Mr. Dad hits all the right marks on their new release The Coke Dealer’s Depressed Again. The title alone is enough to grab your attention. They fulfill that foreshadowing with a proper narrative that stays on theme and adds some unexpected quip to keep it real. The classic folk feel brings nostalgic authenticity, bouncing off the legacy of Paul Simon and Don McLean with the modern indie intellect of Father John Misty.
It’s smart songwriting that’s melodically intriguing, with clever chord variation to challenge your instinctual perceived resolutions. The vocal performance adds to the sentiment with a classic candid calm and vintage feel. Altogether it’s a gorgeous release from this dynamic buzz project.
Hear The Coke Dealer’s Depressed Again now on our Emerging Folk Playlist.
We lost ourselves in the ethereal vision of That’s Me, the new single from Tara Maclean. Featuring an inspiring companion video, the artist traces her legacy through snapshots of her unconscious. Presumed angels remove her blindfold to reveal the beauty of her life’s design. A graceful dance conceptualizes the flow of life’s waters like the steady river of time. Her voice, resolved in this revelation and accepting these truths with a sense of release. The affect is comforting and the addition of the dancers add to the aesthetic. The lighting illuminates the metaphysical glow and heavenly vibe.
Tara Maclean has enjoyed an envious career on her own terms. Sharing in the spotlight on tours with icons like Dido, her aura gets into the heart of the matter. The song and theme of That’s Me mirrors the release of her memoir “Song of the Sparrow.” For us, her music epitomizes life’s expansive wonder. There’s an aura to her works that has Goddess qualities, a shared maternal essence of existing within grace without the perils of sociality that plague men. Where women relate, Men might just mesmerize in her beauty. Both sides have their merits.
Here That’s Me now on our Emerging Folk Playlist.
Michael Benjamin shows another shade on his single Till The Sun Comes Up. It’s still inherently beautiful but a little more reckless and bred from the canon of Springsteen beneath an indie folk feel. We can connect with the edgy sexual energy of lyrics like “You take me to your place at five in the morning and make me love you for a while.”
The bare arrangement finds everything in its right place, with a catchy electric guitar and atmospheric piano lending enough width to fill out the space left untravelled by the sparse essence of guitar and voice. A voice which on its own has enough depth to tell a story with emotion alone, slightly broken and ragged to stay within the moment, but always naturally handsome.
Michael Benjamin is featured on our Emerging Folk Playlist.
Angelo De Augustine has been making waves in the indie folk scene. His thoughtful songwriting puts a dreamy spin on folks classic foundation. His new single Toil and Trouble continues that trend and adds a bizarre illustrated claymation textured video to accentuate the weird. Presented in this manner only adds to the cinematic reverence, that altered folk bliss that has connected him to the stylistic canon known to Sufjan Stevens and The Tallest Man On Earth.
The lyrics, abstract and metaphorical, only add to the songs burned out ethos. “If I numb away all your pain, The poppy field and the Golden Gate, The dragon’s fire, A fall from grace
Hear Toil and Trouble now on our Emerging Folk Playlist.
The Wild Is Calling 