Newness Abounds

After last Sunday's Single Song Sunday another one of our exceedingly intermittent series makes a return today. This is the one were I share some of the best things sent to me by the nice people in Promoland over the last few months and encourage you to buy them. Links to Bandcamp are provided where available.

Two of the best albums I have received since the last time we did this have already been mentioned here after I attended gigs by the acts in question. The albums are "Strange Medicine" by Kaia Kater and "Chicken Dinner" by Luiz Bruno. Both have now been released into the wild and are just waiting for you to snap them up.

Our round-up of the rest starts with a man who deserves praise for a multitude of reasons. Gabriel Birnbaum's day job is in Promoland and he is responsible for alerting me to many things you have heard here over the years. He is also a fine musician in his own right, originally with Wilder Maker but now as a solo artist. His latest album "Patron Saint Of Tireless Losers" is out on 28 June.

You will have to wait until 12 July to get hold of "Time Is A Walnut" by Hannah Mohan, but trust me when I tell you it is well worth the wait. Formerly the front person for indie-pop band And The Kids, this is her first solo album and it has been racking up the plays here at Goggins Towers.

On the subject of indie pop, here are Lightheaded. Hailing from New Jersey and signed to the Slumberland labal whose roster includes The Reds, Pinks, & Purples, The Umbrellas and Jeanines (all of whom have featured here previously). They share some of those bands' influences as you can hear on "Combustible Gems" which came out last month.

Slumberland had a good month in May because they also released "New Town Dreams" by Neutrals. Also based in San Francisco the album's theme - "snapshots of mundane lived realities in the New Towns that proliferated in the UK during the '60s and '70s" - may tip you off to the fact that they are not originally from there. Those of you with a keen ear for accents may pick up a very slight hint of a Scottish one. 

You will search in vain for any hint of a regional accent from Cardiff's No Thee No Ess. On their latest album "Distant Country" they seem to have relocated in spirit to the West Coast (by which I mean Laurel Canyon not Llanbedrog), but they fit in quite nicely there. "Distant Country" came out earlier this month but does not seem to have made it to Bandcamp. You can find some of their earlier records there though.

Last but not least is Sonny Singh, a Brooklyn-based Sikh musician who was formerly the trumpeter with Red Baraat. His latest album "Sage Warrior" fuses devotional music with assorted other styles and has been developed in parallel with a book of the same name by Valerie Kaur. Both the book and the album come out in September, but the single "Pavan Guru" is already available.

"Drinking Year" - Gabriel Birnbaum

"Time Is A Walnut" - Hannah Mohan

"Moments Notice" - Lightheaded

"Stop The Bypass" - Neutrals

"Snow White" - No Thee No Ess

"Pavan Guru" - Sonny Singh

Other albums I've been sent that I have quite enjoyed include "Ego Ride" by Asha Jefferies, "Planet Perfect" by Energy Slime and "For Every Set Of Eyes" by J. Mamana. So here is a video from each of them.