Last year, we loved Ruby Landen’s timeless-sounding album Martyr, well, a lingering, neo-folk journey with pensive, sensitive lyrics and lovely guitar work. Ruby’s back today with a new song out via Ruination Records. “Front Teeth” was written soon after the recording of Martyr, well, and “focuses on fragments of memory, woven together in a fabric of stream-of-consciousness.” Front Teeth by Ruby Landen “While I was writing Martyr, well I was really affected by how a present-day emotional response can be recalled in fragments of memory that resurface here and there. This song is an attempt at linking those fragments together with feelings…

Today, Lunar Noon (the moniker of SF-based Michelle Zheng) released the second single from upcoming debut album Symbolic Creature is out February 18th The album is “inspired by a souvenir she got from her trip to Mt. Mitake in Japan, with the title a nod to the meaning found in objects and omens comes and the associations assigned to them in arbitrary ways.” Beginning as an amateurish bedroom project, Lunar Noon has blossomed into a full-fledged project out of San Francisco with an 8-piece live band with multi-instrument arrangements.  Pre-order Symbolic Creature on Bandcamp.

Kareeta by Kareeta In the spring of 2020, Chuck Harris and Jon Siembieda holed up in Costa Mesa to quarantine together after a last hurrah rocking out at a friend’s show the night before the world shut down. The two music heads began playing along with Howlin Rain’s The Alligator Bride; soon enough, prolific writer and artist Chuck was writing lyrics while Jon came up with guitar parts. Not long after, they had an album’s worth of material (and then some). Cut to safer times, joined by Brian Lara on drums, and Aaron Barnes on guitar & bass, the newly-formed…

Today, the ethereal-voiced folk singer Erin Rae shares the latest single from her upcoming album, Lighten Up. The album features Kevin Morby, Hand Habits, and is produced by Jonathan Wilson (hence the hazy, multi-faceted effect that you can hear particularly well on this track; Wilson is credited as performing ‘machines’ in addition to drums & percussion on “Candy & Curry”). Tinged with cosmic country, the track could easily be a folkified b-side from Broadcast’s Haha Sound. “Candy & Curry is essentially a meditation, capturing those early spring days of slowing down in the pandemic. I was living in my friend…

Mae Krell shares a deeply personal new single today about overcoming addiction and the continuous process of recovering. “People often expect me to be ‘healed’ now that I’m sober, not realizing that my disease will continue to trail behind me for the rest of my life,” Mae says. “‘phantom limb’ speaks to my recovery, and what it’s like to choose to carry something difficult with you instead of letting it go untreated.” The multi-talented Brooklyn-based artist (their photos have been published in Rolling Stone and Sony RCA, they founded the Tongue Tied Magazine and recently started a music marketing and PR firm Bitch Mgmt, this person…

Today Chelsea Rose shares the video for “Be Yrself,” a standalone (and standout) single released in advance of her upcoming 12″ Truth or Consequences, to be released early next year on Paul Is Dead Records. Chelsea’s sultry voice effortlessly carries the catchy ditty with a groovy guitar solo and a toe-tappin’ rhythm. “Be Yrself” was written and recorded pre-Covid. It serves as a reminder for me (and hopefully others) that it’s okay to take up space, to be big, and to shine. Shortly after I wrote this song I received a request from my publisher to submit a song for…

🚨🚨🚨🚨 NEW TORI AMOS 🚨🚨🚨🚨 Um, somehow I missed the memo but the goddess herself released a new record recently? I’m so sorry. Today shares a lyric video for the song “Spies,” featuring animated creatures that taunt Tori’s daughter Tash at their Cornish home in the night. “Spies” is a mystical demystification, an urgent lullaby, a fierce invocation of protection for her daughter. Tori will be touring the UK and Europe in February 2022. For tickets please visit www.toriamos.com. Get Ocean to Ocean at her website. I got some diving in to do! Photo by Desmond Murray

Today, Northern California musical icons the Mother Hips share their first-ever cover song from their upcoming new album Glowing Lantern, due out December 3rd on Blue Rose Music. The song was written by David Wiffen (whose songs have also covered by Tom Rush, Jerry Jeff Walker, and Hiss Golden Messenger), and the band first heard it when they scooped up an Anne Murray cassette at a truck stop. The Hips add their signature killer harmonies and their dynamic groove, with epic guitar lines and sparkling Wurlitzer building a fresh but timeless version of the classic. Glowing Lantern is out December…

Rose Hotel’s single “Expansion” is the first from the upcoming EP The House That We Knew, due out soon on Cold Lunch Recordings. Rose Hotel is Atlanta-based musician Jordan Reynolds, and in her latest she conjures an image of a post-apocalyptic folk future, with shades of melancholia, relief, and a resigned, reserved, yet cautious optimism. The dreamy, introspective track features strings by Macie Stewart and Lia Kohl, as well as Rich Ruth, Chris Childs, and Breshon Martzall. The video for expansion features trapeze artist Kat Saxon and as shot by Nic Huey and directed by Rose Hotel. Header photo by…