Happy Saturday and I’d like to welcome you to part 2 of my 2023 in review series. This second post highlights some of my favorite new songs that were released during the second half of the year. In case you missed it and are curious, part 1 is here.
The Arcadian Wild/Shoulders
Led by songwriters Isaac Horn (acoustic guitar, vocals) and Lincoln Mick (mandolin, vocals), with Bailey Warren on fiddle, The Arcadian Wild from Nashville, Tenn. have their roots in formal vocal music and influences from progressive bluegrass and folk. They have been around for about a decade and released their eponymous debut in 2015. From their third and new full-length album Welcome, here’s Shoulders – love that warm and beautiful sound!
Cordovas/Fallen Angels of Rock ‘n’ Roll
If you’ve followed my blog or know my music taste otherwise, you won’t be surprised to see Cordovas in this post. I’m a fan of this East Nashville, Tenn.-based Americana and country rock band. They were formed in 2011 by singer-songwriter, bassist and vocalist Joe Firstman after a six-year stint as bandleader for former NBC late-night show Last Call with Carson Daly. Cordovas who have named The Allman Brothers Band, Grateful Dead and The Band as influences released their fourth and latest studio album The Rose of Aces in August. Here’s the fantastic opener Fallen Angels of Rock ‘n’ Roll co-written by Firstman and Cory Hanson, frontman of Los Angeles rock band Wand. If I would be asked to pick my favorite song of 2023, this would be it!
The Natvral/A Glass of Laughter
The Natvral is a music project of Kip Berman, who previously founded American indie rock band The Pains of Being Pure at Heart and was their main songwriter during their active period between 2007 and 2019. In April 2021, Berman released his debut solo album Tethers, and I included one of the tracks in a previous installment of this weekly feature. His sophomore project is titled Summer of No Light. Here’s A Glass of Laughter, a great folk rock tune penned by Berman. Just as I felt when listening to the above song from his debut album, I can hear a Bob Dylan vibe. Gosh, I love it, we need more artists like him!
Tré Burt/Traffic Fiction
Tré Burt is a Sacramento-based singer-songwriter I first included in an October 2020 installment of this series. During his childhood, he was exposed to music by The Delfonics, Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye and The Temptations. As he became a musician himself, he tapped into American folk and blues. Bits of those and other roots were reflected on the August 2021 studio album You, Yeah, You, the result of what Burt’s website calls his “first proper studio sessions.” His latest, titled Traffic Fiction, is an “alchemy of soul, dub, and more than a little punk.” Here’s the great-sounding title track penned by Burt – so good!
Jake Thistle/The Dreamer
Among young music artists I’ve come across, Jake Thistle is the one I feel most excited about. The 19-year-old singer-songwriter from New Jersey first entered my radar screen on Facebook in 2021. Last summer, I saw him perform a Jackson Browne tribute show at a free summer outdoor concert. Browne is one of the artists who’s not only an influence but who Thistle actually has met, along with the likes of Tom Petty, John Hiatt, Stevie Nicks and Foo Fighters – in fact, he played or shared bills with most of them! Following his June 2021 home-produced debut CD Down the Line, Thistle is now out with his first studio EP The Half Left Out (see my reviews here and here, respectively. My favorite track off the latter is The Dreamer, which reminds me of a young Jackson Browne.
Harp/Country Cathedral Drive
This brings me to my final pick in this 2003 songs in review mini-series. Harp is a music project created by musician and songwriter Tim Smith, which also includes his wife Kathi Zung. According to their AllMusic profile, Harp combines British folk rock, vintage alternative rock and prog rock. Smith initially gained prominence as the primary songwriter of Texas indie rock band Midlake who he co-founded in 1999. After his departure in 2012, he met and married Zung, an artist and puppet fabricator with a career in stop-motion animation, who also is a musician. Off Albion, Harp’s first album, here’s the gorgeous Country Cathedral Drive.
Following is a Spotify playlist of the above songs and 16 additional picks from the second half of the year. I hope you’re going to check out the playlist, which includes many other great songs I didn’t get to feature in this post.
Sources: Wikipedia; AllMusic; YouTube; Spotify
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