PowerPopSquare

Tracy Bonham - Wax & Gold The very successful pledge music campaign for the newest record of Mrs. Bonham is over. The album Wax & Gold will have an official release likely later this year. More at pledgemusic.com Ben Lee - Love Is The Great Rebellion After many years being an independent artist Ben Lee  got a major record deal and has signed to Warner Bros Records. The new record Love is the Great Rebellion is out June 2, 2015, the first single Big Love will be released on Record Store Day (April 18, 2015). More HERE . The Lilac Time - No Sad Songs A prose-poem, which Stephen Duffy composed especially for the release of the new and ninth album by his band The Lilac Time , contains the lines: " I was a flower child, now I'm a flower man ." It took a long time before one became the other. When viewed from space, Stephen Duffy's path may well appear labyrinthine, filled with loopholes and trapdoors. Yet a sober perspective reveals p...

10 Futures  is the latest album by Matt Hales - also known as  Aqualung - and it's out now. I was very sceptic about this record. About half of the songs are performed by guest vocalists, which is quite new to Aqualung . And the first single Tape 2 Tape  shocked me the first time I listen to it quite a bit. The thing is: this record is a grower. A huge grower. The 10 songs combine a wide range of genres into a surprisingly homogenous result.  Stand-out tracks are hard to name. I recommend to start with:  Tape 2 Tape, Eggshells, Be Beautiful, New Low, Hearts, To The Wonder (every single one of these songs would be worth it alone to buy the album).

This is good stuff! Most compilations have fillers or a varying quality of songs. This hasn't. Start to listen to tracks 1, 2, 6, 9. Ben says: " This album began as an exploration of songwriting. I decided to write songs for different voices, and invite these singers to perform them. My dear friend Sam Spiegel offered to produced the record I had conceptualized, and we began working on the collaboration in earnest in 1998.  Over the next 6 or 7 years we continued to record intermittently. All kinds of wonderful musicians came by and offered their help with recording. I should have kept better notes during the sessions but I know you can hear Eric Gardner, James Valentine, Rusty Logsdon and Alfredo Ortiz amongst many others. I am grateful to everyone who played a part in these recordings, large or small, remembered or forgotten. " A MIXTAPE FROM BEN LEE by BEN LEE