Kristina Stykos is a songwriter, musician, recording engineer and producer who has been a torchbearer for the music of the Green Mountain State since the ’80s. Her Pepperbox Studio is tucked away off-grid and off the beaten track at the base of Mount Abraham in Lincoln, Vermont. Stykos has released six albums under her own name, along with a collaboration with the recently deceased Montanan pianist and composer Philip Aaberg. Her Thunder Ridge Records roster, whilst not full of household names, has showcased the skills of many talented Vermonters. Stykos is also one half of The Cousins Project, the other being Steve Mayone. Up until twenty years ago, they were unaware of each other’s existence. All that changed when Stykos attended a Bow Thayer and…
Category: americana
…Like Hoboken’s finest, Styrofoam Winos are content to operate within the underground. Rather than striving to break through to a mass audience, they’ve spent the 2020s pursuing their muse and cultivating a network of likeminded music geeks in their home base of Nashville and across the country. They’re in the music business, but also the business of community. It’s what they’ve been up to in the years since they graduated from Belmont University and began jamming after shifts together at the now-defunct J&J’s Market And Cafe.
…They’ve all logged time in the Roadhouse Band with Ryan Davis, one of the breakout stars of the indie world in recent years, who released the Winos’ self-titled debut on his stellar Sophomore Lounge label in 2021. Another big fan…
Where would you choose to be as a singer songwriter if your music would fit within so many categories but having a strong connection to roots and Americana sounds? Well Nashville might be too country bound, and L.A. too away, so, quite possibly New Orleans might seem an obvious choice, as the sounds created there could go in so many directions.
That is where Gina Leslie decided to be and create her debut album with a longish title, I Love You Always No Matter What Happens. Yet the title is not the thing this album is long on, as Leslie shows an abundance of talent and musical variety through all of the 10 tunes here, and that variety may be being that New Orleans X factor here.
As you get through the songs on the album,…
Describing himself as an alt-country artist, St Louis native Adam Gaffney has actually created an album that is full of real country songs, sounding like they’ve come straight from a barroom or dance hall. Product of Another Sad Song is clearly an extremely personal journey for Gaffney, as it holds stories of the loss of his mother, and his own battle to overcome alcohol use, as well as reflecting on love lost and found. If that all sounds like it may be a little intense and hard going, fear not! This is music that is frequently up-tempo, joyous and toe-tapping. Heavy on honky tonk piano and pedal steel that dances around the tunes as much as it weeps, the comparison to a modern-day Buck Owens makes total sense.
Musically, tracks like ‘Pinch Me’ and ‘Lay Me…
Birdland is the fourth album by New England line-up The Bluest Sky, built around the songs of Chuck Melchin, long of the Bean Pickers Union. The ten songs on Birdland are an eclectic mix, and paying tribute to his brother Bill, who passed away early this year, Melchin writes: “More than an inspiration, he was the person most responsible for my interest/obsession with music at a very young age (who) had eclectic taste and a record collection to match. From Deep Purple to John McLaughlin and the Mahavishnu Orchestra, I was exposed to a wide spectrum of musical styles and genres which I believe continues to inform my own music today. Maybe you can hear the influence in Birdland. This one’s for you, Bill.”
At the core of the band’s sound is electric…
Americana artist Jenny Reynolds understands what it is like to have too much time on one’s hands yet not enough time to get the things that really need to be done. She will sit aimlessly and listen to the rain on one cut, then bemoan having to wait for the next. That situation resembles what often goes on in our own lives. The particulars may be different, but the paradoxical psychic pain is the same. We want to be able to be still and simultaneously keep on moving, which causes anxiety. Reynold’s lyrics wryly address our existential challenges with a nod to love as the redeemer.
The 11 story songs on Willow & Stone keep things simple. It is mostly with Reynold’s on acoustic guitar (sometimes electric), accompanied by small combos of instrumentalists on…
The Susto Stringband was born in 2022 when Susto frontman Justin Osborne relocated to Asheville, NC and met some of the key players of the Asheville bluegrass scene at an open mic night. The solidified lineup includes Clint Roberts and Jackson Grimm of Holler Choir, Nat Copeland, Helena Rose and Joey Brown, and on this volume, they’ve added the help of friends like Morgan Wade, Joshua Hedley and Madeline Dierauf.
Starting with an acapella version of Ralph Stanley’s ‘Gloryland’ leads you to expect something out of the ordinary. So, when ‘Diamond’s Icaro’ turns out to be paint-by-number bluegrass, it’s all a bit of a disappointment. The album is sold as a set of “Susto favourites” reworked in a bluegrass style, but listening back to the original of…
As the old philosophical question goes, “If a tree falls in an empty forest, does it make a sound?” That query feels newly relevant in the age of modern music-making.
We live in a world where anyone can hear virtually any song ever recorded, anytime, anywhere (provided there’s an internet connection). Today’s artist isn’t just competing with peers for attention, but with the entire history of recorded sound. The forest is so dense with trees that it becomes impossible to hear anything at all.
That context frames the central question Mike Richmond raises in the press notes for his first solo record: why bother making music? As the former Love Tractor guitarist puts it, “Why am I writing these songs? Is anyone going to care? I’m an old guy who played in a pretty…
On his third LP, Tender Country, Thomas Csorba delves into the softer side of country music, eschewing rowdy barroom burners in favor of a more laid-back, emotional connection to life. The album’s title is fitting, considering the tenderness woven throughout these songs. That’s not to say Csorba is above singing a good drinking song, as evidenced by “Homemade Margaritas.” Only his version involves moving out to the patio and sharing drinks over a citronella candle, with one ear tuned to the sleeping baby inside.
Across ten subdued tracks, Csorba explores love, family, and the everyday emotions of life. Carried by fiddle and guitars, “Lived In” is a perfect example. Csorba describes an ordinary house, with glitter worked into the floorboards…
After three excellent but generally underappreciated albums in what is more or less the Americana/singer/songwriter genre, Sam Morrow was ready for a change.
On his simply titled fourth release, and first in two years, he leaves most of the country influences that informed those discs, cranks up the guitars and charges into a stronger, sonic punch implied by the collection’s name.
While there are plenty of Southern red clay guts here, he sells himself short on the “boogie” part. Like Blackberry Smoke, which this resembles in the best ways, Morrow is too sharp of a songwriter to delve into the clichéd beer, booze and broads mode most associate with the title. Even when name-checking the “party all night/…
…Originally shelved by his label in 2001, this 21-track record has finally seen an official release.
The Suicide Handbook is Ryan Adams’ most elusive and mythic recordings. The album is a raw and intimate collection of songs that captures the songwriter at his most unguarded. Recorded at the beginning of his solo career and long circulating only through bootlegs, the album has earned a legendary status among die-hard fans and fans of the Americana genre alike for its stark stripped-back beauty.
Acoustic arrangements and hushed, late-night vocals, these songs feel like private confessions set to tape. Adams leans into themes of heartbreak, isolation, and emotional vulnerability, delivering recordings that are as fragile…
…Former members of Zebra Hunt have got together in Seattle to form Fallen Oaks, and we should rejoice that they did. Lead vocalist and guitarist Robert Mercer has written a fine assembly of songs and is ably backed by Erik Bennett on bass, Mitch Leffler on drums, Zack Erb on fiddle, and the wonderful pedal steel player Paul Hutzler. Will this record change your life? Maybe not, but it should, and at the very least, will add something special to the days you play it. ‘Roadside Prayers’ and ‘Stucco House’ are a must, along with the plaintive guitar on ‘Motel’.
‘Roadside Prayers’ is a three-minute, stunning alternative country ballad lamenting the love and loss of a friend. The guitar and mournfully aching violin work perfectly. The change of…
Heretics & Heritage is the fourth album from Leeds-based Lewis Pugh, combining both bluegrass and traditional folk/roots influences. Pugh himself plays banjo, guitar, snare drum and double bass, in addition to lead vocals, and all but two songs are self-penned.
The album lineup includes two members of north-east bluegrass band The Often Herd, in Evan Davies on mandolin, and Niles Krieger on fiddle. The opening track, ‘Big Stone Lifter’, is an up-tempo bluegrass number, with pedal steel courtesy of Stephen Hicken Jr., an addition to the usual bluegrass lineup including the aforesaid mandolin, fiddle and banjo. Indeed, the pedal steel is a very effective addition to the sonic mix, providing a unifying thread through much of the album.
…includes three bonus tracks: covers of Eddie Murphy’s “Party All the Time,” William Bell’s “You Don’t Miss Your Water,” and Procol Harum’s “A Whiter Shade of Pale.”
“Johnny can do what he wants,” Sturgill Simpson told Uncut when his new alias debuted on 2024’s Passage Du Desir, which found him rolling through Paris streets “like a cork in a bottle” while listening to ‘70s soft rock and Serge Gainsbourg.
His first five albums proper had burned Nashville bridges during an odyssey through outlaw country, psychedelia, synths and Kentucky bluegrass, while tracing the five metaphysical phases of the Western soul.
Johnny Blue Skies blew this preordained cycle away. He feels more real this time round, not…
Americana singer-songwriter Caleb Caudle enters a significant new chapter with his seventh studio album, Heavy Thrill. Arriving at a time of profound personal and artistic transition, the record was created as Caudle and his wife prepared to welcome their first child. It also marks his first venture as a self-producer, giving the North Carolina native complete creative control over the project. Recorded at the legendary Cash Cabin Studio in Hendersonville, Tennessee, and later mixed by renowned engineer Jacquire King and mastered by Pete Lyman, the album reflects both growth and self-discovery.
Across its ten songs, Heavy Thrill explores themes of ageing, uncertainty, perseverance, and the feeling of being an outsider…
By 1977, Tony Rice had already established a distinct voice within bluegrass. His guitar playing-precise, fluid, and rhythmically grounded-drew from the tradition while introducing a broader musical vocabulary. His self-titled third album arrived at a moment when that approach was beginning to take clearer shape.
Originally released in 1977, Tony Rice brought together a group of musicians working at a similar edge of the genre. Featuring collaborators including David Grisman, J.D. Crowe, and Jerry Douglas, the album moves between traditional material and contemporary compositions, balancing established forms with a more open, ensemble-driven sound. The album returns June 5, 2026, newly remastered from the original tapes.