Kentuckyseven

Our big time favorite Swedish americana crooner Daniel Norgren is back with new album The Green Stone – released today. The man really found a sound that echoes of eternity. It’s gut-wrenching och filled with …soul. It’s bare bone beautiful. Try new song I Waited For You.

We had the good fortune of meeting Joe Pug yesterday in Gothenburg, Sweden. He’s on tour and played a great gig at Bar Kom. The ending, when the band left stage and strolled down onto the floor singing in the small audience was enchanting. Thanks for the magic, Joe!

We asked for some of Pug’s darlings and got this:

• Pod: The Moment with Brian Koppelman:  ”In this program, screenwriter Brian Koppelman interviews artists and business leaders that inspire him.  Specifically, he talks to them about how they handled certain crucial ”inflection points” in their lives.  That is, he wants to know why successful people process the high and low points of their careers differently than the rest of us.  Start with the interview he does of Seth Godin and move on from there.”

• Music: ”Warm Enemy” by Christopher Paul Stelling:  ”I had the pleasure of playing the Paradiso in Amsterdam with this American songwriter.  We swapped records after the show and I found myself returning to this tune.  His guitar playing is a personal, nylon-string take on John Fahey and Joseph Spence that is absolutely gripping.

• Book: The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro:  ”I read this classic of modern fiction on the flight over to Europe this summer.  Told from the first-person perspective of a mid-20th century English butler – stay with me! – it explores the act of relinquishing the notion that your individual life had meaning beyond your own private joys and sorrows.  The narrator, Stevens, spends the book reflecting on a career that he spent in the service of an aristocrat whom he considered a ”great” man.  As the book unwinds though, he begins to question whether or not his employer was indeed great and therefore whether or not he himself spent a life doing meaningful work.  This is a short, wonderful read.”

• All the way from Portland, Oregon: Blitzen Trapper and their new album All Across This Land. It’s a divine alt-country lecture, class is dismissed.

You dig classic rock radio; Eagles, Jackson Browne, Springsteen, Mellencamp, the americana songs of Neil Young? Then, this is a shoe in. You are welcome.

• Holly Macve is Bella Unions latest signing. A true godess of country dark songs. She also opens for John Grant on his upcoming tour. Asked why, Mr Grant stated: ”When I heard her voice the decision was made. Very simple.”

Bella Union boss Simon Raymonde says: “Little is known of Holly other than she is a 20 year old from Yorkshire who appeared out of nowhere in Brighton late last year. I had a tip-off to go to a basement bar where she was playing. In a room full of beery boys chatting across all the music beforehand, the minute Holly opened her mouth the room fell silent. Hers is a rare gift.”

We let her song speak for her, the beautiful fireside cowboy tune: The Corner Of My Mind.

• Philadelphia-based Americana group John Byrne Band are releasing their brand new record. Led by Dublin native John Byrne, with influences ranging from The Chieftains to Planxty to Bob Dylan, this is something you wanna hear out.

On this LP, John’s band features members of Amos Lee and Calexico and his lyrics is about turning bad stuff around. Check out first single Dirty, Used Up, Chewed Up, Screwed Up Love, a defiant folk-rock song that echoes John Hiatt and Lucinda Williams.

• Genius Ryan Adams covers Taylor Swifts album 1989 from beginning to end. It’s a Nebraska-kind-of-mood and an altogether fantastic trip you have to take. It’s no wigs and no costumes.

Try the ever emotional Out Of The Woods.

• Swedish Americanaband Crash n Recovery got the twang of greatness – foot-stomping, earthy, country music from the woods of Ångermanland.

New album Deep in the woods (released via Rootsy) will for sure be their break away record. Try song Minefield and have a good one!

Photo: Yoshi Cooper

• The Dirty Nil release new track ”No Weaknesses”. The Canadian trio of Kyle Fisher (drums), Luke Bentham (guitar/vox) and Dave Nardi (bass) got us celebrating life through a a solar-plexus-fist, an absolute knock-out.

The band has their first full-length album slated for an early 2016 release on Dine Alone. Get ready to rumble!

• Tvärvägen made some serious, down bound, glorious and pitch dark songs from the cellar of eternity. Gut-wrenching and thought-provoking. Takes the breath out of our lungs.

Moniker Henrik Öhberg came up with classic cinematic stuff here, we’re glad to tag along for the ride. Try title song This River So Red from upcoming album, release September 18.