January Favorites

January and myself didn't get along very well. Things that had potential to go wrong, made sure they did. This probably had a large influence on my listening habits, as I spent a lot of time listening to songs that I can take comfort in. Here's what last.fm says about that...

Of course my top two, Sharon Van Etten and Damien Jurado, had new albums that weren't available to me until late this month but I fell hard for both of them when I finally did get to hear them. You can pre-order both albums and get the tracks now. SVE's Tramp is due out February 7th and Damien Jurado's Maraqopa will be released on February 21st and both are heartbreaking and stunning to say the least.

Sharon Van Etten - Serpents
Damien Jurado - Museum of Flight

As for albums that were actually released this month, First Aid Kit's Lion's Roar was my favorite. They just learned today that the first week of US sales of the new album surpassed their total sales of their debut album. I'm so happy to hear that their fan base has grown that much and that they are receiving the sale numbers and attention they deserve. You can listen to it in it's entirety here.



Other notable releases this month include the following:

Bro. Stephen - Baptist Girls
The rate at which blogs picked up on this album was astounding. The first place I read about it was the trusty folk blog, Common Folk Music, and you can read April's interview with him here. You can stream the album on bandcamp.




Laura Gibson - La Grande (buy)
Laura Gibson - La Grande

Kingsley Flood - Colder Still EP (buy)

Cheyenne Marie Mize - We Don't Need (buy)
Cheyenne Marie Mize - Wishing Well

The Maccabees - Given to the Wild

Chairlift - Something

Kathleen Edwards - Voyageur

John K. Samson - Provincial

Cheyenne Marie Mize - Best

First I have to ask you a small favor. Please vote for my fellow and highly accomplished blogging friend, Lydia of Sunset in the Rearview, for a grant that she is in the running for, along with three others. It is fantastic to see a fellow music blogger gunning for a grant like this, let alone one that I occasionally contribute to. I'm really excited for her so please, please, please, take two seconds to vote. You don't have to enter any personal information, you literally just click a button to vote. Thanks so much. CLICK HERE TO VOTE

Now that you have voted, here is a song. This one is from an artists that other notable bloggers are already putting on their "Best of the Year" lists, so I figured I should probably check her out. You can too at her official site or stream/buy her album over at bandcamp or download her daytrotter sessions for free.

She has one of those voices that is hard to forget while simultaneously sounding like some other of my favorite songstresses (Regina Spektor, Emiliana Torrini, Allie Moss, Brooke Waggoner) that first grabbed my attention. But then there is so much more. There is a rawness to these songs that makes me think "this is how Norah Jones sounded when she first started writing songs, before they were ever recorded." They are the kind of songs that you want to listen to while sitting by the fire, drinking a warm cup of herbal tea, being introspective. Cheyenne Marie Mize sings slow and quiet songs that wear the disguise of background music, but once you get thirty seconds into it, you can't help but delve in whole heartedly. Suggested listens: "Rest" and "Kind"

Cheyenne Marie Mize - Best