Founded in 2018 by musician Adam Kinner and artistic director/writer Jacob Wren, and now expanded into a wider ensemble, The Air Contains Honey is a Montreal-based project which crosses artistic boundaries to meld the musical and the literary in a genuinely innovative way. After gradually evolving over the years, the project is now preparing to release their first full-length, The Air Contains Honey Sings Quotes, via Quindi Records, and the album quite literally lives up to its name. With arrangements orchestrated to be performed by nineteen musicians, the record sees the group sing quotes from across literature and theory (lines from Agnes Martin, Diane di Prima and Chris Kraus feature, to name just a few), resulting in a novel form which sits between indie pop, jazz and something like musical theatre. Lead track ‘Sexuality’ is the perfect example of the release’s ambition and invention. A number built around words from Kathy Acker’s Great Expectations which encapsulates not only the artistic vision of the record but also the welcoming communal spirit with which it is brought to life.

Damn Shame – Making Habits

“Every year that passes / taking stock with where we’re at and / Making plans to break through and make change.” So sings Portland, Maine multi-instrumentalist Robb Paniconi, AKA Damn Shame, on the closing track of new EP For Lack of Trying, out now via Repeating Cloud. As the title might suggest, the release is crafted around this sense of striving, be it towards a better future or healthier version of oneself. But it is forever held back by some self-defeating dimension, or else the hectic distraction that is the contemporary world. ‘Making Habits’ is a summation of the project musically as well as thematically, Paniconi bolstering his songwriting with an array of experimental flourishes, from found sounds and field recording to synths and tape loops. The result is all the more sincere and sympathetic as a result, positioning him alongside the likes of Ben Cooper’s Radical Face or even the slower side of Trace Mountains.

Daniel Glenn Padgett – Geraldine x Rocky Top!

Blurring the lines between DIY experimentalism and classical composition, the work of US-born, UK-based artist Daniel Glenn Padgett draws utilises both analogue and electronic modes to collapse the distance between the past and the present, bringing forward that which seemed lost or else opening up a nostalgic path backwards. Latest single ‘Geraldine x Rocky Top!’ is the ideal introduction to this style, a glitchy dance-based number which opens with a voice note from Parisian photographer Geraldine Morat and grows to incorporate a samples from the anthology of American folk music. On the surface, the result is an infectious slice of pop which hums with a bright energy for its brisk two minute run-time, though delve slightly deeper and the true nature of DGP’s work reveals itself. A cross-pollination between the contemporary and the traditional which charges both which newfound energy, as though commingling these ostensibly mismatched styles allows a kind of mutual invigoration.

David James Allen – So Much Pain

Prince Edward County, Ontario-based songwriter and multi-instrumentalist David James Allen has shared a number of singles from his new full-length Jubilation Potpurri in recent months, and now the album is finally out via Littleknown Records, he is sharing one more. Following on from the likes of ‘By Your Side‘ (“an ode to the safe harbour of a significant other, where calm might be found no matter how stormy the outside world might prove”) and ‘Dukes Up (Since You’ve Been Gone)‘ (“a vow to confront life’s struggles head on, standing on your own two feet, fists raised and ready for anything”), latest track ‘So Much Pain’ explores far more uncertain, vulnerable headspace, though you wouldn’t know it from the sound itself. “There’s so much pain / Seen so much pain / It hurts to be alone / Feeling scared on my own,” Allen sings in the opening verse, though the arrangement is full of soulful swagger and confidence, redirecting the needy longing of the lyrics into something altogether different. As though, in voicing such vulnerabilities, Allen isn’t so much underscoring his fear of solitude as championing its opposite, connecting to the universal human experience of loneliness to better communicate the power of connection.

The French – Maybe Tomorrow

The ongoing mission to make Darren Hayman‘s vast back catalogue available online shows no sign going down (read more on the project here), with Audio Antihero now unearthing some deep cuts Hayman’s bands Hefner and The French recorded during sessions with the legendary John Peel. “When Hefner became a ‘Peel band’ and recorded their first session, I felt that a true life goal had been achieved,” he explains. “Many bands, much more revered and successful than myself, would have wished they’d recorded a Peel session. I could die a little happier.” Invited to a session with no record to promote, Hefner instead recorded a collection of gospel singles, with Peel delighted by a band using his sessions to push themselves and break new ground. Hence, when it came time for The French to visit a year later, they followed suit with another experimental idea, this time recording their own versions of four television theme songs, released here as TV Themes. Alongside ‘Crockett’s Theme’ and ‘Theme from Hill Street Blues’ and ‘Big John, Little John’, Hayman and John Morrison also recorded ‘Maybe Tomorrow’, their take on the theme from The Littlest Hobo which shows both the nostalgic spirit of the project and the invention with which they brought it to life.

henry o henry – There

Back in August we previewed henry o henry‘s new full-length Apocrypha, describing how the Dublin-born, US-based songwriter uses “the experience of being an immigrant in America for over thirty years to observe the country from the novel perspective of an adopted son.” After lead single ‘The Fool‘ (“worn and wistful and weathered but with a glint in its eye, moving with a sincerity and easy grace that comes with experience”) came ‘The Parade’, “an example of the careful patience which marks so much of the album,” as we put it, “understated yet strangely hypnotic, as though its mellow rhythms slowly envelop the listener and hold them within their world.” With the record now out via Western Vinyl, henry o henry has shared final single ‘There’. An album highlight which serves as a metacommentary on the creative process which brought it to life, specifically how making art can take personal feelings and transform them into something greater and long-lasting. “It feels like a triumph over something,” as henry o henry says, “even if you’re a bit embarrassed by some of the sentiment.”

Jonathan Something – The Garden

“A prime example of how One More Lonesome Cowboy Song lives up to its name, the track manages to evoke both the intimacy of personal experience and something far larger, bringing in the melancholy of the archetypal wanderer in search of meaning.” So we wrote of ‘Gasoline‘, a single from Jonathan Something‘s new album forthcoming via High Shelter, back in August, a song typical of a record all about yearning for something more. The record’s release is now less than a month away and Jonathan Searles has shared new track ‘The Garden’ to pave the way. “‘The Garden’ is a collection of epiphanies I had regarding self growth while wrestling demons.” as Searles explains. “I kept the conclusions and deeper meaning behind each verse as cryptic as possible to avoid preaching while still resonating as widely as possible. The goal was to offer my hand to hold for those who needed it and a high five for those who just wanna vibe.”

One More Lonesome Cowboy Song will be released on the 16th October via High Shelter.

Josephine Illingworth – Who Burnt The Mountain

After the release of EP Bright Things I Found In The Dark earlier this year, London-based songwriter Josephine Illingworth returns with new single ‘Who Burnt The Mountain’ in partnership with Sounds Right, a global music initiative that allows nature to generate royalties on streaming platforms. Released as part of the Sounds Right and EarthPercent Climate Week NYC releases, the track confronts the urgent ecological crisis by drawing on the sounds of nature itself, though these gradually distort and denature as the song unfolds to mirror the ongoing loss of habitat and biodiversity. “‘Who Burnt The Mountain’ is a rallying call against the desecration of our wild spaces, and an expression of grief that I, as a young woman, feel in seeing the wilderness that has been a space of sanctuary and identity for me being literally burnt out of existence, often thanks to the decisions of distant male politicians,” Illingworth explains. “The song is about wildfire and deforestation, and the flattening and privatisation of these wildernesses in the UK. I gradually distorted the bird field recordings as the song goes on, ending so that they sound almost like human screams.” Watch the video filmed by Reuben Denison below:

Who Burnt The Mountain is out now via Sounds Right, with royalties donated to frontline conservation projects around the world.

MANAS (Tashi Dorji & Thom Nguyen) – 100 sunset

The project of Asheville-based duo Tashi Dorji and Thom Nguyen, MANAS gather threads of free jazz, noise, punk and experimental music into propulsive improvised tracks that pay attention to small details while possessing a physical intensity and unpredictability. “Improvised music, this music-making in the immediacy and now, in the moment, feels way more radical than anything I’ve ever done,” says Dorji. “Making improvised music and creating radical music with the intention of opening people’s ears.” October sees the release of a new MANAS record, The most yielding thing in the world will overcome the most rigid, via American Dreams. The album came into being as the score to 100 Sunset, the debut feature film from director Kunsang Kyirong. Our first glimpse is the opening track, which is named for the film, a 13-minute exercise in restrained forward motion that builds toward a blown-out crescendo, the pair merging guitar and percussion into a single, unified instrument of urgent power.

Melissa Weikart – L’amour se construit

Back in July, we featured ‘Crash’, a single by French-American songwriter Melissa Weikart. Calling it “lush, immersive and slightly warped at the edges,” it was the perfect introduction to an artist who exists “between the poles of experimental improvisation and crowd-pleasing pop.” Weikart has just announced that the song was our first taste of a new album, titled Contact, which will be released via Midnight Special Records at the end of next month. To coincide with the album announcement, Weikart has unveiled a second single titled ‘L’amour se construit’. Translating into English as “love is built”, it’s what Weikart describes as “a plea to not only accept but welcome the inevitable messiness that accompanies our emotions around love.” Musically this translates into something as strange as it is sophisticated, drawing on foundations of both jazz and smooth seventies folk and bending them into dreamlike shapes with a psychedelic flourish. Watch the suitably surreal Ruby Cicero-directed video below:

Contact will be released via Midnight Special Records on 23^rd October. Pre-order ti now from the Melissa Weikart Bandcamp page.

summersets – Forgetting For The Better

“Drunk conversations, uncomfortable truths / Daily routines, bills that are due,” so opens ‘Forgetting For the Better’, one of the standout tracks on Pine Trees In A Perfect Row, the new record from Kalle Mattson and Andrew Sowka’s summersets project. The line is indicative of an album that is very much grounded in reality, exploring the contemporary moment without sanding away its uncomfortable edges. The pair of childhood friends reunited in their northern Ontario hometown of Sault Ste. Marie after being priced out of the big cities, and this frankness and economic realism is littered across the record. Mattson calls it “a (complicated) love letter to Northern Ontario and small town Canadian identity and experience… with the intention of speaking to a (hopefully) universal sentiment: that you never really leave your home.” As that quote might suggest, there is a glimmer of magic braided throughout too. ‘Forgetting For the Better’ is the perfect example, a gentle folk song that explores life’s ups and downs (from car crashes and playoff defeats to “the words that I said”) with a combination of wistful regret and mellow warmth.

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The cover painting and title, is a nod to Bottles of Hope For Gaza, where in Egypt, bottles containing rice, flour, and beans were thrown into sea in hopes that they would reach the shores of Gaza. In organizing this project, I hope to offer encouragement to anyone in the music community, to speak up in song and to utilize our collective power. I believe it is vital to our own hearts, and our lives as artists, to empathize and show empathy to this cause.

All proceeds of the release will be donated to ANERA, a charity which offers a whole suite of humanitarian aid and emergency relief in Gaza, as well as across the wider Middle East. The organisation’s motto is “Where hope finds a way,” a sentiment more relevant than ever. Because for all of the hand-wringing and well-intentioned prayers, what the people need now is action. And the only way to achieve the required response is for wide swathes of those watching on to roll up their sleeves and do anything they can. Songs of Hope for Gaza is just one small effort to add to this collective action, and one which will hopefully inspire others to lend their energy to the drive. Victoria invokes a quote from Woody Guthrie’s Bound for Glory to encapsulate the spirit of the release:

All of this talking about what’s up in the sky, or down in hell, for that matter, isn’t half as important as what’s right here, right now, right in front of our eyes. Things are tough. Folks broke. Kids hungry. Sick. Everything. And people has just got to have more faith in one another, believe in each other. There’s a spirit of some kind we’ve all got. That’s got to draw us all together.

Songs of Hope for Gaza will be released on the 28th October via Pretty Purgatory and Dear Life Records and you can pre-order it now.

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A couple of weeks ago we wrote about Field Guide, a really great album from North Carolina native Sarah Louise. Despite being entirely instrumental, the album is incredibly deep. As we said in our review, “Louise manages to circumvent the skin-deep and decidedly human introspection that occupies most genres in favour of something larger and wider, resonating on a deeper level. The songs speak of an association with nature that makes everything else appear incidental, a connection that humanity has attempted to sever for millennia without ever quite succeeding. In this way the album is both sad and joyous, a reminder of all we have missed and all there is left to experience, the terrifying, heartbreaking and glorious comfort that we, as humans, are an oh-so-small part of an oh-so-wonderful world”.

Luckily for us, Sarah agreed to discuss Field Guide with us, and her answers to our questions explore the album’s themes and inspirations far better than we ever could.

Hello Sarah, I hope you are well! How is life in North Carolina this time of year?

Life is good! In some ways the tail end of Winter is the sweetest time of year because I know there is so much amazing weather ahead of me!

It’s clear that Field Guide is influenced heavily by the natural world. Would you say that nature plays a big role in your life and creative process?

I’m so glad that comes across. Nature is the most constant interest I have had in my life. Even when I was little I felt so bonded to it. I would literally read and memorize field guides, a pastime which still serves me well in my life in the mountains of North Carolina. It’s medicine for me and my greatest source of inspiration.

The other big influence is traditional folk music. How much has this shaped your music? I’m not a specialist in the taxonomy of traditional music but is there a particular branch that you see yourself aligned to?  

I’ve enjoyed the diversity of American traditional music for long enough that it is in my DNA and peeks out when it wants to. However, I wrote a couple of the songs on “Field Guide” around two specific lined-out hymns. I thought of my interaction with the material as a way of honouring these amazing women of song,like placing flowers around a sacred object. In some of the songs on “Field Guide” I was dealing with similarities between Appalachian music and Hindustani and Carnatic music. For example, harmony was not allowed in some of the more
conservative southern churches and was instead replaced by drones, rich melodies and melisma. These characteristics are also hallmarks of Indian music, as well as many other kinds of traditional music from around the world. To me, these connections speak to the ancientness of some of these mountain melodies (although I can’t prove their origins). I certainly don’t want to reduce the complexities or distinctiveness of these individual traditions, but I find inspiration in the similarities.

*Here are traditional recordings of the lined out hymns that Sarah mentions above, and I’ve included her guitar versions so you can compare and contrast. First is ‘The Day is Past and Gone’ by Jean Ritchie:

…and secondly ‘A Home Just Over Yonder’ by Frankie Duff:

It’s not that difficult to notice that the album isn’t a completely happy one, that’s not to say it doesn’t have little bright moments of joy, but it has varying shades of emotion, and sadness is certainly well-represented. This captures perfectly my feelings on nature – namely that it is an incomprehensibly amazing thing, but something facing the dire consequences of us as a species. Did you set out to write something that touched upon not only the joy of natureitself but also the sad fact that so many people are now disconnected from it?

What’s interesting about writing music for me is that sometimes when I am sad, I write joyful-sounding music, and sometimes when I am joyful, melancholy will emerge in a piece. I think that speaks to music’s wideness and strength as an expressive medium that goes beyond language or individual emotions. I didn’t set out to have “Field Guide” express sadness or joy about a particular topic, although it is safe to say that some of my deepest sadness stems from my concern about our culture’s disconnection from nature and the empty consumerism that can follow. And my greatest moments of joy are often in the woods, making little discoveries or feeling connected to the life around me.

*We asked Sarah to share a photograph that sums up Field Guide for her. It was an impossible question and she admitted defeat, but did share this picture of a Wake Robin, a species from the genus Trillium, which is one of her favourite wildflowers native to North Carolina.*

The music on Field Guide feels old – if you played it to a random sample of the general public, I reckon lots of them would place it somewhere in the formative years of the previous century – is that something you set out to achieve, this timeless quality, or is it more a consequence of your inspiration/influences?

It wasn’t an intention to write something that sounded timeless, but I just tried to be as honest and exploratory during my process as I could be. I have never wanted to write music that sounded like anyone else, but it makes me feel good that you think it sounds timeless. Thank you!

Does the album also have a more intimate, personal scope? Track titles like ‘Dog Improv’ and ‘Late Summer Seed Collection’ seem to suggest that the album as also inspired by personal memories.

Some of the titles are definitely inspired by my memories. I kept a seed collection when I was a kid in a large file drawer, which I lovingly labeled and alphabetized. And I still save seeds from/for my garden! The origin of the music itself is more difficult to pin down. I don’t know exactly where it comes from. I’m glad it’s a little bit mysterious.

This new version of Field Guide is entirely instrumental. Was this a conscious choice for this release or did the songs naturally take that direction? How do you decide when to include vocals on your tracks?

I always aim to have my pieces function first and foremost as instrumentals. In most cases I have added vocals only once the guitar part is finished. I’m starting to explore the possibility of writing instrumental and vocal parts simultaneously as a way to shake-up my process if nothing else. Scissor Tail Editions releases almost exclusively instrumental music, and since the pieces for the most part already functioned without vocals, it felt fine to cut them.

Could you list four or five artists/bands you really like and think people should hear? They could be new or not so new or one hundred years dead, whatever you like.

Asheville, North Carolina has a stellar scene, particularly for guitar music. Shane Parish
has a new tape out on Marmara Records called “Odei”, which is incredible for its inventiveness and is an absolute pleasure to listen to. I’m also a huge fan of Tashi Dorji who can say more in 3 seconds worth of guitar than many, many words could express. He has an upcoming album on Asheville-based Bathetic Records. Wes Tirey, who I think you’ve also featured (J: yes we have), is a Scissor Tail alum and a great player/songster (and has new tape out on Cabin Floor Esoterica). And my friend Emmalee Hunnicutt is a hypnotic, soulful cello composer who also collaborates with Shane Parish. That better be the last one or I won’t know where to stop!

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