Tell Em What Your Name Is!

Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears

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Crushing

Julia Jacklin

Talk about an emotionally and socially charged album - Julia Jacklin’s Crushing is a classic singer-songwriter’s dive into body image, love, and social life primarily. I’d like to double-click on the first song on the album: Body. Julia describes this track to NPR as “A very long and exaggerated sigh” that was “Born from feelings of powerlessness when it comes to the impossible task of representing yourself the way you think is right, personally and professionally.” The song hinges on a real-life scenario where her ex has a naked photograph of her and she’s contemplating whether or not he would use it against her. 

“I remembered early days
when you took my camera
turned to me, 23, naked on your bed looking straight at ya

do you still have that photograph
would you use it to hurt me?”

I’m sure there are very few of us that would understand the impact this type of scenario would have with the fame that this Australian singer-songwriter now has. If you’re interested in a serene dive into these topics, Crushing by Julia Jacklin is the album to listen to today or the next time you kick your feet up on your front porch rocking chair.

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Forever

Don Diablo

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See You Around

I'm With Her

What happens when three of the most celebrated women in Americana hole up in an Airbnb for a week? In the case of Aofie O’Donavan, Sara Watkins, and Sarah Jarosz they form a band a write one hell of an album. The trio know as I’m With Her all have performed in separate acts throughout the years to wild acclaim and success, but there’s something especially captivating and hypnotic about these women when they join in three part harmony. Each is a talented vocalist, instrumentalist, and songwriter and when they combined their skillsets the world wound up with a crisp and welcoming album that feels like a warm summer’s day. Pulling on folk, Americana, and bluegrass influences See You Around is hard to pin down genre wise and the album floats between hopeful, grounded, grateful, wistful, and cynical. Each of the women has an equal part taking lead in different songs and yet each track feels cohesive and the women shine most as a group.

I’m With Her frequently performs around a single mic, effortlessly weaving around each other and moving back and forth to live mix their vocals and instrument levels. Their blend is astonishing. Check out this live performance at the Kennedy Center featuring three covers: Bill Monroe, Dolly Parton, and an old traditional. It’s an impressive feat.

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A Hero's Death

Fontaines D.C.

This album from Fontaines D.C., an Irish post-punk bank, is an interesting one. First off, this band is relatively new for how large they are. They were formed in 2017 and sport about 600k monthly listeners on Spotify. This album in particular, A Hero’s Death, is very critically acclaimed. Having been nominated for Best Rock Album at the 2021 Grammy Awards, it’s different than what you might expect from typical rock music but can most definitely not be slept on. It takes some getting used to for me. You’ve got a lot of chronic repetition in the lyrics, and the music tends to find its groove and then stay there for the duration of the songs. Also, as some of you may notice, many foreign (foreign to the United States) singers typically don’t tend to have an accent when singing. That’s not the case here. Grian Chatten’s Irish is showing a bit in this one and that’s a lot of fun - especially on A Hero’s Death. Step out of your comfort zone and give this one a listen!

Remember Wikipedia? According to it, the flagship song, A Hero’s Death, is self-described by the band as “a list of rules for the self.” A list of Fountaine’s D.C. commandments is how I translate that - some highlights include: “Sink as far down as you can be pulled up, Happiness really ain’t all about luck” + “Sit beneath a light that suits ya, And look forward to a brighter future.” If you’d like to see some more, you can check out the full lyrics on Genius here.

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