Gardening From The Ground Up Part 1 is Houston native Sarah Elizabeth Foster’s first collection of deeply charged tunes. Filled with raw emotion and wistful reflection, her songs are the product of a vision almost stalled when she was challenged to persevere through the intensive vocal therapy necessary to arrive at what her doctors called a “miraculous recovery” when she was diagnosed with a benign, vocal chord polyp. The record is an unusual acoustic blend of 60s inspired pop, fresh folk and classical motifs wrapped around Sarah’s deep vocals and emotionally rich lyrics.
Joni Mitchell / Both Sides Now The orchestral arrangement of Both Sides Now is so moving, paired with Joni Mitchell’s voice. The intro starts so perfectly and quietly then you immediately grasp her life experience the second you hear her voice. At the 2:40, mark when the horns come in, I always feel my heart swell.
Julia Nunes has been a singer-songwriter since age 13. She plays guitar, ukulele, melodica, and piano, but she also uses household items, such as pillows, water bottles, tissue boxes or an old slinky, for extra percussion. Her charm is best displayed on stage or in the videos she posts on YouTube. Using video/audio layering and a unique approach to song arrangement, Julia has created over 60 music videos of originals and covers, most of which have been viewed an average of 650,000 times
The Early November / Hair When I listen to this song, I allow myself to be as cynical and damning of the world as I can possibly get, and still have a spring in my step. I envision a Barbie version of myself making her way through the world, becoming self aware and crestfallen with a smile frozen on her face.
Although she is American-born (she grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia in a house where George Washington once slept), Catherine Feeny began garnering popular and critical acclaim in the UK early in her career with the 2003 release of her eponymous full-length debut. In 2006, as Feeny split her time between the UK and Los Angeles and was signed to EMI, her stateside following continued to grow. There LA-based tastemaker Nic Harcourt played her on Morning Becomes Eclectic, his KCRW radio show, and her song Mr. Blue off that year’s Hurricane Glass LP was featured in the film, Running With Scissors. That same track reached the A-list at Britain’s most listened-to radio station, BBC Radio 2, and Feeny toured the British Isles extensively both headlining and in support of artists such as Martha Wainwright, Kelly Jones, Suzanne Vega and The Indigo Girls.
Gillian Welch / Everything Is Free A thousand years of weariness are in this song. And David Rawlings’ easy virtuosity. It just takes my breath away.
Gabriel Birnbaum, recording under the alter-ego Boy Without God, is a literary and spiritual seeker and songwriter in the vein of Leonard Cohen, mingling straight-forward melodic songs with the experimentalism and long-form composition style he picked up writing fifteen-minute free jazz epics during high school. Your Body is Your Soul, his first studio full length, was released this summer, and he is hard at work on the follow up, titled God Bless the Hunger.
Cuddle Magic / Expectations So well written and eternal sounding that when I first heard it, I thought it was a cover, because I was positive I’d heard it before. It also has all the amazing little orchestral touches that make every Cuddle Magic song so great: that weird pizzicato part after the first chorus, the drum beat inverting over the second verse, the way the vocals pull back really hard on the time, the shaker entering for the whistling part.
Sweden-based El Perro Del Mar, known informally as Sarah Assbring, has recently released her third full-length album, Love Is Not Pop (The Control Group) and supported Peter Bjorn and John on their North American tour.
Joy Division / New Dawn Fades I fell into a dark Joy Division crack last Summer. Usually that’s a very good sign that I’m not feeling so good. Still, I think I managed to pick something good out of it for the first time. New Dawn Fades is one of those moments where Ian Curtis’ lyrics hurt so much, you don’t know where to turn. It’s like this slow build-up to heartbreak. The ending of this song, where he’s singing, ‘It was me waiting for me, hoping for something for more. Me seeing me this time, hoping for something else,’ breaks my heart anew every time I hear it.
A native of Washington, DC, Lissy Trullie got her start playing solo acoustic shows. In 2009 her band came out of the gates running, embarking upon their first national tour as they worked towards the release of their EP in February. Self-Taught Learner garnered positive reactions from the likes of Spin, The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, Stereogum and many others.
Billy Idol / Eyes Without A Face I don’t think I had ever actually gave this song a good listen, nor did I know I had this track until about a year ago when I had my iPod on shuffle and it came on. I kept it on repeat for an embarrassing length of time. It’s addictive. From the bass line to the 80s guitar solo, and even the spoken word rap, at the bridge. All dated-ness aside, it’s a great ballad. I still listen to it on a regular basis.
The Toronto Star called him ‘the best young guitarist in the country’, and he joined Sarah McLachlan’s band at 19. Luke Doucet has since gone on to release solo work, including the highly praised Blood’s Too Rich (Six Shooter, 2008), as well as albums with the rock band Veal.
Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers / Don’t Do Me Like That This song makes me feel like I’m five years old (which I was when it came out) but also reminds me of how great Tom Petty is as a writer. It sounds fresh to me. Not that radio would play it if it were a modern song (it’s too organic and human sounding), but I would listen to it.
Anna Ternheim is a singer/songwriter from Stockholm who has just released the album, Leaving On A Mayday. Her music has a dark touch about it which hints at influences from Nick Cave and PJ Harvey.
El Perro del Mar / L-is for love I heard the song Dog a couple of years ago and was quite impressed. I love the production, the way it builds up and how the beat intensifies throughout the piece. At the same time, the song shows a great deal of restraint. It’s cold, hard, dark, and very beautiful.
The fifth solo album of Malcolm Middleton (ex-Arab Strap), Waxing Gibbous, is the next defining statement in his journey, adorned with his usual blend of darkness and irony, humour and intimacy. The new opus is composed from years worth of scribbles in notebooks, which were ‘chiseled and connived into being songs’.
The Auteurs / Lenny Valentino I must have missed this band the first time around, but since reading Luke Haines’ autobiography, I am hooked. Anyone who can write about their own life and come across so badly gets the ‘thumbs up’ from me!
Angie Hart’s seven years as frontwoman for successful Australian alternative pop band Frente! ineluctably informed her creative process, as did both her time spent living in Los Angeles and her gentle re-immersion into an existence as a working musician based in Melbourne. Add to that a new recording environment and a collaborative partnership with producer Shane Nicholson (‘It’s A Movie’, ‘Familiar Ghosts’) and Hart – again – has laid herself bare on her second solo album, Eat My Shadow.
Feist / Mushaboom I can’t think of a better song to wake up singing. It’s such a cheery, uplifting song. I actually had it stuck in my head all last week and was so grateful that it chose to be my ‘earworm’ for that long!
My Secret Playlist is a music discovery website and weekly email publication. We invite our favourite bands and musicians to give us the rundown on their eight favourite songs right now. These are their words on the music that inspires them.
