Another year is almost gone as I write my annual look back at what graced my real and imagined turntables in the past year. As anyone who follows me probably knows, I do not do top ten lists or any other ranking system of what I have been listening to recently. I compile statistics and highlights, so if your album isn’t on this list, do not despair; it has been listened to and will still be in my library, waiting to be heard again.

So, diving right in, what has vibrated the air in my listening space in 2022? So. It is a damn good album that should be listened to at least once every year. Breaking from his string of four self-titled albums, Peter Gabriel released So in 1986 to generally good reviews and tremendous commercial success. Another instance of the people voting with their wallets and not according to the pundits’ jabs. Rising above the pack in 1986 was no easy task. It was a year that, in hindsight, was loaded with significant and lasting music; however, So was still able to sell like hotcakes and make tons of best-of lists and awards nominations. I still enjoy listening to the album, and the video for Sledgehammer is one of the rare videos I will watch from start to finish and more than once.

I have to slip Elysian Fields in here with their album Once Beautiful, Twice Removed. They deserve a spot on the list because they make good music and also because their album cover has a review mirror.

Andy Zipf released an album in 2022 that garnered traction on my playlist, and you can read more about this outstanding album, How to Make a Paper Airplane, here.

How to Make a Paper Airplane

Aside from having a name that instantly got my attention, Paris Music Corp. made a standout eponymous album. It flew under the radar and didn’t get a blog, but it still got multiple replays throughout the year.

Here’s an interesting one. The band Black Rose Burning released a new album in 2021,  The Wheel, and I listened to it so much this year that it got a blog in April. It has maintained that momentum and made my end-of-2022 listening list.

Black Rose Burning

Tracy Chpman released an album in 1988 that I relistened to three times this year. Her self-titled release has the top ten track Fast Car, but it is not an album defined by top ten songs. Talkin’ ’bout a Revolution is the lead track, and it sets a pretty high bar for the remainder of the pieces to follow. But follow it they do, with Fast Car being the next song. The rest of the album gets pulled along in the Fast Car draft and fills out a darn good slab of vinyl.

Othered is a musical collaboration that created a nine-song album called Vol.1, and I can’t wait for Vol. 2. This album garnered a blog in April of this year and has held that momentum and pushed it onto this list. Othered Vol. 1 is an easy choice, full of good music with some a bit on the heavier side of musical offerings, which adds to my contention that good music is good music no matter the genre or label that gets slapped on it. And this is good music.

Othered Vol. 1

Switching into some electronica/alternative, we have the band Vonamor and their self-titled album. Just listen to it. It deserves more airtime.

VONAMOR

The musical adventure known as Telifis has been very busy recently. Check this out for a sample of what they do.

Archbishop Beardmouth At The ChemOlympics

I can’t go a year without mentioning some close-to-home musical offerings. St. Arnaud was already a favourite live band and this year found them with a new album, Love and the Front Lawn, and a catchy radio-friendly single, Catching Flies. Extensive touring included a stop in Edmonton at The Starlite Room, where I scored a signature from Ian St. Arnaud himself on a pre-release CD. Thanks, Ian; I hope to see you on the stage in 2023.

St. Arnaud/Catching Flies

Another show in Edmonton, this time at The Station on Jasper, and another home-grown artist, Vic Wayne. Vic spearheads a top-notch band, Star Collector, who now works out of the wet coast, and they gave us an energetic and entertaining show. The tour was in support of their new album, Game Day.

Star Collectors Game Day

Star Collector Live at The Station on Jasper

Dmitry Wild. Electric Souls is an energetic album that I am not sure why I like it, but I do.

Electric Souls

The album title of the year goes to Ollie for his album Even When I’m Happy I Listen To Sad Music. Even without the title, this album is a winner. Another Canadian entry, I got to support the home team.

Even When I’m Happy I Listen To Sad Music

You need to watch the video below from a Swedish band I love, Hands Down. Sweden is sort of my homeland that I have never set foot in.

Hands Down

I tasked myself with going through our record collection A to Zed. Below are a few standout albums that don’t get played as much as they deserve. And a few albums that get played yearly and often more than once.

Riding a wave that started in 2018 is the album, Your Queen Is A Reptile by Sons of Kemet. In 2019 I purchased the album at Rough Trade Records in London, England. In 2021 it made my end-of-year list, and Your Queen Is A Reptile is getting bumped onto the 2022 list.

Jackson Browne, Running on Empty. A good friend gave us tickets to see Jackson Browne perform live with James Taylor. Wow, that was a good show and Running on Empty is still a good album.

The Dave Brubeck Quartet gives us Time Out and Time Further Out.

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and their fantastic album No More Shall We Part. This is an album that I keep repeating repeatedly. It is deep listening territory.

mewithoutYou was captured live in Vancouver on their farewell tour. I am so glad we saw them live since their records are never far from the turntable. We listened to two of them tonight—[A→B] Life and [untitled].

The Clash. I listened to all of The Clash’s albums in my continuing journey through the alphabet of albums. I enjoyed all of those listens but on this go-round, Sandinista! seemed to connect the most.

The Clash

Bim. A Kid Full Of Dreams is for acquired tastes, but Bim is a master storyteller, collector of music (78’s primarily) and an all-around good entertainer. I saw him live, and this album is a yearly player.

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. The catalogue for CSN&Y is profound, and picking one album is impossible, so I will pick two, which is barely possible. Déjà Vu and 4 Way Street.

Daniel Amos is another band with an extensive catalogue, but I am sticking to one entry for them, Darn Floor, Big Bite from 1987.

Deep Purple, Shades of Deep Purple

Miles Davis, Bitches Brew

Okafur Arnalds, Some kind of peace-piano reworks

Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon

Ten Years After, A Space In Time

The Beatles,  Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band

The Call, Let The Day Begin

The Carter Family

This is starting to evolve into a long boring list of everything I listened to in 2022, and I do not want this to be that, so that will evolve into this—time for some fun with numbers. I listened to about 500 albums this year. I only keep tabs on full album listens, no singles.

206 LPs

49 CDs

16 EPs

1 Cassette

227 albums streamed from various sources

It came down to a tight race between the physical slabs of vinyl and streaming albums. Streaming narrowly came out on top due to my blogging for various music promotions. A big shout out to Mystic Sons, Big Stir Records and Shameless Promotions for feeding me a steady stream of new music to inform you, the reader, about. I won’t list them all, but I also want to thank the musicians and bands that tossed CDs or MP3 files my way. They are all appreciated.

The year with the most listens was, no surprise, 2022, with 219 albums.

The oldest record played was from 1956.

The remainder was a shotgun blast at the barn door this year, with the 70s and 80s having a slight edge numerically. No surprise since those were my formative listening years, and I gravitate to them naturally.

I don’t track genres; it is just too messy.

I seemed to gravitate to music featuring females in 2022, an interesting demographic shift from the traditionally male-dominated field.

Apple Music has this thing called Apple Replay that gives a snapshot of my yearly listening, but it is weird to use, mainly because it focuses on singles, and I focus on albums. Just for fun, here are a few things from Apple. 

2305 songs played

The top two songs are ones that I enjoy listening to as I fall asleep, The Ultimate Sleep System. The Ambient Music Therapy amassed 549 minutes of playtime as I nodded off to sleep.

Othered, a band that made my list above and were featured in a blog, came in at number three in Apple. Good on them; they deserve it.

I listened to 671 different artists this year; gotta spread that love around. The top five, according to Apple, remember that I don’t make top ten lists: Ambient Music Therapy, Daniel Amos, Star Collector, David Bowie, and Víkingur Ólafsson.

Apple says I listened to 399 albums on their streaming platform, with Víkingur Ólafsson nabbing the number one spot with a whopping 78 plays. I am not sure how Apple arrived at that number, but I know that as much as I like that album, I did not listen to it 78 times.

I don’t listen to a lot of curated playlists on Apple, but there are a few that I drop in on. Modernism and Postmodernism, Essentials of Roots Reggae and Classic Rock featured strongly.

So, we started on that note and are finishing there as well. It was a good year for new music with some solid players, and there were the usual suspects that get played every year and are still loved and appreciated. Good art never grows old—happy listening in 2023.

The EP Win Fight Dream Lose is not the first time I have listened to music created by Tanzos. The first time was in 2020, the year the wheels fell off the wagon, via three singles which garnered good critical responses. I posted my thoughts on that here.

https://weatheredmusic.ca/?s=Tanzos&submit=Search

Win Fight Dream Lose is the first extended-time release from Tanzos, aka Mik Tanzos. The EP contains two previously released singles,  Good Intentions and Mood Swings, and an unreleased piano version of his 2021 hit Nevermind. That covers three out of five tracks on the EP, which is why I don’t particularly appreciate doing singles. By the time the EP comes out, most of the songs on a short-form record, aka EP, have already been reviewed. Nevermind my rant. Nevermind, the song, has the feel of Nick Cave on the piano bits, but the similarity stops there. The original Nevermind and the reworked piano version are different but equally good.

Good music needs good lyrics, and there are a few shining examples. The title track states, “We learn to like the things we choose.” I can relate to this on several levels of understanding, but I’m unsure if they are the same as Tanzos’. Here is one example. In 1994 I received a gift certificate for my birthday and bought a CD with the money. The CD was from a band I was acquainted with, but when I played it, what came out of the speakers was not what I expected. The band had veered off the road into new territory and new sounds, and on first listen, I wouldn’t say I liked it. I couldn’t take it back because it was opened and used, so it got filed away. Sometime later, I listened to it again and started warming up to what was happening on this CD. And after many more trips around whatever goes on inside a CD player, I have learned to like this CD that I had chosen. “We learn to like the things we choose.”

“I’m trapped in my head” is a line from the track Mood Swings. Tanzos tells us, “The song tries to capture the difficult emotions of someone already used to internal conflict. But sometimes it’s just too much, you get overwhelmed and lose control “

“I’m trapped in my head” stirred a memory for me. In recovery groups, there is a saying, “My head is a dangerous place to visit alone.” It is even worse to comprehend when we are trapped there, bouncing off the walls and into thoughts we want to bury and never remember again.

Win Fight Dream Lose is driven in equal parts by crisp piano parts and undercurrents of guitar that shimmer when they rise to the surface. All in all, Tanzos has crafted a delightful EP.

https://on.soundcloud.com/m36Vz

D I S C O V E R

http://www.tanzos.com

https://www.facebook.com/tanzosmusic/

https://www.instagram.com/tanzos_music/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGLsdpn77d1yoy31-R0MDXA

https://www.facebook.com/tanzosmusic/

https://www.instagram.com/tanzos_music/

For Press enquiries, please contact johan@mysticsons.com

James Barker | Mystic Sons | Director

Tel: +44 (0) 2075 804 257

Mob: +44 (0) 7956 241 508

Strongroom Studios | 120-124 Curtain Road | Hackney | London | EC2A 3SQ

Press | Radio | Events

http://www.mysticsons.com 

I have started my end-of-year blog, and I think Crying Day Care Choir might sneak in as a late addition.

The time arc of me doing a blog goes something like this. I listen to the album to decide whether I like the sounds. If I don’t get a groove on, the blog never gets off the ground; it stops there. Occasionally all I need to hear is one song or a quick sample by skipping across all the songs. If I don’t get it, the email hits the trash bin.

However, I listen to the entire album if I like what I hear. After that first listen, I will see if the band or artist has previous material or a back story in music. I like to hear where they are coming from, and as I listen, I will start reading whatever I can find about the artist/s. And then, I go to the new material and listen to it again with a lyric sheet, if there is one, and follow the story arc or the ebb and flow of the album. Then I start copying and pasting bits and pieces from the source material, including lyrics when available. And then, I start writing my blog.

There is an exception to this method. Sometimes the music will grab my ears and pull me in without mercy. I can’t stop listening to the album, and after a half dozen or so trips through the entire album, I will start the “if I like what I hear” pattern as above. I frequently get highjacked by repeated listens to a previous album if one, or more, impacts me as much as the new one does.

The exception happened this week with the Swedish band Crying Day Care Choir’s album Give Me Something Vol. 1.

I listened to this album repeatedly and then skipped back to their previous album Wilting Rooting Blooming, which is a horse of a different colour. And then back to Give Me Something Vol. 1. I am listening to Give Me Something Vol. 1 again. It hasn’t grown old yet, and I’m unsure if it ever will. We will check in on December 31st to see if the shine has lost its lustre.

This album explodes in your face when it starts playing the opening powerhouse track, Make A New Fucking World. With a title like that, you know that something will happen. And it does happen. I listened to this song easily a half dozen times and then listened to their previous album, Wilting Rooting Blooming, with its opening track, Fuck It I’m A Flower. That album and that song have an indie folk-flavoured pop feel that is super easy listening. And then I go back to Make A New Fucking World, and it is a new f*****g album with a fresh f*****g sound. The mandolin and acoustic guitars are gone, replaced by synths opening the song and exploding with distorted guitars and a thumping bass drum/guitar. And then they have the audacity of segueing that into a classic piano interlude. Which then transitions back to heavy riffs and the driving beat. And it works. All these pieces sound like a bad idea when I try to explain them with words. You can trust me on this one. Crying Day Care Choir makes it happen. It all works together seamlessly.

I feel this four-track EP is shorter than it could have been. All the tracks give me the feeling that they are good songs to jam on. I’m Looking At You and Don’t Waste Your Time are strong pieces in the middle, and then we get to my second favourite song on this EP, The Dreams Of Alice. A great closing track.

CDCC is Jack, Sara and Bill Elz. Hailing from Malmö in southern Sweden. Sweden is a hot spot for great new music, and this album and band add to that. Crying Day Care Choir is a family trio of the married couple, Jack and Sara, with Jack’s brother, Bill. They are all talented multi-instrumentalists that they use to great advantage, moving effortlessly from indie folk to grunge.

I encourage you to listen to Wilting Rooting Blooming first. And then turn the volume up a notch and play Give Me Something Vol. 1. From my point of view, these albums complement each other and Give Me Something Vol. 1 builds on the foundation of Wilting Rooting Blooming. A good example that I hope most people would be familiar with is Pink Floyd. I recommend listening to Meddle and Obscured by Clouds to better appreciate The Dark Side of the Moon. It gives the listener an expanded understanding and appreciation of the new music if we know where the band is coming from.

Enough of me ranting on about this music. Go now and listen to Crying Day Care Choir. In any order that you like, it is all good music.

The cover art is a story in itself.

After a successful summer performing at festivals such Sziget Festival, Malmöfestivalen, Be Alternative and many more, Swedish alt-follk trio Crying Day Care Choir recently formed their own label ELZ Productions, with their first release an internationally groundbreaking EP with cover art by Damien Hirst and the art itself as source of inspiration.  

CDCC’s new EP ‘Give Me Something Vol.1’, the first of three new collections released in the coming months, explores the relationship between art and music and challenges the idea of how music is created. The full album acts as a continuation of Damien Hirst‘s project ‘The Currency’, where he explores the concept of value through art and money. The Currency contains 10.000 unique pieces, with different titles produced by an AI generator that’s been fed with some of the artist’s favourite music. The buyers of these different art pieces were left with the decision during the summer of 2022, to either keep their physical piece or to keep the NFT version of it and let the physical painting burn.  

This project led to new artistic ideas for the musicians in CDCC, and the concept for the record ‘Give Me Something’ took shape. The idea is to take the titles from the burnt artworks and put them together as lyrics, thus giving them new life in a new art form -“Reborn, as songs”.

With Damien Hirst’s permission the work began in September. Damien Hirst’s artwork ‘Give Me Something’ will act as album cover for the release. The world famous artist however is no stranger to the concept of making album art with his latest involvement being in Drake’s ‘Certified Loverboy’ from 2021.

SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2wA059Agr6FoUUJTD23KLl?si=4naJtrUKQRC2uIX_bYilzQ

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cryingdaycarechoir/?hl=en

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cryingdaycarechoir/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_hzYBib_UAgAGT0DuwmOTA

Webpage: https://www.cdccmusic.com/

https://on.soundcloud.com/oJmfJ

James Barker | Mystic Sons | Director

Tel: +44 (0) 2075 804 257

Mob: +44 (0) 7956 241 508

Strongroom Studios | 120-124 Curtain Road | Hackney | London | EC2A 3SQ

Press | Radio | Events

http://www.mysticsons.com 

Big Stir Records have released a collection of twenty-two songs from twenty-two artists who had a new release this year on their label. Twenty-Two, the album, harkens me back to the good old days of K-Tel. I still like compilations, and this is the fourteenth compilation that I have listened to this year. Some dodgy ones would make good frisbees. But not this one; it is a keeper.

One of the critical factors to consider when listening to compilations is the flow. Does one song bleed into the next one, or does it jar and clash? I will not run through this compilation song by song, but I will give a few highlights.

Highlight number one is the opening track conveniently. We’re Going Downtown by Chris Church blasted out of my speakers, and I immediately focused on the playlist. Chris Church rocks us into a transition that smoothly moves to Summer Blue by Lannie Flowers. I have previously listened to and blogged about some of these artists. I wrote about Lannie Flowers and his album Flavor of the Month in September of this year.

However, some have flown in under my radar. One of those new songs is track four, Stop the World, by The Incururables. It is very reminiscent of the New Wave of the late 70s and early 80s. This song brings to mind Brinsley Schwarz, Elvis Costello and that British New Wave scene.

Another song I like and is new to me is the song Choker by Walker Brigade. I am positive I have heard them before but not this song. It’s a bit different in the sea of rock and roll that it is floating in. Not quite hard rock and not quite folk, I think I’ll default and call it good music.

Maple Mars is another tight band. I remember them because they gave me an earworm with their song Useless Information. 

Sometimes Good Guys Don’t Wear White is a great topical song that talks about colour coding people and putting them into boxes based on the shade of colour of their skin.

Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes) is a song that I have on a compilation album, 60’s Summer of Love (Collector’s Edition). I think The Test Pressings, a good band name, have made a good cover of this song and moved it from pure pop to light rock.

The next track is another cover; Mama Told Me Not To Come. I am familiar with the Three Dog Night version, probably the rendition that most people associate with this track. However, there is some fascinating history behind the song. It was written in 1966 by Randy Newman for Eric Burdon‘s first solo recording, Eric Is Here, released in 1967. Although credited to Eric Burdon and the Animals, there are no Animals on the album.

Randy Newman‘s turn at recording Mama Told Me Not To Come was released on his 1970 album 12 Songs. Newman’s piano and Ry Cooder‘s slide guitar gave a more bluesy feel to the song.

From Wikipedia:

Also in 1970, Three Dog Night released a longer, rock ‘n roll and funk-inspired version (titled “Mama Told Me (Not to Come)”) on their album, It Ain’t Easy. The album had Cory Wells singing lead in an almost humorous vocal style, Jimmy Greenspoon played a Wurlitzer, Michael Allsup played guitar, and Donna Summer sang backing vocals, though uncredited.

Billboard ranked the record as the No. 11 song of 1970. The single was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America on July 14, 1970, the same day that It Ain’t Easy was certified gold. It was also the number-one song on the premiere broadcast of American Top 40 with Casey Kasem on July 4, 1970. Pardon my rabbit trail; we will now return to the 22.

Lanny Flowers shows up again on track 19 with a Beatlesque tune called Lost in a Daydream. It is very Sgt. Pepper and an enjoyable listen.

The other songs on this album are consistently good, and they all avoid jarring transitions from song to song. Overall this is a good sample of the quality music that comes out of Big Stir Records. I look forward to what they bring us in 2023.

Available on Apple Music

Bandcamp https://bigstirrecords.bandcamp.com/album/twenty-two-tracks-from-2022

https://bigstirrecords.com/album/2343840/twenty-two-tracks-from-2022

I’ve had a few artistic doldrums, aka writer’s block. I won’t bore you with why and wherefore; I have had trouble writing anything this year. There are only ten blogs to my credit this year; that’s less than one per month. So I got a PR request from the always-pleasant Shauna McLarnon at Shameless Promotion PR, to give a listen to the song Temple of Sleep from the Zen Ghost album by Frenchy and the Punk, which I praised on October 30. Despite my struggles to write anything, this album rose above others and prodded me to write. That’s how much I appreciated the album. Out of the dozens of press requests that I have received, Zen Ghost was able to push through and rise above the pack.

Anyhoo, I got the request today to give a little boost to the song Temple of Sleep. I don’t usually blog about singles, what with me being an album guy. I have very few 45s and lots of 12-inch slabs of vinyl. That’s just me. I don’t judge; I like the 33 1/3 better.

Well, that gets thrown out the window today, and I will wax eloquently about a single. I listened to the song Temple of Sleep and then pulled the virtual needle back to the start, back to the album’s lead track. It seems that I am not good at sticking to singles. I listened to the entire album again, there is an ebb and flow to an album, and single tracks sometimes lose their context when they try to stand alone. Temple of Sleep is only the second track on the Zen Ghost album, but I feel it is a bridge song. Track one, Mon Souvenir, is all about feelings. It is affirming that the singer can feel. That’s a good thing, being able to feel.

Track two, our focus song, is a bit darker. “Life is feeling very doubtful,” and the singer tells us, “I wanna turn off my feelings.” The song ends more optimistically, with the singer telling us they want to “Make peace with my feelings, Just so I can breathe.” When I first heard this track, I couldn’t help but think of George Floyd.

The song Temple of Sleep then flows into track three, If The World Doesn’t End First, which is full of love that goes on forever and ever.

“I’ve loved you, I’ve loved you, since the dawn of time

The vines of our love galactically entwined

Up to the sky through the cosmos so high

The world may end, but we’ll never die

Our love feels so secure

We don’t care anymore

The words spill over like waterfalls

Like Somewhere in Time

I’m yours, and you are mine…Never-ending… just beginning.”

There we go, “our love feels so secure.” and “The words spill over like waterfalls.” That’s the words of Frenchy and the Punk, vocalist, percussionist and lyricist Samantha Stephenson and guitarist-composer Scott Helland. My words are not that pretty and eloquent, but words did come together and broke through the creative doldrums. A big thank you to Shauna for sliding this song in my direction, and an equally effervescent thank you to Frenchy and the Punk for creating this music. A bonus sidebar, I was pleased to see Scott Helland playing a Godin. They are not seen that often. I have an SDxt.

FOR SHARING

‘Temple of Sleep’ https://youtu.be/LhwgjmazNUk

‘If The World Doesn’t End First’ https://youtu.be/kMaUbNboYFU

‘Zen Ghost’ CD pre-order https://batfrogs.com/product/zen-ghost-cd

Bandcamp https://frenchyandthepunk.bandcamp.com/album/zen-ghost

‘Come in and Play’ https://youtu.be/DcierLOU_WM

Mon Souvenir’ https://youtu.be/3UlLC57AHsQ

Spotify https://open.spotify.com/album/55vtMX4zXrBNmICSKAIzlm

If you have any questions, contact Shauna McLarnon from Shameless Promotion.

PR at contact@shamelesspromotionpr.com

I rarely blog about singles, preferring to listen to whole albums. However, there is no rule that says I can’t write about a single song. So, today for your listening pleasure, I present Tinyhawk & Bizzarro with their single Yorokobi. Yeah, I had to look it up in Google Translate. Yorokobi means joy in Japanese, which seems to be a popular word for Japanese restaurants. The Joy of Cooking, I suppose.

Yorokobi will also be the first instrumental that I have blogged, so today is a day of firsts. I don’t know what exactly draws me to this piece of music. It has a sound vaguely similar to the music in old cowboy movies. I’m an old cowboy, so maybe that is why I like it. If Ennio Morricone were to write the music for a modern western film, I would imagine it to sound something like Yorokobi. The music is bright and glittering with lively sounds. Guitar and synth are front and centre but I was impressed with the bass lines just as much. This song could be on endless loop and it would take a tonne of listens before I got tired of it. Good stuff. Hyvää musiikkia.

Experimental instrumental rock group Tinyhawk & Bizzarro consists of Markus Väisänen (guitar), Teemu Aho (bass) and Jaakko Pöyhönen(drums). The band’s material is written by Jenni Kinnunen, who is also behind the alias Tinyhawk. Kinnunen is known as the guitarist of the Finnish band Rosita Luu. I took the time to listen to the debut album from Bizzarro, Luxardo, self-released in 2019. It is a decent album, and I can hear how the band has matured and come into their own musically.

Bizzarro has been signed to Humu Records, and their debut album will be released in the spring of 2023. The first single, Yorokobi, will be released to download and streaming services on Friday, December 16th. Humu Records will release the full album on vinyl and digital in the spring of 2023. Right on, I love my vinyl platters.

Today is New Release Day. Every Friday is New Release Day. For our musical pleasure, this particular Friday is the debut album of Swedish artist Manuela Iwansson, Dark Tracks. I didn’t find the overall scope of the album dark other than its lamentations of lost love. And those lost loves are not always dark; some feel more like being set free, having a weight lifted from our shoulders.

The first track from Dark Tracks is titled Strangers on a Train, giving the first glimpse of the dark side of the tracks.

“A steady pace along dark tracks

I’m letting go while looking back.”

Dark Tracks may be an ode to lost loves, be it platonic or intimate, but the music propels those words forward with a frantic energy that feels like we can’t get away fast enough. Or, we may have to blast away from The Boys of Summer so we don’t remain maudlin and rooted in our emotional pain.

The song Dead Weight has a great line in it,

“Dead Weight

That’s getting lighter

It’s too heavy carrying you around

When you’re already gone.”

That, my friends, is one of the best examples of clinging to things in our past that weigh us down. Dead Weight that adds nothing to our lives. Dead Weight that holds us down and keeps us from being set free.

Dark Tracks has brilliant music that delivers those lyrics to us without detracting from their meaning. Manuela Iwansson is fond of the 70s & 80s female artists like Pat Benatar, Laura Branigan, and Suzi Quatro. She cites early new wave and punk like The Go-Go’s, X, Gun Club and Grace Jones as influences on her and her music.

When asked, “What genre does your music fall into?” Manuela answered “Rock/post-punk/new wave/punk.” I can irrevocably endorse Dark Tracks because Manuela’s musical influencers also heavily influenced my listening patterns. I easily picture myself in 1978 at the roller skating rink with Leather, the last cut on Dark Tracks, blasting out of the speakers as I did laps around the rink. I would also add a few more of my favourite roller derby songs to the playlist at the rink, Psycho Killer and Rock Lobster.

Dark Tracks is good music from start to finish. Not Finnish, Manuela Iwansson is Swedish, and this album will rock the winter away. The album features duets with Bria Salmena (Orville Peck, FRIGS, Bria) and Jack Ladder (Jack Ladder & The Dreamlanders), as well as a stellar lineup of some of Sweden’s finest musicians: Henrik Palm (Henrik Palm, In Solitude, etc.), Elias Jungqvist (Viagra Boys, etc.), and Erik Klinga (Simian Ghost, etc.), among others.

The album ‘Dark Tracks’ is available on all streaming platforms through Lack of Sleep Records.

Discover more about Manuela Iwansson at:

FACEBOOK | WEBSITE | INSTAGRAM | SOUNDCLOUD | SPOTIFY

Writing a music blog is the equivalent of cavorting amongst the Elysian Fields. I look forward to hearing from the fresh artists just starting to dip their toes in the water on the edge of the fields each week. And then, there are the old friends I enjoy visiting every so often who permanently reside in the rolling hills of the Elysian Fields. I wish I could say that I love listening to them all, but, the truth is this, I don’t. Some instantly connect with my soul, become a part of my music life, and never leave. There are some that I listen to once and never listen to again. Today I listened to one of the former, an artist names Vails.

I am listening to an EP named Elysian Fields from the band/artist Vails. There is a dearth of information on the internet about Vails, so I will give a shout-out about the music.

I like it.

I like it, and if you listen to it, I feel you will also like it.

It is pleasant electronic atmospheric music on an EP named Elysian Fields. The artist is Vails on the label Elephant Music. elephantmusic.net

I have to keep plugging artists from the land that my heart comes from, Sweden. The latest in a long line of great musicians is Princess Tapioca.

Princess Tapioca has released their debut single payphone, a song that reflects one of many phone calls between two people struggling to keep the flame alive. Dreams and words about how good it could be are just dreams and words. At its core, ‘payphone’ is a lofi song, elevated with acoustic elements and light-hearted playfulness. Payphone kept reminding me of the holiday classic, Baby It’s Cold Outside, which is also a playful song featuring banter between two singers.

Princess Tapioca features childhood neighbours Alexandra Andersson and Josef Ask. The duo grew up on a peninsula outside of Norrköping before heading in different directions, only to once again find that old unshaken friendship. For a while, their lives were on two wildly different trajectories. Alexandra played SXSW with her band Ember Island, doing a remix of Where Are Ü Now with and for Justin Bieber, Diplo, Jack Ü, and Skrillex, and is still getting millions of streams across different platforms. In contrast, Josef shelved the idea of being successful in music and reportedly became an employee of the month at a local grocery delivery company.

Fortunately for us who love their music, Josef reconnected with Alexandra and became half of Princess Tapioca. The first single from Princess Tapiocas’ upcoming debut EP, payphone, is a song crafted in the best tradition of lo-fi sensibility. It sounds like payphone was recorded on an iPhone in the kitchen, and I say that in a good way. The song features a gentle guitar with soft percussion on a loop and the occasional ringing telephone. Their voices work well together, making it worth taking the time to listen.

I look forward to the EP.

From the movie Little Big Man

Old Lodge Skins: Am I still in this world?

Jack Crabb: Yes, Grandfather.

Old Lodge Skins: [groans] I was afraid of that. Well, sometimes the magic works. Sometimes, it doesn’t.

–Little Big Man

Sometimes the magic works, and sometimes it doesn’t. That applies equally well to writing blogs about music. Sometimes the magic happens, and the blog almost writes itself. Sometimes the magic doesn’t happen, and I sit staring at a blank page. It matters not as to whether I like the music or not. I quite imagine that applies to making music as well. Sometimes the magic happens, and sometimes, it doesn’t. I am happy to tell you that the magic happens on a new Frenchy and the Punk release, Zen Ghost.

Old Lodge Skins asked, “Am I still in this world?” 

Frenchy and The Punk counter with, “I promise to tell you if the world doesn’t end,” a line from the song ‘If The World Doesn’t End First‘ by Frenchy and The Punk from their new album Zen Ghost

Frenchy and the Punk is vocalist, percussionist and lyricist Samantha Stephenson and guitarist-composer Scott Helland, co-founder and bassist of Outpatients and Deep Wound (along with Dinosaur Jr. founders J Mascis and Lou Barlow). Samantha Stephenson has a strong husk voice reminiscent of Grace Slick, who is interestingly not listed as an influencer. They do list the B52s, and I can certainly hear that.

“We started writing Zen Ghost at the end of 2020 and have a few tracks that were written as recently as Spring 2022. It highlights the darker tones of what we do and is influenced by the environment in which we all live in at the moment,” says Samantha Stephens.

“The core theme to the album is ‘mind phantoms,’ the ghosts of our past that reside in our minds and can influence our present. The theme of breaking the chains of life choices that don’t align with one’s true authentic self has been rampant in the lyrics throughout the years. This record delves into the remnants of the voices and experiences that can still haunt us. This is the album we’ve always wanted to make.”

The character that Dustin Hoffman portrays in the movie Little Big Man, Jack Crabb, struggles throughout the story arc with his authentic self. I’m not sure if he had mind phantoms, but I can emphatically state that I have and do; the ghosts are real.

Zen Ghost is a solid album that explores the darkness of the age that we live in without falling into the morass. Old Lodge Skins asked, “Am I still in this world?” Frenchy and The Punk counter with the line, “I love you, I love you to the ends of the earth, I promise to tell you if the world doesn’t end.”

Frenchy and The Punk have put together an album full of good music. A stand out for me has been the track Church of Sound, with the lyrics, “I’m going to the church of sound, put on my headphones and drown drown, drown in the sound.” I love that line, “I’m going to the church of sound.” I didn’t go to a brick-and-mortar church today, it is Sunday as I write this, but I have been in the church of sound.

The track Blood offers some good political commentary. “I don’t want to see the world through your little microscope tunnel vision.” A jab at the people living in their echo chambers and only hearing or seeing what they already believe.

Zen Ghost is musically enchanting, with intelligent lyrics that can be gleaned more than once for the gems hidden in the songs.” Sometimes the magic works. Sometimes, it doesn’t.” The magic works for Frenchy and the Punk. They have created an album encouraging me to put on my headphones and drown in the sound.

NYC-based postpunk duo Frenchy and the Punk present their new Zen Ghost album. Their seventh long-player record, released via the EA Recordings label following the high-energy lead single ‘Mon Souvenir’ and Siouxsie-esque single ‘Come In and Play.’

‘Zen Ghost’ CD   https://batfrogs.com/product/zen-ghost-cd

Bandcamp  https://frenchyandthepunk.bandcamp.com/album/zen-ghost

‘Come in and Play’  https://youtu.be/DcierLOU_WM

Mon Souvenir’  https://youtu.be/3UlLC57AHsQ

Spotify  https://open.spotify.com/album/55vtMX4zXrBNmICSKAIzlm

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