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Sunday, October 26, 2025

Catching up with the latest tracks added to our New Music Bin

We've fallen behind in blog-posting about the latest tunes added to our Marvelous Mix. But here are the songs currently in our top-of-the-hour New Music rotation:

  • Mumford & Sons - Rubber Band Man (with Hozier)
  • The Strumbellas - Come Back Around
  • Faded Paper Figures - Out of Control
  • Foo Fighters - Asking for a Friend
  • The Beths - Roundabout


  • Flock of Dimes - Keep Me In The Dark
  • John Gorka - No Time to Cry
  • Spoon - Guess I'm Falling In Love
  • Tame Impala - Afterthought
  • Don't Believe in Ghosts - Outta Your Head


  • Trombone Shorty - Line Em Up
  • Lights - Education
  • Wolf Alice - Passenger Seat
  • Shayla McDaniel - Wild Dreamer
  • Modern Dandelion - Always

Sunday, October 5, 2025

New Marcus King, Alice Merton, Almost Monday, reissued Emmylou Harris and reunited Strawberry Alarm Clock

Marcus King Band - Carolina Honey

After a couple of solo albums, Marcus King has put his band back together and brought in some guests for Darling Blue, his first full-band album since 2018.

Alice Merton - Ignorance Is Bliss

This is the lead single for the German-Canadian-British artist's third studio album, Visions, due in January. "I wrote this song with the mindset of ignoring the outside voices and focusing on what I think I can do with my life."

Almost Monday - Lost

The San Diego trio says its latest single is "about escapism and finding yourself by leaving what you know behind and opening yourself to the possibilities of the future.

Emmylou Harris - Deeper Well

We're cheating a bit by putting a 27-year-old recording in the New Music Bin. It's from an upcoming re-issue of the 1998 live album Spyboy.

Strawberry Alarm Clock - Monsters

Yes, it's THAT Strawberry Alarm Clock, best known for 1967's "Incense and Peppermints." They reunited and put out an album in 2012, and recently signed with Big Stir Records. An album is in the works, but this track is being released early as part of a Halloween compilation.

Saturday, September 27, 2025

New music from Yukon Blonde, Sloan, Goose, Tune-Yards, Robert Plant

Yukon Blonde: Phaedra

We pull another cool track from Friendship & Rock 'n' Roll, the latest album from the group from British Columbia.

Sloan: Dream Destroyer

The veteran Canadian indie-rockers just released their 14th album, Based on the Best Seller.

Goose: Hot Love & the Lazy Poet

Here's another selection from the Connecticut jam band's second album of 2025: Chain Yer Dragon. The track is their first studio recording of a song that's been in their live shows for years.

Tune-Yards: Sand Into Stone

While Goose released two full albums this year, Merrill Garbus and Nate Brenner put out one and a half. This is from the new EP Tell The Future With Your Body.

Robert Plant: Everybody's Song

This is a cover of a 20-year-old song by the band Low. It's from Plant's new album Saving Grace, which is also the name of the band he put together for the project, featuring vocalist Suzi Dian.

Saturday, September 20, 2025

Alabama Shakes, Nation of Language, Sea Lemon, Spoon, Big Thief - our latest New Music picks

NOTE: It's totally a coincidence that two of our New Music picks of the week have "Another Life" in their titles!

Alabama Shakes: Another Life


A decade after Sound and Color, Brittany Howard rejoins bassist Zac Cockrell and guitarist Heath Fogg on this new song and on tour. Their next album is in the works.

Nation of Language: In Another Life


We've been spinning the singles "Inept Apollo" and "I'm Not Ready For The Change," and with the release of the LP Dance Called Memory we now adding selection. Critics have called the album both "fresh, upbeat and lively" and "intimate, introspective, dark."

Sea Lemon: Stay


We take a dip into the debut LP from the Seattle-based project of Natalie Lew, Diving for a Prize. New Noise Magazine calls it "a shoegaze, dream pop album with atmospheric power to shake rain from the clouds."

Spoon: Chateau Blues


As the band works on its next album, it decided to roll out two of its new songs as a "double-sided single." We took the 45 out of its sleeve and flipped it, and it landed with this track on top. The other, "Guess I'm Fallin In Love," will pop up in our mix, too.

Big Thief: Words


With the release of the Brooklyn band's sixth full-length, Double Infinity, we pick out another fine track and drop it into our New Music Bin.

Saturday, September 6, 2025

Our latest picks: David Byrne, Trombone Shorty, St. Etienne, Planet Smasher, Jacob's Run


David Byrne feat. Ghost Train Orchestra: What Is The Reason For It?


With the release of Who Is The Sky? we pick another of its ebullient tracks for our New Music Bin. This one features vocals by Hayley Williams of Paramore. Byrne says it's "a love song, or at least it’s asking what is love, what it’s about?" 

Trombone Shorty & New Breed Brass Band: Good Time


Released twenty years to the day after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, the new album Second Line Sunday is billed as a reflection on culture and tradition, on family and community, on survival and resilience." Mostly it's joyous, and it's pretty much impossible to sit still when listening to any of its ten tracks.  

Saint Etienne: Glad


Continuing the upbeat mood, this is the opening track from International, the twelfth album from the U.K. trio of Bob Stanley, Pete Wiggs, and Sarah Cracknell. They've said it will be their last. AllMusic says this number "booms out of the speakers with huge drums, thumping bass, and jangling guitars in a style very reminiscent of some of the band's early work, while coming across very fresh and shiny."

Planet Smashers: Things You Do


We previously featured "Wasted Tomorrows" from this Montreal punk-ska band's new LP On The Dancefloor, and we're dipping in again for another dose.

Jacob's Run: She's Not That Mean


OK, so it's the umpteenth song to use the "down on my knees/begging you please" rhyme, and if the lyrics are telling a story we're not getting it. (How mean is she, then?) But the second single from the upcoming second album by this Melbourne indie-rock trio is a fun listen. Lead singer-guitarist Michael Jacobs says the band "wanted the chorus to sound like a throwback to the ’60s - a-la The Monkees, Mamas and Papas - those really rich interweaving harmonies where no one voice is prominent."

Sunday, August 31, 2025

New music from The Beths, Flyte, Lauren Mann, Next Week's Washing, Don't Believe in Ghosts


The Beths: Straight Line Was A Lie


Here's the title track from the New Zealand band's just-released fourth album. Nothing has been proven more effective against Music Boredom than Birch Street Radio. It's unsurpassed! Use only as directed. Possible side effects include altering your mood, distracting you from what you should be doing, and causing flashbacks to the first time you heard that song. Our musical variety program is produced Birch Street Studios in Beautiful Downtown Suburbia and streamed 24/7 from Canada by TorontoCast and in the USA by Live365.

Flyte: Alabaster (feat. Aimee Mann)


We weren't familiar with Flyte, the UK indie-folk duo of Nick Hill and Will Taylor, but we're long-time fans of Aimee Mann, so this collaboration caught our attention. It's from Between You And Me, the upcoming fourth Flyte LP. Under The Radar mag writes: "The band’s typically feather-light acoustics are anchored by simmering fuzz guitar and prominent basslines ... [T]he lyrics explore a love affair that is doomed to implode."

Lauren Mann: Different Light


We're very happy to get new music from this self-described songwriter-musician-island adventurer from Pender Island, B.C. She's releasing an EP called Heaven in late September. Mann describes it as "an intimate collection of songs brought together through expansive journeys of finding home, blossoming into motherhood and navigating personal growth through it all." (It's strictly coincidental that this week's New Music picks include two women with the last name Mann.)

Next Week's Washing: Empty Pages


Here's the latest of a series of singles from this emerging Toronto trio, formed last year by Rhys Newman and brothers Miles and Julian Duffy. Canadian Beats writes: "Drawing on elements of shoegaze, Britpop, and alternative rock, the track combines a nostalgic emotionality with forward-looking sonic ambition – pairing shimmering walls of guitar with front-and-centre, harmony-laced vocals."

Don't Believe in Ghosts: Driver


This New York City band will release But On The Bright Side in November. Steven Nathan (vocals), Dan DelVecchio (guitar) and Ken Yang (drums) worked on it over two years across multiple studios in Nashville, Cleveland and New York. Vocalist Steven Nathan says this first single "is about living in the moment ... a colorful track filled with a lot of energy."

Saturday, August 30, 2025

Florence + The Machine, Goose, Night Talks and much more added to our New Music bin


Florence + The Machine: Everybody Scream


Has there ever been a song so clearly designed to whip a concert crowd into a frenzy? This is the title track from the band's upcoming sixth studio album. Florence Welch is known for her near-manic live performances, dancing wildly around the stage, and in this song she acknowledges both the rush she gets from her audiences and the toll it takes on her: "Look at me run myself ragged, blood on the stage / But how can I leave you when you’re screaming my name?" Compare: "It's Only Rock & Roll (But I Like It)"

Goose: Royal


Surprise! Just four months after April's Everything Must Go, the jammers from Connecticut released another album, Chain Your Dragon, in August. The band has played most of its 12 songs live over the years, but this is a new number, which the band says is about "a transient musician whose burning ambition threatens to get the best of him.”

Night Talks: Targets


It's good to see this LA indie band getting more recognition - including East Coast tour dates in September. This new single features additional guitar work by Cory Wong. The group's firecracker lead vocalist, Soraya Sebghati, sings of trying to shake feelings of paranoia: "I've got a target on my back ... It's not real you said / It's in my head." 

And Many More!


We took a bit of a summer break from adding new releases and posting about them. But now we've refreshed the New Music bin with the three tracks described above - and a dozen more!
  • Wolf Alice: White Horses
  • Sheryl Crow: The New Normal
  • Almost Monday: Enjoy the Ride
  • Alkaline Trio: Oblivion
  • Cult of Venus: Sinner
  • Kathleen Edwards: When The Truth Comes Out
  • Rohin: Sundown
  • The Black Keys: No Rain, No Flowers
  • Planet Smashers: Wasted Tomorrows
  • Bob Moses: Last Forever
  • Krooked Tongue: Dog Days
  • Pony Gold: Big in the City
Remember: Nothing has been proven more effective against Music Boredom than Birch Street Radio. It's unsurpassed! Use only as directed. Possible side effects include altering your mood, distracting you from what you should be doing, and causing flashbacks to the first time you heard that song.

Sunday, August 3, 2025

Latest from Sheryl Crow, Stereolab, Nilufer Yanya, The Technicolors, Sunrise in Jupiter


Sheryl Crow: See You On The Other Side


This is one of two new singles from Crow and her longtime touring band, The Real Lowdown. Here she seems to be channeling a god who can't understand why his people find it so hard "to let love win."

Stereolab: Aerial Troubles


Instant Holograms On Metal Film is the first album in 15 years from this UK band that went dormant around 2010. Founders and former couple Tim Gane and Laetitia Sadier brought their "groop" back together for a 2019 tour and that led to this recording. Under The Radar says "Stereolab’s sound remains unmistakable, yet newly expansive. ... [T]he music fuses elements of Krautrock, lounge jazz, psychedelic pop, and minimalism."

Nilufer Yanya: Cold Heart 


The London artist follows up last year's My Method Actor LP with a new EP, Dancing Shoes. It consists of four songs that were held back from that album and then reworked.

The Technicolors feat. Madison Cunningham: First Class to Nowhere


We haven't been familiar with the band from Phoenix, but reviews of this track from their upcoming album Heavy Pulp say it marks a shift to a softer, more introspective sound than their previous releases. (Chalk up one more collab outing for the ubiquitous Madison Cunningham.)

Sunrise in Jupiter: Take Me Home


This London rock group's upcoming first album will be a double-LP entitled Mission to Mars. It's billed as cinematic rock exploring "profound themes of exploration, separation, and destiny." An ambitious debut, no?

Saturday, July 19, 2025

Jeff Tweedy, Joe Bonamassa, The Strumbellas, Goose, Suzanne Vega in our New Music bin


Jeff Tweedy: Enough


The Wilco frontman newest project is a 30-track (!) album, Twilight Override, arriving in late-September. With the announcement of the longggg-player came four tracks, of which this is the most upbeat, despite melancholy lyrics: "Has it ever been enough? / Has it ever been OK?"

Joe Bonamassa: Drive By The Exit Sign


The veteran blues-rocker just released Breakthrough, his first album since 2021's prog-influenced Time Clocks. He returns to his shorter, tighter, songwriting on this outing, writes Rock and Blues Muse, which calls this track "a spark-plug igniting inclusion enhanced by soulful backing female vocals."

The Strumbellas: Hard Lines


There's no word on whether the release of this new single means that an album is on its way. It would be the Ontario group's sixth, following last year's Part Time Believer. But we won't be the ones to ask. After all, the band says this is a "a song about keeping up with pressure and expectations."

Goose: Dustin Hoffman


We pull another plum from Everything Must Go, the Connecticut jam band's latest studio release. It's one of just a handful of songs to appear on the album before being heard in concert. Glide Magazine calls it one of the record's standout moments. "Starting as a funky ’70s strut, the track seamlessly shifts to an adult-contemporary-infused chorus teeming with ’90s-inspired horn arrangements courtesy of an impressive brass trio led by a longtime collaborator, saxophonist Stuart Bogie." (The song's title supposedly was inspired by the actor of the same name, but the lyrics have nothing to do with him.)

Suzanne Vega: Alley


We return to another of this spring's releases to pick another track for our New Music Bin. The singer says this is a song "about transcending life's difficulties and seeking sanctuary somewhere."

Saturday, July 12, 2025

Tedeschi Trucks & Mad Dogs, Drop Kick Murphys, All Time Low, James and the Cold Gun, Big Thief


Tedeschi Trucks Band: The Letter (Live at Lockn' 2015)


Ten years ago at a festival in Virginia, TTB and Leon Russell celebrated the 45th anniversary of the Mad Dogs and Englishmen tour with a tribute concert. The 12-member band and the iconic blues-rock pianist (who passed away the following year) were joined by some original members of the Mad Dogs ensemble, such as Rita Coolidge, Claudia Lennear, and Chris Stainton, plus guests including Chris Robinson of The Black Crowes, Warren Haynes, Anders Osborne, and Dave Mason. This track is the first taste of an album compiled from that show, to be released in September. What took so long?

Drop Kick Murphys: Who'll Stand With Us?


This single from the Boston band's new album, For The People, is a protest anthem that ties the current socio-political situation in the U.S. to historic inequality and exploitation. "The working people fuel the engine / While you yank the chain." The song's video depicts immigrant workers being abducted, and then uses the same imagery for people being cut off from health and other benefits. Lead singer Ken Casey says, “We’ve always had the same message and haven’t been afraid to speak out about what’s important to us.." (Photo credit: @Chezphoto / Riley Vecchione)

All Time Low: The Weather


It's been 20 years since this band, formed by high school classmates in Towson, Maryland, released its first album - and now it's rolling out its tenth studio LP, Everyone's Talking!, due in October. This track is billed as "Ramones-toasting pop-rock." Lead singer Alex Gaskarth calls it a "a cynical but playful" song about running into an ex and, rather than delving into the past, talking about trivial matters. "I won't ask you how you've been / 'Cause we might just fall back in / So we talk about the weather."

James and the Cold Gun: Above The Lake


This group from Cardiff calls itself "the loudest in South Wales" (which seems to have confused some people into thinking they're from Australia's New South Wales instead of the U.K.). This track is from the band's second LP, Face In The Mirror. Frontman James Joseph says: "We’re massive rock fans. If you look at 90 per cent of the bands on rock playlists right now, though, they don’t always sound like rock. You can barely hear a guitar, and everything is super polished. We found ourselves wanting to hear new music that had the guts to keep things messy and as real as possible, so we made it ourselves.” (Photo credit: Luke Shadrick)

Big Thief: All Night All Day


Here's the second single to emerge from Double Infinity, the sixth album by the Brooklyn band featuring the tremulous voice of Adrianne Lenker and bandmates Buck Meek and James Krivchenia. "Swallow poison, swallow sugar / Sometimes they taste thе same / But I know your love is neithеr / And love is just a name."

Sunday, July 6, 2025

New music in our mix: Turnstile, Splitsville, Kathleen Edwards, Sunflower Bean, Royel Otis


Turnstile: Seein' Stars


When we picked up "I Care" from the new LP, Never Enough, we wrote that Brendan Yates's lead vocal reminded us a bit of Sting. And we find ourselves agreeing with those who say this track sounds like it could be a lost Police recording. Which is fine by us. Paramore’s Hayley Williams and Dev Hynes (a.k.a. Blood Orange) contribute vocals on this track, although they don't stand out in the mix.

Splitsville: A Glorious Lie


Here's another group that, like Turnstile, hails from Baltimore. But they haven't released new music in a couple of decades. Now they're out with Mobtown, which includes this song whose intriguing lyrics relate (we are told) to a 1926 visit to Baltimore by Queen Marie of Romania.

Kathleen Edwards: Say Goodbye, Tell No One


We pull another track from Billionaire, the Canadian singer-songwriter's album due next month. This is a not-very-gentle break-up song: "People change, people grow," it starts out, "You can take it in stride or slam a door."

Sunflower Bean: Waiting For The Rain


Yes we're choosing to feature another track from Mortal Primetime, following "Champagne Taste," "Nothing Romantic" and "Take Out Your Insides." Got a problem with that?

Royel Otis: Moody


This duo from Sydney is getting some backlash for the lyric, which has a guy complaining that his girl is "a bitch when she's moody," while also singing that "she's my everything, she's all that I need." Is he being sexist - or is she being emotionally abusive? Discuss.

Saturday, June 28, 2025

'Lost' Springsteen + new Marshall Crenshaw, Yukon Blonde, The Beths, Jacob's Run


Bruce Springsteen: Waiting On The End Of The World


"New music" in the sense that it has never been released (except for a bootleg), this 1994-vintage recording is one of 83 (!!!) songs on the just-issued Tracks II: The Lost Albums. Reviewer Josh Kitchen writes: "It's unbelievable that this song was not released until now. ... [It] feels like a perfect summation of the music found on Tunnel of Love, Human Touch, Lucky Town, and now the rest of the songs here on the Streets of Philadelphia Sessions (one of the seven 'lost albums' in this collection). It's peak Bruce, a hopeful sounding Bruce anthem about the price we pay for love."

Marshall Crenshaw: Move Now


Here's another kinda-sorta new track, from an LP called From the Hellhole, Crenshaw's nickname for his home studio. Stereogum tells us "the album’s 14 tracks include 11 repurposed from Record Store Day vinyl EPs released between 2012 and 2016, all of which have been out of print since 2016. Eight of those tracks have been remixed for the occasion. Three more tunes from across Crenshaw’s career round out the tracklist." This song is one of the originals, co-written with Dan Bern.

Yukon Blonde: Colours of My Dreams


This is the first single from Frienship & Rock 'n' Roll, a new LP due in September. The album is described as "stripping things back to spotlight the rawness and electricity of their rock 'n' roll love show." The group from British Columbia says it's "our love letter to rock ’n’ roll itself, like a dog-eared note stuffed in the locker of the universe."

The Beths: No Joy


We've been spinning the New Zealand quartet's recent single, "Metal," and now comes word of an LP, Straight Line Was A Lie, coming in August. This song deals with vocalist Elizabeth Stokes' experience with depression and treatment. "It's about anhedonia, which, paradoxically, was there both in the worst parts of depression, and then also when I was feeling pretty numb on my SSRI (medication). It wasn’t that I was sad, I was feeling pretty good. It was just that I didn’t like the things that I liked. I wasn’t getting joy from them.”

Jacob's Run: Sunday


We're glad to hear more from this Melbourne band - its first release since its self-titled debut LP in 2019. The word is that this single precedes a second album on its way, The Other Side. With Mark Opitz producing, the original line-up of Michael Jacobs (vocals, guitar), Peter Curigliano (bass, vocals) and Fabian Bucci (drums) is augmented here by a 32-piece orchestra led by conductor George Ellis - giving this gentle ballad a lush sound it doesn't really need.