Birch Street Radio

Saturday, December 9, 2023

Fresh tracks from Terra Lightfoot + The Killers + Real Estate + Grand Splendid + Cadet Carter

Terra Lightfoot: Come Back Around

The singer-songwriter from Hamilton, Ont., just released Healing Power, a collection that PopMatters writes "deals with the serious issues of love and romance in the modern world with a light touch." It's filled with great tunes that will be turning up in our mix. Lightfoot says the point of this song "is that it’s helpful to know that you can always get back up after you make a mistake. The lesson you were supposed to learn will still be there waiting for you until you’re ready to try again." (Photo by Lyle Bell)

The Killers: Spirit

On its just-released greatest-hits album, Rebel Diamonds, the band includes a new studio version of this song that they've previously played on tour. "The icy and anthemic three-minute single leans all the way into the synth-pop side of the band’s sound," writes Stereogum. (Photo by Todd Weaver)

Real Estate: Water Underground

“This song is about writing songs,” says frontman Martin Courtney of the first single from the band's upcoming sixth album. “I think ‘Water Underground’ is like the unconscious, the mysterious part of your brain where creativity comes from. The constant flow of music in the back of your head." The LP is titled Daniel, because the band thought it would be funny to name an album like a person. And it may not be a coincidence that it's produced by Daniel Tashian.

Grand Splendid: The Storm Is Over

The Montreal band has just issued its latest album, Planetarium, and the photo above is from its hometown release party at l'Hémisphère Gauche last month. The LP includes singles that we've featured over the past couple of years, including "Heartstrings," "Magic" and "You Are the Universe."

Cadet Carter: Lift Me Up

Billed as an "emo punk" band, this Munich-based quartet features Welsh lead singer Nick Saute. This catchy number is from their just-released third album, Self Maintenance. Saute says many of its songs "are about keeping yourself together, and the mundane activities we do to keep ourselves alive and function adequately in society."

Saturday, December 2, 2023

Peter Gabriel completes I/O; Mighty One debuts; plus Autogramm, Thompson Springs, Big Thief

Peter Gabriel: Live and Let Live (Dark-Side Mix)

This 7-minute-plus number completes the I/O album, a 24-track opus consisting of Bright-Side and Dark-Side mixes of 12 original songs that were released over the past 12 months. "It takes courage / To learn to forgive / To be brave enough to listen / To live and let live," Gabriel sings. He acknowledges that given the conflicts raging around the world, "preaching forgiveness seems trite and pathetic, maybe. But in the long run, I think people have to find a way."

Mighty One: Wake The Dead

From South West England comes the duo of singers-songwriters and multi-instrumentalists Emma Kingston and Mark Stidson. This is their debut single as Mighty One - not to be confused with the Vancouver metal band of the same name! They tell us this song "centres itself around the notions of regret, and all of the emotions that come with it. ... [I]t's a bittersweet yet uplifting anthem."

Autogramm: WannaBe

This "new wave-inspired" group is made up of three musicians, veterans of multiple bands hailing from Vancouver, Seattle and Chicago, who use pseudonyms for this project. They "draw unapologetically on power-pop with a vibe that evokes the late ’70s and early ’80s," writes Paste Magazine, which says their new album, Music That Humans Can Play, is filled with "catchy songs that split the difference between bright synthesizers and punchy guitar riffs." (Photo by Tyler McLeod)

Thompson Springs: Out of Range

This Chicago outfit, which has been popping up in our mix since its debut LP in 2020, just released its latest collection, Standby. We previously featured "All I Wanna Do," and now add this track to our New Music bin (never mind that it was issued as a single earlier this year).

Big Thief: Born For Loving You

Long part of their live shows, this song was recently released in a studio version and has been getting extensive radio play. It's a surprisingly sweet and sentimental number from the edgy Brooklyn band, packaged as a "double single" with the angry, toxic-relationship-blues of "Vampire Empire."

Sunday, November 26, 2023

New Music from Sleater-Kinney, Soda Blonde, Night Talks, J Mascis, Sarah Jarosz

Sleater-Kinney: Say It Like You Mean It

Corin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein will release their latest album, Little Rope, in January. Tucker takes the lead vocal on this single about parting words: "Say it like you mean it / I need to hear it before you go."

J Mascis: Can't Believe We're Here

Here's a taste of What Do We Do Now, the upcoming fifth solo album by the Dinosaur Jr. frontman. Word is he played all the instruments except keyboards, provided by Ken Mauri from the B-52’s, and pedal steel, by Ontario's Matthew “Doc” Dunn. “When I’m writing for the band,” Mascis says, “I’m always trying to think of doing things Lou and Murph would fit into. For myself, I’m thinking more about what I can do with just an acoustic guitar, even for the leads. Of course, this time, I added full drums and electric leads, so it ended up sounding a lot more like a band record.”

Night Talks: Running On A Cloud

The latest single from this LA trio is inspired by the old Roadrunner cartoons. "There’d always be a moment where Wile. E Coyote would cut off a tree branch he was sitting on or run off the side of a cliff, so focused on what he was doing that he wouldn’t fall down until he stopped to think."

Soda Blonde: Boys

This Irish band spins out another single from its recently released second album, Dream Big, as it embarks on a tour around Europe. The Irish Times says the song is "laced with romantic ambiguity, in lines like, 'Somebody’s been yelling in my head that you’re the wrong one.'"

Sarah Jarosz: When The Lights Go Out

On her upcoming seventh album, Polaroid Lovers, Jarosz says each song "is a snapshot of different love stories. This one is about being intrigued before the start of a relationship…dreaming about the unknown of it all." It's a co-write with Jon Randall and Gordie Sampson. "Gordie, who comes from a Cape Breton musical background, suggested we write something in 6/8, started grooving, and before we knew it we were off and running."

Saturday, November 18, 2023

New indie music by San Fermin, Vanishing Shores, Adult Leisure, Krooked Kings, Orwells '84

San Fermin: Didn't Want You To

The Brooklyn group will release its fifth studio album, Arms, in February. Claire Wellin takes the lead vocal on this single. Composer-songwriter-band-leader Ellis Ludwig-Leone says “I had this feeling after going through a breakup, like, ‘well screw you, if you don’t want to be with me, I don’t want to be with you,’ which turns out to be a pretty universal feeling. The wordplay was fun, messing around with different inflections of the refrain to hint at different meanings.” It reminds us of the 10,000 Maniacs song "I Don't Want You Too" - so of course we'll have to segue them now and then.

Photo by Alex S K Brown

Vanishing Shores: Traffic Patterns

The Cleveland band led by Kevin Bianchi has slipped out another single, its fourth this year. We presume they'll be collected in the album Possible Light, but we don't have a release date on that yet. This song's lyric suggests to us a road trip during which the narrator recognizes the signs of impending breakup: "I remember you in Mojave / The heat burning through our clothes / You were speaking of a distant future / I felt the hum of closing doors."

Adult Leisure: Bad Idea

Last month we featured the single "All For You," and now we pick up another track from Present State of Joy and Grief, the sophomore EP from this indie band out of Bristol, UK. Full disclosure: This song hit British airwaves last summer, but we're invoking the rule that if it's new to us, it can go in our New Music bin.

Krooked Kings: Headhunters

This band got its start in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 2019 and has been developing its style of "heartfelt indie-rock music." We're not sure what to make of the claim that their influences include The Strokes and Bon Iver - neither is evident on this track, but it's a catchy little number.

Orwells '84: Are We Brothers?

This indie-folk group out of Dundalk, Ireland, released their debut EP, Truth Is The First Victim, in 2019 - after which their recording plans were interrupted by the pandemic. Once they were able to get back to studio work, they had a couple dozen new songs to work with, and the result was a 14-track debut LP. We seem to have missed its release earlier this year, but they brought it to our attention by breaking out this track as a single.

Saturday, November 11, 2023

New Music: Gaslight Anthem, Sam Roberts Band, Aurora, Cloud Nothings, Crack The Sky

Gaslight Anthem: Little Fires

The new album History Books is the New Jersey-based band's sixth LP and its first in nine years. Frontman Brian Fallon says this track is "an empowerment song, about refusing to play along with the kind of people who always seem to be throwing a grenade into the room for no particular reason." Previously added to our big mix: advance singles "History Books" and "Positive Charge."

Sam Roberts Band: Afterlife

With the release of The Adventures of Ben Blank, we're highlighting this track with a misleading title. Rather than a meditation on the eternal, the lyric insists on getting everything we can out of life on earth: "I'm gonna get my kicks on this side of the Styx."

Aurora: Your Blood

Photo by Wanda Martin

The Norwegian artist's new single, writes NME, "sees her deliver some cathartic vocals alongside some synth-infused instrumentals."

Cloud Nothings: Final Summer

Photo by Chad Butler

The Cleveland trio's new single, says lead singer/guitarist Dylan Baldi, is about “reconciling past versions of myself with the self I see when I look in the mirror every morning."

Crack The Sky: Going Downtown

On their 20th LP, From The Wood, the veteran prog-rock band sets aside its electric guitars and synths in favor of mostly-acoustic instrumentation. Most of its ten songs are rather dark ruminations by lead singer-songwriter John Palumbo, but our pick for the New Music Bin is a fun, bluesy shuffle.