Taking his cues from the greats such as Merle Haggard right through to southern rocking legends like the Drive-By Truckers, Patrick Kinsey & A Fistful Of Dollars play outlaw folk and country that is shot through with a raw, burning integrity.

These are blue collar stories of truck drivers and bartenders, too much whiskey and too little luck, bad choices and good intentions, hopeful long odds and hopeless shortcomings. Everything is there as a tale to be told and while lessons might not be learned, the human spirit flickers and burns  throughout.

Good thing the scenery’s nice, ’cause there’s a bit of listless meandering through deserts and pensive window gazing here, which pairs nicely with the track’s organic, soft-stomp folk. Faultlines will appear on Field Division’s debut EP, Reverie State, out October 28. Until then, watch the video below, and maybe plan a trip somewhere.

Levi Parham leaned on his deep catalog for his upcoming album, Avalon Drive. One of the standout tracks is “Never Coming Home to Me,” written during a complicated time in his personal life and then tucked away until producer Nathan James Dohse encouraged him to bring it back.

Psych outfit CHALAXY has just dropped a new single titled “Dizzy” that we’re stoked to be premiering ahead of it’s official release tomorrow via the band’s Bandcamp and other digital outlets.  CHALAXY tells us the single is just a taste of what lies ahead with a new album expected out this fall.  The band describes themselves as “Electronic/Alternative/Psychedelic Rock”, and the new single perfectly embodies that vibe with it’s drippy, blurry guitars and vocals effects that will immediately enamor fans of  Tame Impala or My Morning Jacket.  It represents a turning point for the band, and a direction that we are excited to watch them explore.

Miss Lauren Pratt is set to premiere her the video for the lead track “Days Like Tonight” with Southern Manners.

Influenced by artists such as Nathaniel Rateliff and Alison Krauss, the Florida native has compiled seven tracks for her debut effort which was produced by Nick Bullock.

Regarding the EP, Pratt says “I’m glad I’ve had time to live with the songs I wrote going into and leaving my early twenties. They are almost all exclusively about difficulties in life – not exactly a polka-dancing subject, but you have to have darkness to fully appreciate light.”

Pratt is self-taught, musically speaking, as she first started on piano and taught herself guitar while she took to folk songwriting at an early age. In college, Pratt prepared her voice with classical training which lead to a brief stint in the world of opera.

A traveler of the South, Pratt has spent time in Florida, Nashville and her college days in the Mississippi Delta where she crafted her songwriting skills.

For more information on Lauren Pratt, visit her Facebook page.

“When I started working with [producer] Nathan [Dohse], I started making demos of a bunch of different songs to see what stuck,” Parham says. “Nathan immediately brought “Never Coming Home to Me” out of the pile, and we started breathing new life into it.”

“Days Like Tonight” is the title track on Pratt’s forthcoming 7-song EP of the same name, which was produced by Nick Bullock and is set for release on May 26. If you’re loving the song as much as we are, you can purchase it right here and keep up with her social media pages (listed below) for upcoming info on where to pre-order the EP.

The Album: Home Is The House, their sophomore full-length, out May 20.
Fun Fact: The River Monks (named after their city of origin, Des Moines) composed the theme music for Iowa Public Radio programs “Talk of Iowa” and “River to River,” both of which focus on the lives of Iowans.

The Release: The debut EP Reverie State, produced by Konrad Snyder (Kopecky Family Band, Night Beds) and Benjamin Kaufman (Night Beds), and mastered by Joe LaPorta at Sterling Sound in NYC, will be out on October 28th on CD, vinyl and digital formats.

Fun Fact: Andrew Heringer from Milo Greene sang back-up vocals on “Modest Mountains.”

Nashville folk-pop siblings Pageant have released their take on The Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows.” The song sweeps in a subtle, pointed manner with intricate harmonies from the siblings that are reminiscent of why many fell in love with The Beach Boys standard. The group connected with the classic song through a love of the track’s harmonies and excellent arrangement. The siblings captured their own version on acoustic guitar and piano, recorded at their home studio with video production by Andy Pollitt of Jeanz Media. Their full length debut album, Royal Blue, was released in 2014 and the group has their eyes set on a new album for this year.

Press Play is our Monday morning recap of the new tracks received last week—provided here to inform your vinyl purchasing power. Click, preview, download, purchase.

To project a sense of beauty and restraint through story-telling isn’t something that can necessarily be taught. Attempted and worked upon, sure, but to truly enchant with a simple deliverance of words is something wholly natural. Though we’ve only heard a few songs thus far from Nashville’s Field Division, there’s seem to be no question that they possess this somewhat magical skill. The music they make feels borne of the soil. Enriched with the glow of a day quietly coming to life, it moves urgently and attentively but feels completely unhurried. An endless grace slowly revealed.

For roughly a decade, Nathan James Dohse was the frontman for Arizona alternative Americana band Fight the Quiet, but after the release of the band’s The City Belowin 2013, Dohse decided it was time for a change. He moved to East Nashville, Tennessee, and started focusing on his solo music that mixes emo-flavored alternative with Americana. The singer-songwriter released his debut EP, Old Roads, earlier this month, and Dohse brings his music to Juanita’s.

The video works so well on many different levels, refracted lights, hazy filtered scenes compliment the recollection of past memories ‘waking dreams’. The stunning river and waterfall appear as the song shifts and builds and as Evelyn’s vocals rise so does the emotive forces of the scenery you’re presented with…it’s stunning and highlights their poetic songwriting. If you can recall seeing your first vista from a mountain top for the first time, you’ll know what I mean. It’s beautiful…

Waxahachie, Texas native Trevor Brooks wasn’t meant to stay in his home state. He enrolled at Texas Tech after high school but following a 19th birthday trip to Nashville with his musical grandmother, he realized he wasn’t suited to the kind of music being made in Lubbock, and soon returned to Music City to stay. That return was in 2012, as the songwriter arrived with a notebook full of lyrics that were in desperate need of being turned into songs. For Trevor, writing lyrics was a way to express the feelings of a rather self-conscious child, one who grew up in a family more into sports than playing instruments, although there was always a steady flow of music being played on the stereo. Think Martina McBride, Vince Gill, Kenny Chesney, Rascal Flatts and the Dixie Chicks, courtesy of his mother.

Trevor was also indirectly encouraged to sing. “My grandmother has one of the most angelic, beautiful voices I have ever heard,” Trevor muses. “I grew up hearing her sing in church and couldn’t get enough of it. To this day it brings tears to my eyes hearing her sing.”

Patrick Kinsley’s songs are filled with tough stories of flawed human beings experiencing various kinds and degrees of heartbreak, making bad decisions, and somehow managing some semblance of survival.  These are raw and often painful stories.  Through Kinsley’s deft writing, the stories and characters come into sharp focus, and his unique, raspy singing voice adds a gritty depth to the tales.

Joined by his band, A Fistful of Dollars, Patrick Kinsley’s debut full album, For a Thousand Miles, was produced by Jesse Thompson at Blue Duck Studio in Nashville, Tennessee where Kinsley has made his home after spending two year toiling in the New Orleans club scene.

“Hard Times” kicks off the album with a classic country driving song and “For What That’s Worth” closes it out with a folk-inspired tune that leaves the listener still on the endless highway, bruised and battered,but better off than when they began the journey. And the album is a journey.

Along the road, there are some guitar licks that would make Chuck Berry proud (“A Little Further North”) and the songs… and the stories… and the characters. The strength of the album lies in Kinsley’s rich literary songwriting voice and in something perhaps a little harder to define.  Musically, the album offers a restrained diversity. The harder rocking songs are (often barely) contained while the slower songs are infused with a raw energy that keeps the album moving.

It is this continuity that makes the album work as a whole - like one long drive filled with many different experiences but all leading to the same - albeit uncertain destination. It seems appropriate that the album leaves the listener still on that open highway, because one hopes this is just one leg of a much longer journal for Patrick Kinsley.

Country singer-songwriter Scott Wesley, a Nashville transplant native to Chicago, is gearing up for the release of his 5-song self-titled EP. He is kicking things off with the premiere of his lead single “Heavy Rotation,” a charged country jam featuring a tongue-in-cheek riff on one possible deep-rooted reason for “making it” – impressing someone special. Scott had this to say about his latest single:

“’Heavy Rotation’ isn’t specifically about me, although I do relate to the song for the most part. I’ve always had a great support system throughout my life (unlike the character in the song); however, I have definitely encountered plenty of people along the way that have tried to discourage me. The song in a lot of ways is about using that negative energy as a catalyst to push even harder for what you want. ‘Heavy Rotation’ isn’t just an ode to all the struggling musicians out there but is also for anyone who has a dream to follow and something to prove.“

Scott’s self titled EP is set for release on Friday, September 11th, check out “Heavy Rotation” below.