Another week, another weekly playlist.
Also another week when it feels kinda pointless to make a Spotify playlist. I hope one day this streaming thing makes sense for artists too, but it sure seems like they don’t even want to make that happen. Meanwhile let’s buy music and support the artists as much as possible. Of course the problem with this buy buy narrative is that a lot of folks are struggling just as badly as the artists. Buying a lot of music isn’t really an option, if you can barely scrape together enough for food and rent. So no need to feel ashamed, if all you are able to do is to subscribe to a legal streaming service. You are still just as important as the guy who had to move to a larger apartment, because he needed an extra room for his vinyl collection. But if you are able to do so, please do buy some music or merch. And for the love of all good. Someone fix the streaming payout model.
Some big releases this week again. New Le Ren EP and Charlie Whitten album were my most anticipated ones. Steve Sloane’s new double album Visions of Pain and Visions of Love would have also been there, but it came as a beautiful surprise. Only Pain seem to be on Spotify at the moment, but both are on Bandcamp. I think I’ll grab them on next Bandcamp day. There’s also beautiful new albums from Charley Crockett, Gillian Welch (lost songs compilation), Stephen Simmons, Alex Izenberg, Thanya Iyer, Madeline Kenney, Land of Talk and Immaterial Possession. Plus EPs from Mother Tongues, Drayton Farley and the aforementioned Le Ren.
The Finnish flavour of the week is the return single from Gim Kordon. Other Finnish cuts this week are the singles from Vino Puu, Juha Mäki-Patola and the EP from Eerika ja Sakari.
Plenty of international should-be hits too. There’s new beauties from the forthcoming albums by Luka Kuplowsky, Dolly Valentine, Trummors and Kath Bloom. There’s also first singles from the fortcoming albums by Bonnie Whitmore and Jerry David DeCicca. There’s a new song from the great Sam Moss and the new artist find of the week for me is Brock Mattsson who made a gorgeous country song. Oh yeah and that Benchmarks song is superb too. And well all others are worth of a namedrop too, but you’ll find them on the list below.
That’s it for this week. Love from a distance.
1. Le Ren – The Day I Lose My Mind (Morning & Melancholia EP, Secretly Canadian, 2020)
2. Charley Crockett – Wreck Me (Welcome to Hard Times, Son of Davy, 2020)
3. Charlie Whitten – Save Me (I’m Waiting, 2020)
4. Steve Sloane – Evil (Visions of Pain, 2020)
5. Luka Kuplowsky – Positive Push (single, Mama Bird Recording Co, 2020)
6. Dolly Valentine – The Time Will Come (single, Holy Golden Music, 2020)
7. Trummors – Tulsa County (single, Ernest Jenning Record Co, 2020)
8. Gillian Welch – First Place Ribbon (Boots N:o 2 – The Lost Songs, Acony Records, 2020)
9. Matt Woods – Tomorrow’s All We Have (single, Lonely Ones Records, 2020)
10. Bonnie Whitmore – Right / Wrong (single, 2020)
11. Stephen Simmons – Huck’s Blues (Family Album, 2020)
12. Brock Mattsson – Are You Thinking of Me (single, Fishbum Records, 2020)
13. Sam Moss – Morning Light (single, Lost Honey Records, 2020)
14. Michael C. Duguay – Summer Fights (single, So Sorry Records, 2020)
15. Jerry David DeCicca – I See Horizons (single, 2020)
16. Kath Bloom – Leaving Things (single, Dear Life Records, 2020)
17. Bill Callahan – The Mackenzies (single, Drag City Records, 2020)
18. Alex Izenberg – Sister Jade (Caravan Chateau, Domino Recording Co, 2020)
19. Thanya Iyer – I Forget to Drink Water (Balance) (KIND, Topshelf Records, 2020)
20. Yves Jarvis – For Props (single, Anti, 2020)
21. Laura Veirs – Burn Too Bright (single, Bella Union, 2020)
22. Kathleen Edwards – Fools Ride (single, Dualtone, 2020)
23. Elizabeth Cook – Two Chords and a Lie (single, Agent Love Records, 2020)
24. Vino Puu – Hullu lintu (single, 2020)
25. Gim Kordon – Joskus mä pelkään (single, All That Plazz, 2020)
26. Benchmarks – Technicolor (single, 2020)
27. Guided By Voices – Haircut Sphinx (single, 2020)
28. Mother Tongues – Let You Down (Everything You Wanted EP, Buzz Records, 2020)
29. Land of Talk – Footnotes (Indistinct Conversations, Saddle Creek, 2020)
30. Madeline Kenney – Sucker (Sucker’s Punch, Carpark Records, 2020)
31. Merce Lemon – Those Eyes (single, Darling Recordings, 2020)
32. Canadian Sweetmen – Coconut Grove (single, Matte Black Sound Company, 2020)
33. Kendra Morris – This Life (single, Karma Chief Records, 2020)
34. The Harlem Gospel Travelers – Fight On! (single, Colemine Records, 2020)
35. Bobby Rush – Down In Mississippi (single, Deep Rush Records, 2020)
36. Terri Binion – Perfect Love (single, 2020)
37. Drayton Farley – Keep Country Music Sad (Sweet Southern Sadness EP, 2020)
38. Paper Wings – Marigold (single, 2020)
39. Eerika ja Sakari – Onnekas (Eerika ja Sakari EP, 2020)
40. Juha Mäki-Patola – Slow Dive (single, Hush Hush Records, 2020)
41. Cedric Noel – Nighttime (Skin) (single, Front Porch Records, 2020)
42. Immaterial Possession – See Through Stares (Inmaterial Possession, Cloud Recordings, 2020)
43. friend. – November (single, 2020)
44. Lauren O’Connell – Atlantic City (single, Double Double Whammy, 2020)
45. Sam Lynch – Good Year (single, SNL Music, 2020)
46. Dawn Landes – Mount Everest (single, CropDuster 2020)
47. Courtney Marie Andrews – Ships in the Night (Old Flowers, Fat Possum / Loose Music, 2020)
48. Twain – Initiation Blues (Days of Effort and Ease, 2020)
49. Psalmships – Tumbleweeds (Another Tongue EP, 2020)
50. Cinder Well – Our Lady’s (No Summer, Free Dirt Records, 2020)
Oh and do buy the vinyl/cd/download. Spotify and other streaming services are perfect for these introductory purposes, but try to buy at least the music that matter the most to you
If you are looking this after a week has gone, the embedded Spotify will show the latest playlist. I’ll just update the same playlist because a) if someone wants to follow it, they can just follow that one list and will get a new set of songs each Sunday b) so that I don’t have a trillion of different playlists on my Spotify account.