Pale Star: Greta Gaines

The album cover is great and the album is EVEN BETTER! I’ve been listening all morning. It’s definitely her best record. I just love it! Confident. Mature. Deep. Real. So good Greta! 

Ethan Hawke, actor, director, musician

Fireworks on Ferris Wheels: Fireworks on Ferris Wheels 

In the midst of the aggressive in-your-face texture of a much of commercial pop, there has been an undercurrent of more laid-back music, with a more contemplative sound and a kind of atmospheric or ethereal quality. Sometimes it takes the form of electronic ambiances, or other groups may go for a more acoustic or folky sound with in the course of their mellowness. This week, we have a worthy example of the latter. It’s the debut release by a duo who call themselves Fireworks on Ferris Wheels.

Amy Courts and Paul Koopman had both migrated to Nashville to try to make it in the music business, when they met at an open mic in 2004. They soon hit it off musically, working together, and leading to marriage. Ms. Courts eventually released two album on her own, while Koopman pretty much dropped out of the music scene, taking a non-musical job and taking a decade off from performing. A one-off project that Koopman did attracted the attention of a noted producer friend in Nashville, who in 2015, asked for more music and inspired them to journey back Music City to begin what would become Fireworks on Ferris Wheels. The band’s name, by the way, came from their then-five-year-old son Elijah, who also created the drawing that they used for the recording’s artwork. They worked with said notable veteran producer Jim Reilley (of the critically acclaimed pop band The New Dylans), and came up with a beautifully engaging record that is folky and atmospheric with interesting lyrics that are often contemplative. They also include creatrive covers of a song each by Leonard Cohen and the Cure.

Reilley also brilliantly served as a master multi-instrumentalist with bass, electric guitar and piano; and with drums, guitars and keyboards played by Eric Fritsch. The result is quite tasteful, with the instrumentation often scaling back to just a guitar or two, or sometimes building up to a rock band setting.

Fireworks on Ferris Wheels, the new album by the duo of the same name, is a pleasing and artistically worthwhile recording that draws on the folky singer-songwriter paradigm and adds a nice atmospheric sound without getting too wispy. Amy Courts and Paul Koopman’s songs are first-rate and their album is quite tasteful. It’s the kind of recording that will grow on you with time.

Our grade for sound quality is an “A.” The recording is clean and has good clarity and decent warmth despite the rather atmospheric sound with generous reverb on some of the instrumentation. The dynamic range, how well the recording captures the span from loud to soft, is great.

George Graham/Album Network

THE NEW DYLANS “Meta”

“The New Dylans “Meta” produced by Jim Reilley has echoes of Big Star/Uncle Tupelo/Teenage Fanclub/New Mendicants/Stephen Duffy aplenty on this by The New Dylans”.
Pete Paphides (MOJO/BBC/Melody Maker/London Times/The Guardian)

“The New Dylans “Meta” produced by Jim Reilley is the sort of classy roots fixated college radio music R.E.M. used to play”
alldaysucker.net

NICK YOUNG “Truth Is”

Hailing from Rochester, N.Y., singer/songwriter Nick Young's songs combine power pop hooks with country-tinged roots rock to form an energetic sound that's familiar, yet all it's own. After several years as the frontman and principal songwriter of the band Burning Daylight, Young has spent much of the last year recording his solo debut record both locally and in Nashville, Tennessee with gifted master producer instrumentalist Jim Reilley (The New Dylans). With the help of Reilley and with legendary pedal steel player Al Perkins (Gram Parsons) and drummer Ken Coomer (Wilco) augmenting Young's Americana/Power Pop sound, the album "Truth Is" was released on November 30, 2010.

PASTE MAGAZINE 

Charlie Rauh

“Charlie Rauh plays guitar with a quiet intensity, each note and chord ringing with purpose,” writes Acoustic Guitar Magazine. “Rauh gives a gentle reminder that playing soft and slow can be more impactful than loud and fast.” With these words, we find ourselves in the company of a musician whose imprint is as delicate as it is indelible.

The wonders of Rauh’s upbringing seem directly encoded into the music he creates. Growing up in Huntsville, Alabama, he spent much of his time outside by his lonesome, humming melodies to scenes unfolding only in his mind. This cinematic consciousness carried over into the films of the 30s, 40s, and 50s beloved by his parents.
After studying jazz guitar for a spell at Shenandoah Conservatory, he moved to Nashville, where he sometimes played backup for local songwriters. One night, local producer Jim Reilley, who was in attendance, immediately noticed Rauh’s talent. Says Rauh of the encounter, “He would be the first person to put me in a real studio, playing with some of the best players in Nashville to work on tracking sessions, as well as my own music. It was a pivotal moment. From then on, I knew I had to compose and record.” Rauh then made the daunting decision to relocate to New York City, making music his full-time pursuit. 

AllAboutJazz.com

GINA HORSWOOD

Australian singer-songwriter Gina Horswood bought a one-way ticket to the other side of the world in 2011 and has spent the decade since crafting distinctive songs & her sound, all inspired by her nomadic life.   

Gina’s debut “Our Way”, penned with sister Melanie, was released in 2006 and boasted two Top 10 country singles in Australia. The duo extensively toured East Coast Australia and shared bills with multiple-Aria-winning artists Kasey Chambers and Pete Murray. In 2009, Gina’s first solo album, “Crazy Brilliant Mess”, received critical acclaim, with the video for her single “Ordinary Girl” reaching the top 50 on the national Country Music Channel charts.   

In 2013, Gina followed the troubadour tradition and travelled to Nashville, Tennessee, where she collaborated with renowned veteran songwriter and producer Jim Reilley (The New Dylans, cuts by Vince Gill and dozens of others) to create The Nashville Sessions EP.   After that release in 2014, Gina continued touring North America, opening for acts such as Dana Fuchs (Across The Universe, off-broadway “Love, Janis”), Suzie Vinnick (10X Maple Blues Award winner, 3X Juno Nominee), and Basia Bulat (2013 Polaris and Juno nominee) to name a few.

LONDON TIMES

Mary Bragg album “Lucky Strike” Wins MerleFest Chris Austin Contest in Country Category

Nashville-based Americana singer-songwriter Mary Bragg has won the MerleFest Chris Austin Songwriter CONTEST in the country category for her song "Lucky Strike" (co-written with Liz Poston). As winner in her category, she performed her song at MerleFest in Wilkesboro, NC on the Cabin Stage on Friday night. Other artists who performed at this year's MerleFest included Zac Brown Band, The Avett Brothers, Béla Fleck, Steep Canyon Rangers, Sarah Jarosz, Jim Lauderdale, and many others.

"Lucky Strike" is rooted in the big dose of humility Bragg got when she moved from her hometown of Swainsboro, GA to New York City to pursue music. "There's this feeling-no matter the dream-this desire to be seen, acknowledged; like you're just waiting on that one thing that will get you to where you want to be," Bragg explains. "The song 'Lucky Strike' is bit of a sarcastic poke at hopefulness, because it might feel like there's just one thing holding you back. But it's never that simple is it? And-it might even be your own subconscious hang-ups standing in the way."

The song is the title track from Bragg's brilliant forthcoming album, Lucky Strike, which will be released on May 5, 2017. Bragg and producer Jim Reilley (of indie stalwarts The New Dylans) recorded the album "in a backyard barn studio," says Bragg, "where the microphones are old, not expensive-vintage-old, just old. Where the pop filters have holes in them. Where the vocal booth is unfinished because real walls never got built. It's where 'recorded live' is for real recorded live, and everything is exposed."

She has been honored in the past in such prestigious songwriting contests as Kerrville New Folk, Telluride Troubadour, Falcon Ridge Folk Festival, Wildflower! Festival, and the International Songwriting Competition. She has been named a finalist in the 2017 Kerrville New Folk CONTESTwith a track from the Lucky Strike album called "Comet”. The album was lauded by press from USAToday to NASHVILLE Scene, CBS New York praised Bragg for "winning over audiences for years," while Blurt Magazine called her album "assured yet vulnerable."
Caryn Robbins

Jerry Oliver “Zombification Of A Nation”

Nashville-based , Minneapolis-raised Singer/Songwriter Jerry Oliver has been in scads of bands including Pushin’ Daisies and Spider Poets since starting in 1976, but I first heard him on his “quirky unpredictable” 17 song 2008 solo album “Death Of The Avant-Garde”, which I reviewed in TBTO issue 63. Though Zombification doesn’t include last year’s seven minute Donald Trump decrying single “Cloud Paper Tree”, the song’s jittery, unnerving freak folk psych rock vibe continues here. Produced brilliantly by veteran producer,multi instrumentalist and former leader of criminally underrated The New Dylans, Oliver’s distressed raspy vocals sound like he’s having a hallucinogenic acid trip. But his frazzled, anxious messages on “Soul Hole”, the title track and “A 2020 Sort Of Day” also aptly convey how many Americans feel today as well collectively watch our indifferent divided country become more and more “Zombified”. 

Mark Suppanz/The Big Takeover