Summer is officially here and we are ready for some musical action!
This week's Fresh Picks is filled with sugar, power and freedom, just in time for the 250th anniversary of the United States of America.
Check out this week's suggestions from Music Director Kari Hedlund, Host/Producer Malachy Koons and Host/Volunteer Coordinator Dan Gannon.
Albums
Album of the Week: Tift Merritt - Sugar
In her first release in nearly 10 years, North Carolina singer-songwriter Tift Merritt picks up right where she left off with the sweetness of Sugar.
Working with producer Lawrence Rothman (Amanda Shires, Lucinda Williams, Margo Price), the album is an expansive exploration of love. Not through classic love songs, but by considering how searching for love — and receiving it or not — shapes our world.
Merritt approaches the subject with warmth, grace and a naked honesty, like when she sings, "I've got nothing urgent but your mouth" on the terrific opener "Finest Feelings." Or the joy she finds in the "Everyday Singing" of mothers and daughters.
Rothman and a talented group of Nashville musicians like Eric Slick (Dr. Dog), McKenzie Smith (Midlake), Audley Freed (Alison Krauss) and Robert Ellis bring the songs to life with a freewheeling Americana sound that matches Merritt's questing songwriting.
In a press release, the singer described the album like this: “Sugar is about the surprising sweetness of being unequipped for showing up every day but trying anyway.”
I don't know about you, but that sentiment hits so hard for me. -MK
Various Artists | Lizzie No - Outlaws Almanac
With the United States' 250th anniversary coming in the next couple of weeks, folks are experiencing conflicting feelings of patriotism and pride. The division we are seeing is hard to ignore and pretend otherwise. For Lizzie No, songwriter, executive producer and leader of the project, that means it is time for action.
A group of 15 songwriters and storytellers got together at a studio in Indiana to ponder the question, "What do we, as working class artists, have to say about this heavy anniversary?" The result is 15 songs recorded live that carry weight, hope, authenticity and directness to this question, with artists like No, Kaia Kater, Nick Shoulders, Olivia Ellen Lloyd, Tray Wellington, Nathan Evans Fox and more. -KH
Singles
The California Honeydrops - "365 Flavors"
The sweetness is THICK in this celebratory soul single by The California Honeydrops. Keys, horns and bass and drops bring you along on a walk on the sunny side of the street, while singing about the joys of love and the quirky discoveries we celebrate in each other: "Everyday it's something new with my baby." Summer jam to the max! -DG
Lizzie No - "The One I Love and the Freedom Road"
Lizzie No is back with a loping, banjo-driven love song that sounds a bit like a lament. Working in the storyteller vein of folk music, No spins a story within the tune describing her sweetie, death, longing for love and liberation and the angst of love lost. Looking forward to hearing the whole record! (See write-up above!) -DG
Danielle Ponder - "Power"
Ponder is back, baby! The attorney-turned-powerhouse musician launched her new phase of "Power" with this tune that balances both power and the delicate. Released on Juneteenth, the song is a love note to her younger self, witnessing the various ways of Black power and leadership, and a love note to the Black diaspora.
The first half of the song is a belter with Ponder ripping through various ways we see Black power in the world, with the second half bringing us to a tender and delicate place: "Black is that little space we find in the dark each night/ Without a light, in the bend of dark arms/ Safe from trauma, grief, and strife." - KH
