Owen Steel – Weird Looks

Bless Owen Steel. His brilliance as an oddball musician is well balanced by his abilities as a musical oddball. One of our favourite lyricists, he seems to write the most sincere songs about the strangest things.

“We got our good looks from all of the weird shit that we done / Ain’t that disgusting / But all of the good things we done / They got so many weird looks / How’d things get so crooked, backwards and wicked?”

David R. Elliott – Back East

Normally we have hard rules about songs with so much name dropping, but Elliott’s ‘Back East’ has a strange charm to it… kind of like the east coast.

Port Cities – Astronaut

Port Cities wrote a lament for every decision we’ve made in our lives that has inevitably lead to the disappointment that our space program has become. Sure, nobody has set foot on the moon since 1972, but it’s not like we haven’t collectively provided enough incentive to try something else. We just never got ourselves together.

Mike Trask – Horse

Mike Trask makes a remarkably short leap to being a used horse salesman. At least we think he’s trying to sell us a horse. Mostly it’s Mike Trask doing what Mike Trask does – making us dance to unexpected subject matter.

Dance Movie – Penny

Listen to that! It’s like we’ve been dragged right back to the early 2000’s when we could get away with wearing clothes from the Army Surplus held together with band pins. Well paired with Colt 45s, mosh pits down at the legion, and my misspent youth.

Brookside Mall – Preservation

Brendan Magee delivers his usual build of lyrics spat out over a piano contentedly relaxing at its own pace. We’re still love it.

Mary Beth Carty – Anthony

“Oh, you’re going to include an accordion-powered gypsy love song in the top ten?” Have you heard it?! Mary Beth Carty’s ‘Anthony’ is one of the most fun songs we’ve heard this year. Accordion is the next big thing for sure.

Jont & The Infinite Possibility – Life Is So Good

Jont & The Infinite Possibility released their new album, An Old Innocence just last week, and it put us in another predicament of having to choose newer tracks over some old favourites polished up from previous EPs. ‘Life Is So Good’ still gives an unquestionably upbeat song for us to dance to from our favourite British rock star import.