New Tunes 10.3.2023

Hello music lovers! 🎵

It's Friday and I'm here again with a new #newtunes selection for the weekend! Lesser known mostly, but still, great musicians will be fighting for your attention.
Just a few minutes of your precious time is required!

As usual, I will be very happy if this music catches your interest.
But if you don't like something, just skip it.

Music4life!

🎵 🎧 🎵

Willie Nelson - Tiger By The Tail

Willie Nelson probably needs no introduction to music lovers, or does he? Well, anyway, if you don't know him, here you can read all about him.
In his just-released 73rd solo album (just before his 90th birthday), "I Don't Know A Thing About Love: The Songs Of Harland Howard", he covers, yes, you guessed it, his friend Harland, one of the best-known country songwriters from the 1950s. "I've Got A Tiger By The Tail" will be sung by Buck Owens, back in 1964, with Harlan's lyrics, and topped the charts. This version from Willie, a fresh-faced 90-year-old, is no one-day fad either.

🎵 🎧 🎵

SQÜRL - Berlin '87

SQÜRL, consisting of Carter Logan and film director and screenwriter Jim Jarmusch, was formed in 2009 to compose the soundtrack for Jarmusch's movie "The Limits Of Control". Since then they have released several EPs.
Now, at the beginning of May to be precise, they are about to release their debut album "Silver Haze".
As a preview, here is the opening song "Berlin '87". It's a slow, hypnotic track and features heavy guitar drone riffs that Jarmusch recorded in his home studio, inspired by memories of life in - you won't believe it 😁 - Berlin in 1987.

🎵 🎧 🎵

Moonlight Benjamin - Wayo

Moonlight Benjamin is a charismatic Haitian, blues, and rock and roll voodoo priestess. Born in Haiti, she grew up in a Christian orphanage, named and raised by a priest. As a teenager, she sang in churches and later began to explore the cultural roots and traditions of voodoo.
Somehow she failed to make a solo career in Haiti, so she went to France, to Toulouse, to study jazz. It was only there that she developed her own style and distinctive sound - a strong and original fusion between Caribbean voodoo melodies and rhythms and American blues rock of the 1970s.
Wayo is a song and her latest album, released at the end of February this year. Wayo means cry of pain in Haitian and in the track Benjamin pleads for the cleansing of the bad and the arrival of the good, backed by sharp and bright guitar riffs and pounding rhythmic drums. I recommend listening to the whole album.

🎵 🎧 🎵

Constant Smiles - In My Heart

I first heard about the American music collective Constant Smiles from Massachusetts a couple of years ago. They've been around since 2000 and have a lot to show for their musical talents. As they've grown up over the years, their musical direction has changed, although there's still a focus on a kind of shady indie pop rock fused with a late 70s sound and elements of shoegaze and dream and synth-pop.
This song is the introduction to the new album "Kenneth Anger", recently released, in which they focus on ritual as a healing process and on their own intimacy. Recommended.

🎵 🎧 🎵

Mike Love - Let it Rain

Mike Love is a singer and reggae musician from Havai, he came to the attention of reggae fans with his second album "Jah Will Never Leave I Alone", and became a household name on YT with the global hit Permanent Holiday. He usually performs with his band Full Circle.
This song "Let It Rain" was recorded live last summer and released as a one-man-band video a couple of days ago. Yes, I'm featuring it here because it's still winter here and I'm already tempted by summer and summer tunes.

🎵 🎧 🎵

Shame - Orchid

Shame is part of a new generation of English alternative indie bands developing their own sound. Their third studio album, "Food for Worms", grew out of the identity crisis that gripped the musicians during the social catastrophe of the last few years and the resulting changes in the music industry.
Even if you don't know them, you will hear a lot of familiar musical ideas in their music. As well as drawing inspiration from the rich London scene of their contemporaries (black midi, Squid), you may also recognize The Fall and, for guitar sections, the transatlantic Interpol. They don't hide the influences of older bands but use them as a springboard to find new melodies and sounds within the limited territory of guitar improvisation.

🎵 🎧 🎵

BLACK SMURF - ZERO BELOW

I couldn't figure out who was behind the name of Memphis underground rapper Black Smurf. It was the first time that had happened to me. A stranger... All I could find was that he started performing under the pseudonym Hustle God a decade ago, and he's always griping about the rawness and unforgivingness of Memphis streets.
He avoids working with major record labels by being completely independent, and he also avoids exposure to the music media and the general public.
After years of releasing countless singles on Soundcloud and YouTube, here is his EP "Opaque" where he doesn't tear anything down but creates and cracks rhymes within the framework of cloud rap, trill-wave, and trap, and still sounds fresh and interesting.

🎵 🎧 🎵

Miss Mellow - Peace In My Mind

On their debut album "Miss Mellow", the German band Miss Mellow justifies their retrograde and throwback attitude through six long, steady, dynamic songs full of twists and turns, with unexpected but cleverly intricate changes of rhythm that take away the linearity of each song.
They found themselves in a variety of psychedelic music from the 70s and 80s and styles such as kraut/stoner and progressive rock.
All their songs are reminiscent of the so-called golden age of rock, which means that one could easily declare them to be mere plagiarists or, in a lighter case, borrowers of musical history. There will certainly be debates about this. I like the whole album, and I recommend it to you.
The song "Peace in my mind" is the last one on the album, it reminds me a bit of Black Sabbath's Paranoid at moments, but only at moments :)