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The Best New Songs of May 2020

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May 292020

Elder Orange – Stella

<a href="http://elderorange.bandcamp.com/album/stella-ep">Stella (EP) by Elder Orange</a>
Matt Scott, aka Elder Orange, wrote his new EP Stella inspired by his ’71 Stella parlor acoustic guitar. But despite the acoustic guitar-influence, singer-songwriter music this isn’t. Scott’s a producer and composer who builds immersive instrumental soundscapes incorporating that guitar here and there, but not beholden to it. In this case, he says, “Stella is a blend of a lot of my favorite sounds; dusty 60’s funk rock laced with boom-bap alt-latin vibes and gritty electro-fusion.” Continue reading »

The Best New Songs of April 2020

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Apr 302020

Amelia Devoid – Counters

<a href="http://ameliadevoid.bandcamp.com/track/counters">counters by Amelia Devoid</a>
It’s not clear if this song was written in our current self-isolation, but even if it wasn’t, lines like this have a new resonance: “I’ve been wiping down counters / and counting down hours / ’til i can lay in the flowers again”. Continue reading »

A Train Song for the 21st Century

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Apr 032020

Lotta train songs in the history of American music. “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad.” “City of New Orleans.” “Wabash Cannonball.” Johnny Cash did a whole album of train songs in 1960. Then, two years later, he did a second.

Train songs as a staple of American music pretty much dried up when riding the train here did. Unless Joe Biden records an album about his beloved Amtrak, our supply of new train songs is in short supply. Continue reading »

The Best Vermont Albums of 2019

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Dec 182019

Critics of ranked lists like this see it as a bug that they’re entirely subjective and somewhat arbitrary. I see it as a feature. There’s not really any difference between #12 and #13. Frankly, there’s not all that much difference between #1 and #25. But my feeling has always been, everyone gets that. No one actually thinks you can mathematically rank works of art. But the trying offers a wonderful opportunity for music nerds to look back at the best of the year, and for the sort of vigorous debate on which such nerddom rests. Continue reading »

The Best Vermont Songs of 2019

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Dec 172019

This Top 40 looks nothing like the actual Top 40. None of these songs charted, and I don’t think any of them aspired to. That is no knock against them, which probably goes without saying here – anyone reading music blogs knows that much. The adjectives “great” and “popular” occasionally attach themselves to the same track, but not often enough.

So just think of this as an alternate history of 2019 singles. It has no horses, and no town roads. It doesn’t teach love, patience, or pain, and isn’t 100% that anything. It also, as the headline says, only includes artists from one rather small state. But this wildly subjective, somewhat arbitrary survey of the past 12 months should serve as a small introduction to the wealth of talent in one community on the geographic fringe. There was a lot of wonderful music being made this year, much of it far from the big cities, or the Billboard charts. Duh. Continue reading »

The Best Vermont EPs of 2019

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Dec 162019

Fifteen is a pretty stupid number for a list like this. I tried to get it down to a nice round ten, but some of the cuts to get to fifteen had been so painful that the idea of losing five more almost physically hurt (I realize I may take these lists too seriously). So fifteen it is. “A baker’s dozen,” as people who don’t know what a baker’s dozen is might say. Continue reading »

The Best Songs of the 2010s: Michael Chorney and Hollar General, “Bewildered”

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Dec 132019

These days, composer and guitarist Michael Chorney is probably best known for his work with Anaïs Mitchell on her recent Broadway hit Hadestown, for which he won a Tony Award earlier this year (he plays in the band every night too). But a dive into his extensive discography wouldn’t uncover many other numbers meant for the stage. Half of his albums are ambient guitar instrumentals, and even the ones with “songs” tend toward the weird and woolly. Continue reading »

The Best Songs of the 2010s: Lowell Thompson, “Castle”

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Dec 062019

What is the titular castle the characters in Lowell Thompson’s Americana gem “Castle” plan to meet at? A music video – which might be fan-made, his website doesn’t include it – takes the word literally, using old footage of a knight and princess dancing in front of a castle (albeit one only two feet taller than they are). I doubt that’s what Thompson had in mind. Continue reading »

The Best Songs of the 2010s: Bow Thayer, “Lympus”

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Dec 042019

In anyone else’s hands, the “bojotar” might be a pricey parlor trick. The inventor of this hybrid instrument, Vermont singer-songwriter Bow Thayer, combined a banjo, resonator guitar, and electric guitar into one axe. But this is a far cry from one of those one-man bands busking in the subway with some ramshackle contraption strapped to his back. The bojotar doesn’t look or sound particularly strange, but it gives Thayer a twangy slide/picking combo impossible to achieve with a traditional instrument. Continue reading »

The Best Songs of the 2010s: Brett Hughes, “Sweet Little Bird”

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Nov 252019

The only live recording on this list, Brett Hughes’ “Sweet Little Bird” has yet to be released on a studio album. The version I’ve been playing for the latter half of the decade I ripped from a Vermont Public Radio session video. I hope to replace it with a higher-fi studio take one of these days. Continue reading »