Our Top Six Releases Apr 22
Top Six Releases
April 2022
Our Top Six Releases Apr 22
By Rob Dickens
Katherine Priddy
The Eternal Rocks Beneath
Navigator Records
25 June 2021
This debut album reveals a new, exquisite voice in folk music.
The Eternal Rocks Beneath was released in June 2021, but came across my desk only recently (probably to coincide with her Australian tour featuring shows at the Port Fairy Folk Festival) and, after one listen, I was besmitten (sorry about the rhyme!). It was only one album hearing until I realised that she was performing at Port Fairy and that experience confirmed to me that Katherine Priddy is a special artist.
I then scoured the album press release and discovered that she has been championed by BBC Radio 2 and BBC 6 Music and her debut EP Wolf was chosen by none other than Richard Thompson as his “Best Thing I’ve Heard All Year” in MOJO Magazine in 2018 (she has since toured with Thompson).
Here’s the first single from the album:
Via The Planet Company/MGM
Kieran Kane, Rayna Gellert
The Flowers That Bloom In Spring
Dead Reckoning Records
11 February 2022
Kieran Kane and Rayna Gellert met in 2015 when both were performing at San Francisco’s Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival. Both musicians have racked up quite a resume.
Gellert, steeped in traditional music from birth, toured as a member of the acclaimed string band Uncle Earl and has recorded with musical luminaries such as Robyn Hitchcock, Sara Watkins, Scott Miller and Loudon Wainwright III.
Kane formed the award-winning O’Kanes, been a member of the fabled Kane, Welch, Kaplin (with Kevin Welch and Fats Kaplin) and Go Jane Go (with David Francey) as well as launching the prolific Dead Reckoning Records.
This is their third album together and continues this most successful collaboration, the secret being the presentation of authentic music with an assured simplicity.
Lynne Hanson
Ice Cream In November
Panda Cave Records
22 April 2022
Ottawa, Canada-based, award-winning singer-songwriter Lynne Hanson is set to release Ice Cream in November, her ninth studio album since 2006. An earlier issue Heartbreak Song for The Radio is a multi-award-winning album which she co-produced as one half of The LYNNeS.
Hanson has evolved her sound, moving from an Americana aesthetic to a more contemporary sound with electronic drum beats, guitar pads and synthesizers, and it works rather well. A fine, nuanced singer, Hanson provides us with a very stylish record indeed.
Co-produced and engineered by Hanson and multi-instrumentalist Blair Michael Hogan, and mixed and mastered by Grammy-nominated sound engineer Phil Shaw Bova, the album was recorded by Hanson and Hogan in their respective home studios over a two-month period in 2021.
Via Skye Media
Nick O’Mara
Overland
Independent
25 March 2022
One’s of Australia’s finest guitarists, Nick O’Mara is a talented songwriter as well. He has emerged from a band (the former much-feted Raised By Eagles) and a duo (Amarillo with partner Jac Tonks) to be front and centre. It’s a total triumph.
Via Annie Johnsson Publicity and KrisKat Publicity
The Redlands
Sticks To Stones
Cheatin’ Heart Records/Spunk!
18 February 2022
Another impressive and fresh debut album. The Redlands are cousins and childhood friends, Samuel Nairn (vocals), Chase Williams (lead guitar) Dean Williams (guitar/piano) and Ottavio Dichiera (bass). Formed in 2019, after years of playing live together around Mildura in north-east Victoria, their single “Cocaine” raised their profile another notch (that song is included on Sticks To Stones).
Signing to newly launched country label Cheatin’ Hearts Records (via Spunk Records) in 2021, three follow-up singles were released and the bookings at country and folk festivals racheted up significantly.
The material is raw and the treatment is sincere and timeless. Nairn’s vocals are reminiscent of the delivery of John Schumann, William Crighton and other big Australian voices. The Redlands have plenty of country heart and authority.
Via Jo Corbett Publicity
Sugaray Rayford
In Too Deep
Forty Below Records
4 March 2022
Sugaray Rayford is a Grammy nominee (Contemporary Blues) and Blues Music Award winner (B.B. King Entertainer and Male Artist of the Year).
His voice is soulful, powerful and refined in turn. On In Too Deep, he covers some weighty topics with a variety of hues and styles that are imposing. Issues referred to here are civil rights, social justice and PTSD and these topics mixed with blues, funk, r ‘n’ b and soul are potent.
Eric Corne wrote all tracks and produced the record, following a chance meeting between the pair in Memphis in 2018 which laid the groundwork for a winning musical partnership. Uplifting and inspirational.
Via The Planet Company/MGM
ADVERTISE WITH LISTENING THROUGH THE LENS
More Music Adventures Await!
***
Our Top Six Releases Apr 22
Our Top Six Releases Apr 22
Our Top Six Releases Apr 22
