As we explained in a preview piece, Andrews left home at 16 to hit the road as a touring musician, roving up and down the West Coast playing for anyone who would listen. In the years since, she has played guitar and added vocals for almost forty artists, from Jimmy Eat World to the legend that is Damien Jurado. Throughout that time she was also working on solo material, releasing a full-length, On My Page, back in 2011, before hitting the road again. Now she’s back with what looks to be a breakout record of sorts, a coming of age album about growing up on the road, and returning home to try to find the titular Honest Life.

The result is an album which carves out its own niche, indebted to classic songwriters and contemporary heavyweights but also set apart, Andrews bending rules and conventions as and when she deems necessary, all in an attempt to say what she wants to say. As such, the songs don’t play like variations on a formula or a development of a theme. In fact, in the way they avoid cliche, they don’t feel like songs at all. There’s something in the dynamism of the album, the constant movement between conviction and doubt that gives it an altogether more organic feel. These are conversations, confessions, conflicted thoughts and feelings thought and felt then spoken aloud, still-hot words emerging with urgency. Tales of an honest life.

Hi Courtney, thanks for speaking with us. How is life treating you at the minute?

Life is great at the moment. I’m currently at a bar in Los Angeles, drinking a gin & tonic, and replying to your questions!

While travelling and change are common themes in music such as this, Honest Life strikes me as a particularly dynamic album. Much has been made of your extensive touring and recording, and I was wondering if you feel that your constant movement bleeds into your writing? In the alternate universe where Courtney Marie Andrews grew up and stayed at home in Arizona, how different a record would this be?

Movement and change are crucial to my personal growth. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve had a deep affinity to being on the move. One of my mother’s favorite stories to tell, is of me getting caught drawing a map in daycare, and trying to escape to go on some grand adventure. Leaving, is a part of my core. If I’d of stayed in Phoenix, who knows where I would be now. But I know that it would be somewhere very different than where I am now.

Then there’s the question of genre, which pops up quite a lot in reviews of the record – with uncertainty as to whether to label your music country or indie rock or folk or whatever else. Do you feel you belong to any one camp, or consider yourself inter-genre? Or do such issues hold no interest for you at all?

Genre was not really on my mind when writing and recording these songs. It never occurred to me that they could even be considered country until this radio guy in New York said, “hey, this has pedal steel, so we will have to play this on country radio.” I love country, but I definitely never sought out to write in any particular genre. All that mattered to me was that the songs were good. Good songs come in every style.

Sticking with country music, I’m interested in the nameless You that is the subject of the majority of the best and worst examples. There’s a section in David Lipsky’s book with David Foster Wallace where they’re talking about music, specifically the cheesy mainstream country music that makes up much of Midwestern radio, and Wallace floats the idea that all the romantic stuff is a metaphor: “[What if] what they’re really singing is to themselves, or to God? … [What if] the romantic shit [is] just to make it saleable… [and] they’re singing about something much more elemental being missing, and their being incomplete without it?”

Without wanting to get into anything too personal, I guess the question is whether this in any way resonates with you? Or, to put it differently, have/could you write such sad, lovelorn songs without a clear You in mind?

When writing songs, you are stuck with YOU. No matter how much you detach a song from yourself, it’s still coming from you, the writer. If you’ve ever felt, empathized or listened to anyone but yourself, and I mean TRULY listened to another, than that’s the start to writing another’s story well. World, and human to human empathy is where great storytelling derives from. You can write a sad story any day, but if you don’t understand where that pain comes from, or how it is shaped, than it will be hard for your listeners to grasp it, if lyrics and ideas are what they are searching for in your song.

Regardless of how personal or specifically targeted, I think it’s fair to say the songs carry a palpable honesty. Do you ever have issues with sharing such sincere words? I guess experienced touring musicians become uniquely adept at opening up to strangers, but there must be an element of difficulty and apprehension in sharing thoughts and feelings from an unguarded place?

I’ve said this before, but in all honesty, once I write a song, it only takes playing it a couple of times before it’s not my story to keep anymore. Once a song is finished, it feels like a closed book. I can tap into those feelings of the song in live performances, but it’s very easy for me to turn on and off. I’m a big believer in the tradition of folk music, in the sense that once you write a song, it’s up for re-interpertation. It is the world’s to be felt now.

On a similar topic, by playing and releasing these songs you are in effect taking something personal and inherently you and offering them up to the audience. I wonder if this process is difficult, or cathartic, or just plain joyful? How does the feeling differ from playing (and thus sharing) other people’s songs, such as when you play with Damien Jurado?

Writing and performing are very different. You are a storyteller on stage, relaying a story. It’s joyful for me to tell stories. I get excited to sing a good line, or hit a certain note. That’s very gratifying. As a backup singer and session player, I find joy in performing my best for the artist that I am playing with. It’s all about getting deep into the moment, and kicking ass.

Finally, could you name 4-5 artists you think we should be listening to right now? They can be new or old, popular or obscure, whatever you find yourself returning to.

For those who can’t get into Grateful Dead, start here: Jerry Garcia (Lonesome Prison Blues)

60’s folk obscure with an amazing modern day return: Bill Fay

Just damn obscure: Blaze Foley

Honest Life is out on the 20th January and you grab a copy via Loose Music. Also, Andrews is set for a pretty comprehensive UK starting at the end of February, and you can find the full list of dates below:

21 Feb – NORWICH, Arts Centre (supporting The Handsome Family)
22 Feb – MANCHESTER, RNCM (supporting The Handsome Family)
23 Feb – GLASGOW, St Luke’s (supporting The Handsome Family)
24 Feb – EDINBURGH, The Caves (supporting The Handsome Family)
25 Feb – GATESHEAD, Sage 2 (supporting The Handsome Family)
26 Feb – DURHAM, Old Cinema Launderette
27 Feb – LEEDS, Brudenell Social Club (supporting The Handsome Family)
28 Feb – CARDIFF, Clwb Ifor Bach
1 Mar – COVENTRY- The Tin
2 Mar – LONDON, Union Chapel (supporting The Handsome Family)
3 Mar – BRIGHTON, Concorde 2 (supporting The Handsome Family)
4 Mar – GUILDFORD, The Keep
6 Mar – LONDON, The Social

Photo by Susy Sundborg

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We say ‘semi-solo’ because, while it’s being released under Samson’s name, the album involves The Weakerthans members Jason Tait and Greg Smith, as well as Samson’s partner and collaborator Christine Fellows, and was recorded by The Weakerthans sound tech Cam Loeppky. Either way, the record looks to explore Samson’s favourite themes of contemporary loneliness and isolation in his uniquely warm manner, his characters not ready to give up hope that connection (that is, real human connection) is still possible in our digital world.

For now, we have the first single, ‘Postdoc Blues’ as a taster. In many ways, the track is a spiritual sequel to Provincal‘s ‘When I Write My Master’s Thesis’, the protagonist no longer neck deep in study, dreaming of the Glorious Change that the completion of a degree always seems to offer, but instead floating in thin post-degree air, struggling through the mind-numbing, monstrously pathetic and utterly normal world of Powerpoint presentations and publishable research (“Saw your presentation went terrible / all wrong dongles, sweat stains and stares”).

The narrator acts as a kind of cheerleader, dragging the other through what David Foster Wallace called “the day-to-day trenches of adult existence”, before offering something different in the closing third, switching attention to wider societal and ecological issues, hoping that working toward a morally important higher calling might transcend the banalities of much of TV and the internet. You can stream the song now (via A.V. Club):

“So that that laminate
out of your wallet
and read it,
and recommit yourself
to the healing of the world
and to the welfare of
all creatures upon it.

Pursue a practise that
will strengthen your heart”

Winter Wheat is set for release on the 21st October via Anti- Records and you can pre-order it from the John K. Samson website right now.

Photo by Cory Penner

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All we have in way of a preview so far is this video trailer, though the sample is more than enough to suggest that Lucky’s brand of warm folk and evocative songwriting is sounding as good as ever.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLDRNxn-oAo

To help along physical pressings of the album, Zachary Lucky has set up a Pledge Music page with a variety of pay scales and prizes for those who donate. Not only do all pre-orders come with an early download of the full record, but depending on how much you have to spend you could also grab yourself a personalised postcard, signed record, test press vinyl, a photo book, acoustic house show and even a (possibly awkward) Skype call with Lucky himself.

Everywhere A Man Can Be will be released on the 7th October via Wroxton Recordings, and you can support the pre-order campaign right now on Pledge Music. Also, be sure to delve into the Zachary Lucky back-catalogue on Bandcamp.

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The first single from an upcoming full-length, ‘Housemouse’ is a brand of acoustic bedroom pop with emo overtones and deliciously rough alt-folk delivery. The song plays as half apology, half plea for help, both the narrator and the target of his communication clearly suffering in one way or another, while also dealing with the concerns of solipsism that come with mental pain. Caught in the double whammy of feeling bad and feeling-bad-for-feeling-bad, the track bristles with a raw-throated intensity which gives the whole thing a sincere, cathartic air, even if no conclusion or solution can be reached.

“I left you in your state
Clouding the fact that
It wasn’t too late
Wouldn’t be the first one
Your suffering I’ve chosen to ignore

Didn’t even mean to do you harm
Didn’t even mean to leave you there
Didn’t even have to go that far
Hit me so that I could just not stare

[…]

We all have burdens
We all have burdens they feel the same
But they look different”

The full-length on which ‘Housemouse’ belongs is still in progress, but be sure to keep an eye on Wyndwood’s Soundcloud and Facebook pages for updates. In the meantime, why not head to the Wyndwood Bandcamp page and explore his previous releases?

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Our choice of songs for this one perhaps isn’t the most subtle, and might well highlight our naivety/ignorance when it comes to the geographic differences between American folk music, but we just went with tracks which we felt capture the mood of Hinojosa’s work in some way. The tracklisting carries links to the artists we’ve covered in the past, if you want to read our thoughts on their music.

Tracklisting:

1) Will the Circle Be Unbroken – Marisa Anderson
2) Floating Rhododendron – Sarah Louise
3) Out West – The Coal Creek Boys
4) Fable – Sam Moss
5) Impress My Memory – Stephen Steinbrink
6) Sometimes – Noel’le Longhaul
7) Hands in Our Names – Karima Walker
8) Mexican Blanket – Wes Tirey
9) Stained Glass Eye – The Dead Tongues
10) Around and Around – Mountain Man
11) Revelation Drift – dbh
12) Dark Was the Night – Ry Cooder

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Anyway, Isakov is back with a new album to be released early this summer, Gregory Alan Isakov with the Colorado Symphony. The perspicacious amongst you might be able to guess just what the record entails, but we’ll expand for the sake of clarity. After performing with the symphony in 2013, Isakov has enlisted their help to record eleven old compositions, transforming his humble folk songs into large, sweeping things. ‘Liars’, the first song from the album, was written by Ron Scott and the arrangement is from Jay Clifford, with the Colorado Symphony conducted by Scott O’Neil. Check out the video below, directed and edited by Sarah Megyesy:

Gregory Alan Isakov with the Colorado Symphony is due out on the 10th June and you can pre-order it now via iTunes. He is also taking the record onto the road, teaming up with a variety of other orchestras across a multitude of states:

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“In the summer of 2012 I built a studio in a small cabin by a lake in northern Finland. I spent a month staring towards the lake, writing and recording. During that time I realized what I had was actually three different albums, all stemming from the same state of mind, expressing various sides to the same story.”

Our first taste of the work will be Amen 1, what Joensuu considers the “most fragile” part of the story. “It’s an effort to find balance between great sadness and beauty”, he continues, “to understand the very strange state when one’s mind is close to collapse and yet at the same time more alive than ever.” As if to prove this enticing, mysterious description, he has put out ‘Warning Sign’ as the first single, a track with all the delicate beauty of spun glass or maybe some intricate ice structure, conjured into being by the strange forces of nature. Lyrically, the song revolves around a narrator doomed to self-destructive repetition, a man caught within Einstein’s definition of insanity and tragically aware of if. Check out the video below, directed and edited by Ezra Gould with Osku Pulkkinen on camera:

Amen 1 is due for release on Svart Records on the 10th June. You can expect to see the subsequent parts (presumably Amen 2 and 3) in late 2016 and early 2017 respectively.

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After the short instrumental opener of ‘5/13’, ‘ferris bueller’ emerges sad and intimate, somehow managing to sound at once desolate and warm, like a hug in the middle of a desert. The track gets to the heart of did everything feel…’s themes, the crushing bind of panic disorders and agoraphobia and the struggle to exist as a vivid, 3D person when saddled with such labels. Here we find the narrator wanting to be free but eaten alive by anxiety, pleading for mercy, wanting to retreat into a safe world of entertainment.

“it never felt this hard to be inside of your car
i want to go out far, to anywhere you want.
but, is ferris bueller on?
because i could really use some distraction from everything”

‘you were a home that i wanted to grow up in’ sounds like late night thoughts externalised, imagined conversations where worries about pride do not exist and every word is the right one, and ‘you had a panic attack in my bathroom’ is slower and minimal, opening across its length into something hesitantly hopeful, finding solidarity in other people. “you can’t believe it’s true,” he sings, “there are people like you – with the same hearts, and the same marks on our bodies.” ‘nothing good comes from being gone’ is hushed to the point of whispers, sounding akin to Keaton Henson’s introverted folk, but surprisingly fierce in terms of lyrics. Here, the narrator faces up to his mental health issues with a steely determination, a willingness to fight.

“because nothing good comes from being gone.
i’m willing to admit it’s all my fault.
i will trade all of my pride for what i’ve lost.
i don’t want to lose this battle with my thoughts.
nothing good comes from being gone”

The album is great, and proves rewarding on several levels. Musically it holds up without any of the inspiration or back story, but its real strength lies in the good it could do for people struggling with similar issues. Welling has done something both brave and kind in releasing music based solely upon a theme so personal and difficult to communicate. And we should all be glad he did.

You can buy did everything feel beautiful when you let go of the idea of being anything at all now from the Flatsound Bandcamp page.

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We haven’t seen The Funeral Guest, but the tagline gives a fair indication of the plot. “A lonely girl seeks love, connection and family by crashing funerals.” This might sound bleak but if the music is anything to go by then it’s actually life affirming. Take opener ‘Small Infinity’, a skippy folk song which finds solace and even joy in the ephemeral nature of our existence “It’s our infinity” DiMuzio sings, “and it might be small / but I’d rather have this than nothing at all”. ‘Life’ is born of regret and missed opportunities, though still manages to communicate a certain sense of belief in things, as if what’s been done was done for a reason and a good one at that.

“We were friends and we hit dead ends
But there’s nothing here that we can’t mend
We hit the wall, I had to fall
But we won’t break, we’ll just bend

Cause all along I knew that we would find our places
Even if it meant we would lose this race called ‘Life’
Called ‘Life'”

‘The Story’ confronts the classic existential conundrum of life being fleeting and meaningless. “So this is it?” sings DiMuzio, “This is how it ends? / A couple of tears, and a handful of friends”. However, she manages to find solace within this truth, succumbing to the inconsequential nature of life not with depression or anger but instead with a degree of comfort. So when she sings “And this is the story of how time moves on / and forgets us all,” it isn’t a nihilistic sneer but a way to view your worries at their true scale (ie. tiny) and feel a part of the human community, united in our obligation to pass on. From this ‘Okay’ closes the EP with a gentle assuredness as if taking courage from the previous tracks, striding through heartbreak with steady faith in the goodness of things and ending with the insistent refrain:

“But it’s gonna be okay
It’s gonna be okay
IT. IS. GOING. TO. BE. OKAY.”

If you like your folk music to explore dark things with unyielding hope, Whim is very likely right up your alley. You can buy Songs For The Funeral Guest now from the Whim Bandcamp page. Find out more about the film via The Funeral Guest Facebook page.

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“I’ve decided recently that what I want to do is be very sincere with my art. I always wanted to be vague and mysterious; I thought that the space was important. Now, I feel differently; I want to tell you my name, which I’ve since changed the spelling to Adeem, and you tell me your name. Then we’re friends, and we get coffee, or beer, or food together- like before when my hope was to patch together a family of strangers.

The truth is there is organically such a broad universe dividing us from one another and I just don’t think that it needs any added mystery. So hey, I’m Adeem”.

So far only one track has been unveiled from Kyle Adem is Dead, but it goes a long way in showing the direction Adeem has taken his sound. ‘Good Evening’ sees sparse guitars allowing Adeem’s voice to fill the track, expanding outwards so that it fills your chest too. His words are disarmingly sincere, not melodramatic or overly sentimental but instead forged from that peculiar kind of earnestness which makes you feel comfortable, the sense that someone is willing to listen. Even without the back-story, ‘Good Evening’ sounds like an introduction “This is me,” Adeem is saying. “Now who are you?”

“Good evening
you’re a fine looking group
and your faces make expressions
​that decide which songs I’m going to do”

In this dark inner observatory
it’s a fine night for sharing songs and stories
like this one time when I was still young
I mean- I’m still young now
but I was younger when this happened…
I sang a song that was quite similar to this one”

Kyle Adem is Dead is to be released on the 8th April, so expect a full review closer to that date.

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