Ajay Mathur releases new Single

“It’s a song about making a decision on a relationship fallen apart. It’s about getting smart about your own life,” said Switzerland singer-songwriter, Ajay Mathur, in his official biography for his newest release, “Start Living Again.” The song and its accompany video are just a small example of the globe’s independent musicians making their mark in a big way. Mathur, who took home the top album prize at 2018’s Germany’s Rock & Pop Awards for his album, Little Boat, channels all what is best about indie music and all that inspired it along the way: solid songwriting.

BANDCAMP: https://ajaymathur.bandcamp.com/track/start-living-again

“Start Living Again” is track number three from Little Boat and comes in at just under three-and-half-minutes. The mood is light. Not fun, or clap along worthy, but very earth tones and sun-like. I heard very strong influences of 60s pyschedelic guitars and percussion smatterings. Interestingly enough, Mathur was born and raised in India. He gravitates more towards acoustic and electronic guitar riffs in “Start Living Again” and relies heavily on a repeated chorus. While listening to the chorus, my mind wandered off into far spaces – and even recalled Grizzly Bear’s “Two Weeks.” Mathur’s lyrical contact sways way more into the pop rock world than a prose or gloomy-indie rock. With words like “They were only ‘things’ that we aspired not love for someone. Everything I was holding onto fed my fear,” he simplifies decision making in a relationship. And he seems to do with an inspirational confidence. It’s as though he himself as already been through the fray and he can attest to getting out alive on the other side. As mentioned before, his own vision of the song is about making better decisions.

Mathur’s decision to make this song pop rock is a wise one. Supposing this was more of a piano-based track, I don’t think it would have had the same reaction. I enjoyed the guitar work on many levels, and the harmonies the riffs created were very tight. The tempo is perfect, and it sets the mood for a strong start to a morning run, or even just a ride in the car to work. It’s probably not a slow dance song. But whatever floats your boat.

Mathur once again collaborated with video creator, Ciro Ayala, for the “Start Living Again” visual representation. The two previously worked together on “My Wallet Is a House of Cards” (also from Little Boat). Ayala’s canvas is one of computerized graphics and visually stunning, rich colors (especially the fire scene). He even gives a 60s filter look to Mathur’s facial profile. I can concur with Mathur that Ayala captures the essence of first tearing down one’s house before the rebuilding can start. Before we become anew, we must sometimes look in the mirror and discover the true source of pain.

DEEZER: https://www.deezer.com/en/track/446707572?autoplay=true

“Start Living Again” doesn’t take long to get the emotional reactors charged. I still think Mathur’s lovely voice makes it hard to be angry or hurt while listening to the song. I do think it makes you reflective. It makes you feel less alone.

Andrew Brody

Brooke Moriber’s new album Cry Like a Girl

Galloping grooves join forces with a homespun harmony in an effort to sweep all of our cares away with the wind in “Time Takes It’s Time,” one of eleven tracks to be found on Brooke Moriber’s new album Cry Like a Girl, but this isn’t the only instance in the record where catharsis will reign supreme. From the pendulous piano play in “The Last Goodbye” (the album’s first single and music video) to the magnetizing melodies of “Behind the Scenes,” Moriber will stop at nothing in her mission to make us experience her artistry like we never have before, and for the most part, she hits it out of the park in Cry Like a Girl. It’s a little bit country and a whole lot of adult contemporary pop, and it’s a listen that fans of both genres might want to take a look at this spring.

Countrified grooves give “The Devil I Know” and the title track more of an edge than what we hear in the somber “Shattered Glass” and “It Doesn’t Hurt,” and despite the diversity in this collection of ballads and boisterous anthems, Cry Like a Girl enjoys a really fluid tracklist that feels rather progressive when compared to similarly stylized records out this April. “Here and Gone,” “99 Days of Rain” and “Steal the Thunder” are designed using completely different styles of attack, but they’re ultimately cut from the same meticulously crafted sonic cloth as “Long Long Time,” “The Last Goodbye” and “Time Takes It’s Time” are.

GOOGLE PLAY: https://play.google.com/music/preview/Tlcevminld52ses4g6wfhqvgaei?play=1&u=0

“It Doesn’t Hurt” and “Steal the Thunder” feel a bit stock when juxtaposed with the more calculated “The Last Goodbye” and formidable “Shattered Glass,” but I don’t know that I would go as far as to call either of the songs “filler” per-say. There’s a couple of aesthetical growing pains present in Cry Like a Girl, but by and large they’re limited to the cosmetic side of the songwriting (something that could be easily remedied in future works). I think that Moriber has got more charm as a singer when she’s flirting with Americana-tinged folk-rock in tracks like “The Devil I Know” and “Here and Gone” than she does anything else, and with a voice like hers, there’s never any need for external bells and whistles to enter the mix.

Fans of country, folk, pop and roots music should check out what Brooke Moriber is up to in the studio right now the next time that they’re in the market for hot new records, as Cry Like a Girl introduces us to her sound in a full-color, high definition setting that her caliber of content is definitely deserving of. She’s got a limitless ambition that is on full display in this LP, and despite a few hiccups, these eleven songs hold their own with most anything else I’ve heard out of Nashville in the last few months of 2019. Only time will tell, but if she keeps on this same creative trajectory that she’s been on for the last year, it won’t be long before Moriber shares a full-length follow-up to this fascinating first album.

Mindy McCall

Francine Honey releases her junior album to date

Ontario’s Francine Honey has released a new album, her third, entitled To Be Continued and the eleven songs are among the best yet she’s committed to a recording. The album hangs together in a way few extended releases down in the modern era and she clearly placed much thought into the track listing; the dramatic flow of the album makes a lot of sense and peaks at just the right points. The songs rely on traditional instruments rather than stirring the pot with exotic sounds, but the arrangements are uniformly intelligent and reach emotional heights without ever straining to make an impact.

URL: https://francinehoney.com/

“Snowflakes on My Eyelashes” has light reverb on its electric guitar work that contrasts well against the slowly evolving violin. Another part of the song that will stand out here and elsewhere throughout To Be Continued… is its drumming; there isn’t a single wasted beat throughout the song and even the climatic moments refrain from rushing the tempo unnecessarily. “Stay” is one of the album’s most straight ahead love songs and has a mix of soulful wailing guitar and longing well in tune for an album full of first rate material. The slight barroom tint from the track’s piano never goes too far; another defining musical characteristic of the release is how well Honey uses piano on many tracks.

The title song is another example of the piano being turned to good use. It never exerts an omnipresent sound in the mix but, instead, helps accentuate the lyric’s dramatic qualities. Honey digs deep into the words, a look back on youth from the vantage point of many years later, and they avoid any sentimentality that might otherwise drag the tune down. She shows her penchant for sharp characterizations with the track “Honey” and the sultry physicality of the arrangement helps give further life to the track. Honey’s vocal is among the album’s best and she has obvious fun drawing a picture for listeners.

YOU TUBE CHANNEL: https://www.youtube.com/user/FrancineLeclair

“Shacked-Up Sweetie” is a glorious blast of honky tonk with gritty snap in the guitar work and an appealing bluesy yet commercial sound. Some singers in this style might overdo the vocal for a song like this, believing the audience expects a female singer to belt this type of track out in dramatic fashion, but Honey’s vocal hangs back and focuses on getting the lyric over with listeners while also blending well with the band. The video released with this song, a single release as well, complements the track very nicely without ever trying to obscure its impact. It’s filmed with great professionalism and excellent composition; moreover, it never relies too much on the histrionics common to songs and videos of this type.

One of my favorite moments arrives with the song “Space”. It’s another of the beautifully rendered musical landscapes included on To Be Continued… but, likewise, shows how Honey’s songwriting often reaches far beyond the self-imposed limits of much in modern songwriting. It’s another song about relationships, in this case the aftermath of one, but has an unique point of view in the way it details the narrator’s need for time to heal and reconsider things. The acoustic guitar and piano driven duet of “Marilyn” musically sustains a well written tribute to the affect a long dead movie star exerted over a young girl and woman. The dialogue between those aforementioned instruments is well represented in the mix and Honey’s voice underlines the ghostly quality of the song. It’s one of the most memorable entries on an album that seems destined to stand the test of time; Francine Honey’s To Be Considered… definitely deserves consideration as a fully realized work illustrating her growing maturity as an artist and entertainer.

SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2CdnJgAGtOZFxJWg1q6npz?si=x4OQ0clkSnaIbnxgNUuV8w2CdnJgAGtOZFxJWg1q6npz?si=x4OQ0clkSnaIbnxgNUuV8w

Drew Blackwell 

Barbara J. returns with her sophomore album A Box Full of Records

Barbara J. returns with her sophomore album A Box Full of Records and its three stunning lead singles – covers of The Korgis’ “Everybody’s Gotta’ Learn Sometime,” The Carpenters’ “Rainy Days and Mondays” and Poco’s “Crazy Love” (which features no less than Mike Webb contributing keys to the song) – and while these tracks are true to the classic framework that made them hits to begin with, they’re inarguably as original as it gets in this brand new, pointed execution. I’ve always been hesitant to embrace cover songs and have always struggled to appreciate records made up wholly of material written by other artists, but in the case of these tracks, it’s impossible for me to dismiss them as anything other than modern gems.

SOUNDCLOUD: https://soundcloud.com/malibubarbara

“Crazy Love” and “Everybody’s Gotta’ Learn Sometime” see Barbara J. putting all of the emphasis on the texture in the melodies that hold the righteous rhythms together, while “Rainy Days and Mondays” focuses mostly on her awesome delivery of the lyrics. In all three instances, she’s using the backing band to create as much of a mood as she is the stylish poetry in the songs, but each of these tracks displays a different approach to the recording process that, for all intents and purposes, Barbara J. would appear to have mastered.

These songs suit the style of her singing perfectly, and in “Crazy Love,” we really get to see what her voice is capable of when it’s given enough room to really spread out and cultivate a mountainous melody. The string arrangement is pretty conservative, but her vocal track is simply brimming with muscular bass and treble, cutting through the glowing verses with impunity. She’s come a long way since her first record, and I actually think that she should explore covering more material from this particular period in pop music history.

LP SPOTIFY:  https://open.spotify.com/album/5RMfR1Hp0kgHraxMXHt9Ar

BARBARA J SPOTIFY: https://artists.spotify.com/c/artist/5xLOqJVS1zNKsVfQrbbCms/profile#about

There’s an immeasurable amount of emotion in all of these singles, and though it gives the chorus in “Rainy Days and Mondays” all of its zeal, I don’t think that the vocal ever becomes so intense in the big picture as to overshadow the instrumental aspect of these songs at all. Barbara J. is the type of artist who pays attention to the littlest of details in her music, and as a result, her releases never feel lopsided or inarticulately constructed. If her peers could somehow find a way to adopt a similarly disciplined attitude towards making a record, mainstream pop might not be in the inexplicably trite mess that it is right now.

HEAR NOW: https://barbaraj.hearnow.com/

To say that it’s awfully hard to make legendary music feel as real and tangible as it did for the era of listeners who made it a classic would be an understatement of criminal proportions, but in the case of A Box Full of Records, Barbara J. makes it look all too easy. She’s on top of her game and dishing out some of the most sophisticated and sensuous melodies of her career so far, and if you ask me, there isn’t an artist around – in or out of her scene – making the deeper creative impact that she is at the moment.

FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/BarbaraJsMusic/

FACEBOOK: A Gordon Lightfoot Retrospective:  https://www.facebook.com/sundownbarbaraj/

Mindy McCall

Stephanie Rose release Sprout (EP) and Luxury (SINGLE)

URL: https://www.stephanierosemusic.com/

Stephanie Rose hasn’t been writing, recording, or performing for long, but she’s already made strides it takes most performers years to equal. She’s already an award nominated singer, an increasingly experienced live act, and has one well received EP release under her belt. Her latest studio release, an EP entitled Sprout, shows she has no signs of slowing down. Instead, the six songs included on this EP reveal her, for newcomers, to be a singer and performer unafraid to face down a variety of material without any compunction – the nature of her talents is so wide she can convincingly handle any number of styles. The title song begins the EP with a decidedly upbeat point of view sonically – nothing is ever out of control here, but the playing rushes forward with a lot of energy and the inclusion of horns adds an interesting, if not unexpected, twist.

We’re back in a more predictable position with the EP’s second song “Rusted Love” but, even here, Rose tweaks our expectations. Modern country is rife with songs leaning more in an AOR rock direction than steel guitars, but Rose has such a natural aptitude for ransacking rock music’s sound while still remaining identifiably herself it makes her stand out from more customary fare. The third song “Luxury” has a totally different tone, pulling back the reins on any hint of rock, and instead going headlong into country balladry and avoiding any of its hackneyed tropes. The song has slower, much more deliberate pacing and works largely as a marriage of fiddle and piano. The latter instrument doesn’t unwind continuous melodic lines; instead, it builds its effects incrementally and the fiddle swirls and sways throughout the performance with bewitching lyricism. Her vocal really gets deep into the song’s portrayal of love enduring in the face of struggle.

I-TUNES (EP): https://itunes.apple.com/ca/album/sprout-ep/1436694108

“Old Soul” comes off like a throwback, for sure, but never in a roll your eyes sort of way. Rose is using this traditional style, a likely four piece set up with strong bass playing anchoring everything, for her own uses rather than just imitating the form. She has a remarkable way of writing about serious subjects with a gracefulness and easy sophistication far beyond her years, but chronological age has always been a poor way of evaluating talent. She definitely stands out thanks to songs like “Old Soul”. It doesn’t feel like a rehash; instead, Rose is refurbishing and refitting time tested traditions for a modern audience.

“Crushed” does much of the same. Here, however, Rose is back in rockier terrain than “Old Soul” and anyone who listens to modern country will recognize the style, but she diverges along the way. It’s subtler here than other songs like “Luxury” and the title track, but there’s a level of nuance and attentiveness in her art you don’t often hear from other contemporaries. Rose, time after time, seems to have an astonishingly clear idea of what she wants her music to accomplish. “Same Old Same Old” brings Sprout to a satisfying end despite its seeming light touch. The songwriting has more to say than you might initially assume, but Rose delivers the song with a wistful sigh and the character of someone unwilling to let negativity get too deep under their skin. It’s an ending well in keeping with everything coming before it and provides proof of another strong point for this EP – it is every bit as thought and fleshed out as any full length release and the running order is clearly arranged for maximum effect. It’s these kinds of seemingly small details that make Sprout an even more rewarding experience.

AMAZON (SINGLE): https://www.amazon.com/Luxury/dp/B07HGKLHNW

Seth Mitchell 

Penelope Robin “Some Girls”

PRIMARY URL: http://www.peneloperobin.com

Though the premise for her new music video is simple, there’s nothing ordinary about the sensational brand of pop that young Penelope Robin is dishing out in “Some Girls.” Robin’s big voice transcends the limits of stereophonic recording in her latest single, and in its accompanying music video, viewers are treated to a visual tapestry that is reflective of her unique talent, and moreover, the content of a song that reigns supremely over its contemporaries in 2019. Her swaggering lyrical approach invites us to embrace the confidence that she so poetically espouses in this track, and in watching her find joy in the simple sights and sounds of an urban setting, we’re inspired to revisit a childlike wonderment that exists within all of us, regardless of age.

Robin’s vocal is extremely well-mixed in this single. Though the gentle piano play that frames it in the composition is brooding and equally as evocative, her words are always at the center of our attention, cushioned between the rigid textures in the instrumentation but never crushed by their grandiosity. You could make the argument that her style of singing is so organic and natural that it would stand out no matter the backdrop, and considering the intricacies that comprise the melody in “Some Girls,” I would be inclined to agree with you. Robin is the type of singer who doesn’t need a lot of fancy bells and whistles to steal the spotlight away from everything else going on around her; this isn’t to discount the efforts of her backing band here, but instead to highlight how profound a vocalist she truly is.

OFFICIAL VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNK9D15ZWIk

The lyrics that wash over us in “Some Girls” are accessible and catchy from the onset, and don’t fall apart in the chorus in favor of adopting a predictably hooking rhyme. Whether you’re a big fan of pop music or not, there’s no denying the talent that she displays here linguistically; inside of a mere two and a half minutes of play, she weaves together a sharp, erudite narrative that is relatable across age and gender borders – something that, to be fair, is a marvelous feat in its own right. If she’s this adept at only 11 years old, one really has to wonder just how incredibly skilled she’s going to be ten years from now with a plethora of professional experience under her belt.

“Some Girls” is a fun but poignant pop song that starts off 2019 right for Penelope Robin, whose tremendous potential as a recording artist is utilized excellently here. You know you’re onto something good when a song communicates to the audience texturally as well as lyrically, and in the case of this single, words like “engaging” simply doesn’t do the subject justice. I’m eager to see what Robin does with her sound next, and further, how she develops her palate to suit whatever musical direction she wants to take as an adult. This is a very exciting time in the history of music, and with young people like Penelope Robin at the forefront of indie culture, I’m confident that audiophiles have nothing to worry about as we enter this bold new era in pop.

INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/thepennyrobin/

Bethany Page

Hughie Mac releases “Let’s Get Away” Single

URL: https://www.hughiemac.com/

The swaggering piano that drives “Let’s Get Away,” the new single from the incomparable Hughie Mac, marches along with a bass-heavy tonality that wants to shake us to the very core of our souls, but it isn’t alone in its daring pursuit of our affections. Lightly-struck cymbals adorn a modest drumming that frames the piano keys with a simple rhythm that instantly takes us back to the glorious days of big band and bop. Mac’s singing is, of course, the most visible strand of melodic might that we’ll come in contact within this single, but it’s unquestionably bolstered by the magnificent band supporting its grandiosity. “Let’s Get Away” is a take on “Let’s Get Away from It All,” the Frank Sinatra staple song, but what makes it much more special and significant than any other cover I’ve reviewed in 2019 is its modern, ultra-high definition texture, that literally draws us into a smoke-filled nightclub where Hughie Mac reigns supreme over the audience. This is Mac at his finest yet, and though it’s only one cut from his incredible album Hughie Mac Sings Some Great Songs, Pt. 3, it could very well be the record’s signature single.

CD BABY: https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/hughiemac6

From a critical standpoint, the swinging tempo is the main source of catharsis in “Let’s Get Away,” but it doesn’t stick out in the master mix as the primary cosmetic feature designed to grab our attention from the get-go. Mac’s vocal rouses our awareness of the contrasting rhythm lying just beneath the surface of the piano play; the vibrations in the bass warm up the cold, stoic percussive elements and set the mood for the chorus, which is where the groovy sway takes the main stage beside Mac and rocks us with its rollicking beat.

SOUNDCLOUD: https://soundcloud.com/user-271952191

 If it sounds like a complex number, that’s because it definitely is – I’m quite impressed with the way that Hughie Mac took this song apart piece by piece and reconstructed it to suit his palate without sacrificing any of the original’s most alluring charms. I’ve never been the biggest supporter of covering material as iconic as this particular track is, but as far as I’m concerned, Hughie Mac is one of the only artists exceptional enough to give it the justice that it really deserves.

This single, along with the whole of Hughie Mac Sings Some Great Songs, Pt. 3, represents some of the most sincere pop music that you’re going to come across this winter and well into the rest of 2019, and though he’s made amazing music before this release, Mac has never been quite as on top of his game as he is in “Let’s Get Away.” The sensuous vibe of danger skewed with a swaggering confidence that the Rat Pack made famous well over a half century ago is alive and well in this song, and through Hughie Mac a new generation of listeners who would have never had access to this legendary passage from the American songbook will come to understand why it’s as treasured by critics and elders as it is. This is premium pop music from a purebred original.

I-TUNES: https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/hughie-mac/1173657813

Mindy McCall