Although most of these songs were released officially before today, we’re still going to enjoy a great collection of new music on this #NewMusicFriday from a variety of artists in advance of this holiday weekend.
The Hope State – Just Survive
Taylor Johnson spent his for formative years in the prairies of Saskatchewan, Canada where he cut his teeth writing songs and performing in various indie rock bands. At the age of 18 he relocated to Los Angeles where he studied music and began writing songs professionally for pop, country, hip hop and rock artists, which topped the charts in territories around the world.
Although always thankful to be continuously working in the music industry, a longing for writing more personal, meaningful songs and performing said songs was gravely missed. With that, Taylor began writing and performing as The Hope State. After recording and scrapping numerous EP’s Taylor decided it was time to take developing his own material more seriously.
Now living in Toronto, Canada, Taylor is finally set to release “Burn or Bloom” an introspective and intensely honest look at depression, addiction, love and loss. Relentless touring plans will inevitably bring The Hope State’s blend of pop, folk, country and indie rock to a town near you. He has just released “Just Survive,” a new single from that forthcoming album.
Visit The Hope State’s website.
The Julian Taylor Band – Sweeter
We first became acquainted with The Julian Taylor Band via the Sawdust City Music Festival last year, and we’ve been huge fans ever since. So we’re absolutely thrilled that they’ve released a new single, “Sweeter,” from their forthcoming album, “Avalanche.”
For the new single, the band headed into Canterbury Studio to record with engineer Jeremy Darby, with Taylor himself in the producer’s chair, and the final touches put in the talented hands of JUNO award-winning mix/recording engineer Tim Abraham.
“I started working on this song while visiting my family in Kahnawake at the annual Pow Wow,” shares Julian. “ Remembering back to 1986 when I was eight years old my cousins and I all jumped into an old station wagon as soon as school had let out. My Great Uncle Paul had decided to follow in Clark Griswalds footsteps and drive his family and me across Canada en route to my Grandfathers place in Maple Ridge. We set off on a what would be my very first Trans Canada road trip. Hearing Chief Dan George speak at the Mission Pow-Wow would be a highlight of that journey for me. I’ve had many Canadian journeys since. In fact, I would hit the road again in 2001 but this time with my friends in a travelling band opening for the likes of Blue Rodeo, 54:40 and Spirit of the West. This is the story of that childlike euphoric feeling you get when you feel like you’re going somewhere even if you don’t know where that is. It’s also a song about the love that I have for this beautiful country that we are so lucky to live in.”
Visit The Julian Taylor Band’s website.
Basement Revolver – “Knocking”
Basement Revolver just released a new track, “Knocking,” from their anticipated debut LP “Heavy Eyes.”
Songwriter Chrisy Hurn on “Knocking”: “Knocking is probably the heaviest song on the album for me, personally. I often still can’t sing it without crying. I wrote it after writing my family a long letter that came clean about my past, and about some of the shit that I have been through. Hard things that left me feeling shameful, or like a disappointment to them – things that made me feel like I wasn’t the “good Christian woman” that they had hoped I would one day become. The letter came after a few years of hardcore wrestling and rebelling against what I believed in response to a traumatic event in my life. I got to a point where I didn’t recognize myself, or all the anger that I was holding inside. I basically kept telling myself that I was garbage, broken, unlovable, used and a whole other slur of things.”
Visit Basement Revolver on Facebook.
Kalle Mattson – “Kids on the Run”
When Kalle Mattson began writing his upcoming album, his motto was “folk is dead,” but he still “demoing all of these songs with just me and an acoustic guitar in my bedroom …unique, I know,” he says. And while both of the album’s first singles, “Broken In Two” and “Kids On The Run” find Mattson shifting the focus from acoustic guitars to keyboards and drum machines with help from producer Colin Munroe (Drake, Sky Ferreira), he is also releasing the stripped back versions of those of those songs. “Calling these stripped down live videos the ‘Folk Is Dead’ sessions is tongue-in-cheek, but will hopefully give you a look into the songwriting process from those early demos to the production choices we made along the way.”
Now, he’s sharing the Folk Is Dead session video for “Kids On The Run”, a song which reflects one of the main themes of the upcoming album – ‘innocence lost’ and the in-between period of post-adolescence but pre-adulthood of your mid-20s. “This song was my attempt to write about millennials and the economic, environmental, and sociological realities people my generation face,” says Mattson. “And yes, it is all obviously very indebted to Springsteen.”
Visit Kalle Mattson’s website.
Photo credits: Colin Medley (Kalle Mattson)
