songs that got us through the year - playlist
Kellen Smith - Til I Die
When this song came up on a Spotify shuffle, this sounded like a Green On Red original (Green On Red being one of our major influences back in the 1980s!). Kellen Smith's voice sounds like a young Dan Stuart singing his heart out, a Chuck Prophet like guitar-playing, a fantastic hammond sound. Have to keep an eye out on Kellen Smith...
songs that got us through the year - playlist
Elles Bailey - Walk Away
We are big fans of Elles Bailey and were very excited when Elles contributed a video to our "stay safe sessions". Just recently Elles has been nominated for "UK artist of the year" at the Americana Music Association UK awards 2022. Way to go, Elles! Her latest EP "Sunshine City" features the heartwrenching ballad, "Walk Away". Magazine "Music News" called "Walk Away":
songs that got us through the year - playlist
The Wave Pictures - This Heart Of Mine
The Wave Pictures go country - who would have thought! Taken from the forthcoming album "When The Purple Emperor Spreads His Wings", "This Heart Of Mine" is the first single taken off that record and we're totally in love. The album is also their first release after we saw The Wave Pictures gracing the Static Roots Festival stage in 2019.
"With a nuance of autumn, ‘This Heart Of Mine’ references time and space travel & memory all rolled into one. Musically inspired by classic Neil Young, ‘This Heart Of Mine’ witnesses The Wave Pictures going full-on country and features cowboy harmonica from Dominic ‘Hotdog’ Brider, Franic Rozycki on mandolin, alongside Dave Tattersall’s gentle acoustic guitar strum.
The first of four seasonal videos made by Nina Garthwaite for When The Purple Emperor Spreads His Wings album, 'This Heart Of Mine' is Autumn: "The week I made it autumn was at its best, sunny and cold with long shadows. The best thing about autumn is that the days somehow feel like they contain all the autumn days that ever were, just right for a song about memories and time.
I'm still exploring animation and this is much more multimedia in style than I've done so far - there are mono-prints, photos, paintings and photocopies and I probably got over-excited about the flicker technique! It is also inspired a lot by the bonkers collage posters Franic likes to do.
Towards the end, when when the band appears as if inside a planet, brings to mind how long it's been since they have been able to tour properly. Hopefully by the time the album is released they’ll be back, rocking, doing what they love."
