the end of October. The vocals are quite stunning as is the sumptuous bluesy musical backdrop, there's shades of Jeff Buckley but come on, surely nobody can complain about that.
===================================================
Michaela Bekenn - The Earth Has Music.Michaela Bekenn is a Toronto-based interdisciplinary singer-songwriter, sound therapy & yoga practitioner, dancer, and storyteller. She was steeped in the arts from a young age, growing up within the Shaw Festival Theatre community where she spent two seasons as an actor. Telling stories through song, movement, and spoken word has been a guiding force in Michaela’s work and daily practice.
Michaela currently serves a wide variety of demographics as a sound therapy practitioner, yoga teacher, meditation facilitator, and arts educator with youth. She has offered sound baths and performed at major festivals such as Download Music Festival (England) and Electric Picnic (Ireland).
Michaela has had years of training in vocal technique and musical storytelling, and often captivates listeners with her raw and honest sound. As a songwriter, Michaela’s intention is to share music that is both enlivening and grounding for the listener, which encourages self reflection and community connection.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
AJ Rosales - If Not Today.Chicago singer-songwriter AJ Rosales just released the single "If Not Today." Recorded and mixed by Doug McBride at Gravity Studios, Chicago and mastered by Oli Morgan at Abbey Road Studios, London it will be featured on Rosales's fifth studio album Manifestations, set to be released on Friday, Nov 27.
This collection of tracks is over two years in the making and his live performances of the songs have been eliciting enthusiasm from a diverse fan-base. His previous releases Ultramarine, Resistor, The Earth and Shoal EP, and Daughter Product (Fatigue) have garnered college and mainstream radio airplay and have impressed critics, leading to shows across the US.
His style is not easy to classify, perhaps "progressive acoustic" is the best term, but he has been compared to Pete Townshend for his rhythmic approach, to Cat Stevens for his emotive delivery, to Robert Fripp for his experimental explorations, to Bob Mould for his expressiveness, and to Nick Drake for his soulfulness. Ultimately, he delivers his own unique hybrid sound, blending multiple genres into a cohesive and modern sensibility that sounds like "AJ."
AJ Rosales, who has been playing guitar since his mid-teens, has opened for the international touring acts Vertical Horizon and Modern English and one of his previous singles, "Sweetest Thing" (from the 1999 EP Earth and Shoal), was included on CMJ's Certain Damage CD and was featured on WBEZ in Chicago. The title track from his 2004 album Resistor received airplay on WXRT and won glowing reviews from the Illinois Entertainer, Americana UK and Left of the Dial.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Muca & La Marquise - October Blues.Following the release of their previous singles, London and Blue Moon Bossa, which gained the attention of industry heavyweights such as Roberto Menescal and Will Gompertz, Muca & La Marquise return with a Bluesy Ballard, 'October Blues'.
Imagine, for five minutes, being able to lose yourself to a female Jeff Buckley singing on a 'Since I've Been Loving You' style ballad with a Gilmour inspired guitar solo.
If you can do that, you've got what Muca & La Marquise are all about.
Muca & La Marquise is Muca's brainchild musical and visual project.
For this time, Muca teamed up with Tiago Judas, a painter/illustrator, who had his comic 'The Liquid Mystery and The Solid Fatality' brought to life in an animated video for the track which was filmed by Tom Casey and edited by Luan Pali.
A full album is expected by the first semester of 2021.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
This is two demo recording sessions from Television in 1974 & 1975. The bands highly acclaimed debut album 'Marquee Moon' was r...
-
Reloaded 08/May/2015 - Emmylou Harris contributions to country-rock, the bluegrass revival, folk music, and the Americana movement are wi...
-
This is a compilation of Babe Ruth session material recorded for the BBC in 1973 & 1974 and subsequently presented by legendary Br...
-
Fishing 4 Compliments - Hard To Please. The female fronted indie-folk-pop Fishing 4 Compliments new single 'Hard To Please' is rele...
-
Matilda Mann - You Look Like You Can’t Swim (EP). The incredibly talented Londoner Matilda Mann has shared her latest EP “You Look Like You...
MF Tomlinson - Hippie Flowers - Little Low - Franklin Gothic
MF Tomlinson - Die To Wake Up From A Dream. MF Tomlinson shares the album's centrepiece and 9-minute title track, ‘Die To Wake Up From ...
