The Official Country Music Thread Genre • Page 12

Anyone familiar with The Pines? Their new record is really lovely, lush, experimental Americana. Reminds me a bit of Field Report, but more avant-garde. I definitely recommend it. Doesn't hurt that the album cover is gorgeous:

 

I should really stop skulking. Always love the recs I get from this thread; The Pines is a wonderful soundtrack on a rainy Sunday afternoon, and will definitely hold me over until that new Field Report (he said on twitter he would start recording in May, which hopefully sets us up for another October/November release, which is perfect timing).

Pretty pumped to check out:
the I Don't Cares
Jackie Greene
John Hiatt
Old 97s
Daniel Romano
Spencer Burton
Aubrie Sellers
Austin Lucas
Adam Hood
Caitlin Rose

 

Well this album is just stunning and that artwork is ridiculously beautiful. Good rec Craig.

 

Josh Ritter just tweeted that he's playing a few dates with Jason Isbell this fall. Killer bill.

 

Yep, Ritter/Isbell are coming to Grand Rapids. Going to be amazing.

 

Ritter puts on one of the happiest shows I've seen. I know that's avweird description for a show, but if you've seen him it would make sense. Him and is bell will be a great pairing.

 

That is possibly the best ticket (for my personal tastes) that I've ever seen.

I saw Ritter and Dawes a couple times before Dawes released their 1st album, so I didn't know any of their songs, so I'd say this is even better because this show is two of my favorites prior to it being announced.

And they're coming to Red Bank, which is so incredibly convenient for me.

 

I wonder what the status is of that Josh Ritter/Bob Weir cowboy songs album? Josh has been saying for a while that he was writing songs for Bob, but that's all it's been.

 

One of my favorite records of the year premiered today on American Songwriter. Ryan Beaver - Rx. RIYL: Jason Isbell, Bruce Springsteen, Will Hoge. This one comes with my highest recommendation:

Album Premiere: Ryan Beaver, Rx « American Songwriter

 

Only needed to hear about 10 seconds to know I'll like this.

 

The opener definitely hooks you right away. Probably my favorite opening track this year, actually. I wrote about that for Modern Vinyl a few weeks ago:

MV Recommends: “Dark” by Ryan Beaver

 

Well for someone who is part of the MV team, I sure am bad at keeping up with the posts. Oops. I'll be reading this ASAP.

 

To be fair, there are a lot of posts every day over there. It's easy for some of the features to get buried if you're not looking for them specifically.

 

Yeah, I'm just going to toss the site in my RSS feed. I'll be more likely to keep up with features there.

 

Good call!

 

Read it just now. Well said. Also, loving your interviews! I may want to pick your brain on those at some point if you don't mind. I feel like mine can get pretty generic.

 

Yeah, definitely! Anything you want to ask. I usually just come up with a loose list of questions I want to ask and have the list in front of me. Then I just figure out spots to fit those in as naturally as I can while just keeping a conversation going. Sometimes the artists are more responsive than others, but usually I've been able to get them engaged. Jason Isbell was probably the hardest one I've done. He was a little more closed off than I'm used to. Still a good talk, it just took us a bit longer to get a rhythm going.

 

Yeah I usually end up with email interviews more often than not. But I'll move this portion of the convo over to Twitter though so I don't clutter this with non-country music talk hah.

 

Here's my review of the Parker Millsap record. I highly recommend this album, for the sixth or seventh time!

Parker Millsap - The Very Last Day • chorus.fm

 

The new Mary Chapin Carpenter album is pretty fantastic. Produced by Dave Cobb. Currently streaming on NPR:

 

Yeah I was listening to that the other day. Pretty good. Should probably listen to some of her 13 (!) other albums.

 

New Hard Working Americans album comes out May 13th! Dont know how I missed that, I always look forward to anything Todd Snider does. The couple new songs they have released so far sound pretty good. Even if you aren't a huge Snider fan this may be worth checking out as it is a pretty big departure from his solo material.

 

Can't drop youtube videos in right now, but just realized that the new Douwe Bob record dropped. He's a Dutch guy who sounds a lot like a mix of Dawes and Ari Hest. Some great country-tinged rop/pop. That's based off his first record (born in a storm) and what I've heard from this new one.

Also been spending a lot of time with the new Shane Smith and the Saints. Sounds like a mix of Turnpike Troubadours and Needtobreathe.

 

Going to Old 97's in NYC tonight. I've heard of Heartless Bastards and listened to a few songs before but don't know much about them. Any fans?