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compassion: a petal motel compilation for human rights
On March 3rd, Petal Motel is sharing a Bandcamp-exclusive digital compilation benefiting the National Network of Abortion Funds. Songs range from atmospheric soundscapes to heartfelt jangle folk songs, and everything in between. Petal Motel put out the call for Petal Motel-esque songs (anything with acoustic guitar, pedal steel, drone, field recordings, intricate riffs, and other motifs of Cosmic Americana the music blog tends to celebrate) and 32 artists absolutely delivered. compassion has…
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Nashville Ambient Ensemble announces Light and Space
Nashville Ambient Ensemble’s debut release Cerulean in 2021 was pivotal in its collaborative, compositional nature. Headed by the visionary Michael Hix, the ensemble featuring Deli Paloma-Sisk (vocals), Jack Silverman (guitar), Kim Rueger (piano), and Luke Schneider (pedal steel), with the addition of violinist Alicia Enstrom, returned to score Nashville’s Frist Museum’s exhibit Light, Space, Surface: Works from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. NAE’s music moves you immediately, with…
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Wes Tirey Returns
Wes Tirey comes back to the Petal Motel podcast [virtual] studio for our first podcast episode since 2021. We talk about his 2019 album No Winners in the Blues which was just re-issued on wax on Full Spectrum Records. Wes is a unique songwriter and this album is especially unique as a departure from his usual literary style of writing character songs. No Winners is intensely personal, stark, and as…
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Bobby Lee – “Reds for a Blue Planet”
Good news! The always enchanting Bobby Lee returns with a third album, Endless Skyways, out this spring on Tompkins Square. Endless Skyways is Bobby Lee’s third full album and second release on Tompkins Square. Returning to the full band sound of his debut, the name Endless Skyways is borrowed from a line in Woody Guthrie’s This Land Is Your Land, one of the cornerstones of American music. That song’s mix of the terrestrial (“ribbons of highway”)…
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New! Fruit Bats! Album!
Goooood morning! Nothing like waking up to an announcement that Eric D. Johnson has been at it again. “Over the years there’s been a lot of geography in my music, a lot of landscapes,” Johnson says. “Sometimes the places are real, sometimes they’re emotional. I’ve always liked the idea of songs and albums that exist in a continuum with one another. I’m not talking about some kind of deep series…
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Hibernation
Hello Petal Motel friends! This blog is entering a formal sleepy time/hibernation period for the next several weeks as we get through the holidays and prepare something extremely special for you to be released in Q1 2023, featuring several of your favorite artists and then some. Please stay tuned and thank you for all your support. We love you!
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Hataałii on writing “Presidents Got Me All Night Long” and more
In the second single of a pair from Hataałii (produced by Joel Jerome, a favorite LA-based indie rock producer), he weaves a dreamlike, sensuous poetic world. The prolific young musician continues on his musical trajectory after several previous full-length releases including Banana Boy, Painting Portraits, his latest self-titled record, and a duet record with Jakob. Hear the song here – and read about Hataałii’s creative process in his own words.…
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Gold Dust – “Mountain Laurel”
Today, Petal Motel is pleased to share the last single from Gold Dust’s LP The Late, Great Gold Dust, out 11.4 on Centripetal Force. Gold Dust’s Stephen Pierce gives his heavy-yet-shimmering treatment to what’s arguably his most introspective song about the connection of the inner and outer world, how they coalesce, and searching for acceptance throughout it all. The B-side of this song is a stunning cover of our beloved…
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Droneroom – A Little Lighter
From the album Easy Payday out 11.11.22 on Moonlight Cypress Archetypes, droneroom shares his heavier, pensive side with a meditative composition along with a video featuring shots familiar and unheimlich. The album Easy Payday is a full on collaboration with Nashville’s Josh Byrd. Josh was given 4 pieces with the instructions to ‘destroy them’ and he did so in the most beautiful way. Guitars are processed, reversed, dragged through a…
