Rachel’s students are getting creative, but not in the ways you’d want them to. Also, hi everyone in India!   Album of the Week: Izzy Heltai -- Father   I’ve been a supporter of Izzy’s since he first sent me a song through SubmitHub all on his own. For his first album, though, Heltai pulled out the big guns -- and deservedly so. Father is nothing if not emotionally naked -- a study in painterly lyrics, and Heltai’s theatrical delivery doesn’t hurt either. What stands out most, though, is the album’s lush production, an impressive demonstration of vision and control for a debut album. My interview with Izzy will be out on Country Queer Spotlight in a few weeks, and there you’ll be able to learn more about his workman-like approach to writing, and how his experience as a trans man has impacted his work as a musician.

1. The Savants of Soul -- “Swell” (The Savants of Soul)
2. R McClure & Tall Shadows -- “If Your Heart Starts A Wanderin’” (Never Love Me Again)
3. Jean-Luc Swift -- “Uncle Bill’s New York City Lament” (New York City Lament)
4. Buck n Sunny -- “We Were Meant to Be” (The Absolute Truth)
5. Olivia Ellen Lloyd -- “Emily” (Single)
6. Drayton Farley -- “Keep Country Music Sad” (Sweet Southern Sadness)
7. Great Peacock -- “All I Ever Do” (Forever Worse Better)
8. Ron Pope -- “A Little More Love” (feat. Von Grey) (Single)
9. Dawn Riding -- “The Difference” (Single)
10. The Roland High Life -- “This Town Ain’t Big Enough for Both Of Our Sadness” (Songs About Comic Books & Mid-30s Malaise)
11. Izzy Heltai -- “Songbird” (Father)
12. American Darling Valve -- “No More” (Eclipse EP)
13. Greater Bird of Paradise -- “Uriel” (Single)
14. Front Country -- “Amerikan Dream” (Single)
15. Malena Cadiz -- “Hey There, Oblivion” (Single)

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I was super late getting this one out, so everyone gets to hear the Patreon songs! Also, found poetry!   Album of the Week: Lydia Loveless -- Daughter Daughter finds Americana stalwart Loveless at the ebb of significant upheaval: a divorce, a relocation, a cathartic but tumultuous outing of bad practices at her previous label, Bloodshot Records, the reverberations of which are still being felt three years later.   But all of that has led to one thing: out with the bad, and in with the good. On Daughter, Loveless is searching for answers amidst a way forward. She’s continuing to explore that sort of disco pop that’s marked her last few releases, though that sense of freedom has also drawn her to explore some back-to-basics Americana with much more sure-footed songwriting. It’s still a Lydia Loveless album, after all, and there are plenty of albums to cry, sip, or smoke along to: whatever it is that helps you feel washed clean after a good bout of searching the bottom of your soul.

1. Johanna Rose -- “A Nite Like This” AND “Only Good” (Only Good Nites)
2. Concetta Abate -- “A Bit of Rain” (Mirror Touch)
3. Lydia Luce -- “Dark River” (Single)
4. Lydia Loveless -- “Wringer” AND “Daughter” (Daughter)
5. Emily Zuzik -- “Stay Wild” AND “Chinese Food and Donuts” (Torch & Trouble))
6. Phillipa Cookman -- “Greasy Mabel” (Single)
7. Girls on Grass -- “Spill Your Guts” (Spill Your Guts/Who’s Gonna Cry? 7”)
8. Al Holbrook -- “Guru Lover Star” (Rocket Ships For Dreamers)
9. Bonnie Whitmore -- “Fine” AND “Flashes & Cables” (Last Will & Testament)
10. Bison Bone -- “Downtown” AND “Drinking To Do” (Find Your Way Out)
11. Mike West -- “Rock Ferry” (The Next Life)
12. Jensen Sisters -- “Beat of a Bad Habit” AND “On the Fringe” (Yellow Shades)
13. Brendan and the Strangest Ways -- “Anxiety” (Single)
14. Olivia Ellen Lloyd -- “Emily” (Single)
15. Bette Smith -- “I Felt It” (The Good, The Bad, The Bette)

Send me music via SubmitHub! Send me money via Ko-fi or Patreon. Find Rachel and her comic via https://linktr.ee/rachel.cholst

Listen to the Amythyst Kiah episode of Country Queer Spotlight.

 This is your last chance to back the Rainbow Rodeo Kickstarter!    Album of the Week: Bette Smith -- The Good, The Bad, The Bette   Bette Smith is a Bed-Stuy native -- and Southern soul seems to course through her veins. At least, that’s how it sounds on her debut album, produced by Drive By Truckers’ Matt Patton. Smith is gifted with a unique, almost carbonized singing voice, but that’s not the only part of her music that stands out. Smith is able to embody her songs in a way that will send little thrills up and down your spine -- assuming you aren’t transported along with her.   Note: This episode was recorded before the Breonna Taylor ruling, though Tyler’s song and album absolutely speaks for itself and is regrettably more relevant than ever. I linked to Tyler’s YouTube message in the show notes.

1. Bette Smith -- “I Felt It Too” (The Good, The Bad, And The Bette)
2. Jake Winstrom -- “Come to Texas She Said” (Circles)
3. Liz Longley -- “Finally High” (Funeral For My Past)
4. Multimagic -- “Manic Daze” (Manic Daze)
5. Raye Zaragoza -- “They Say” (Single)
6. Michael C. Duguay -- “This City is a Grid” (The Winter of Our Discotheque)
7. The Rivergods -- “Long Way Down” (Passages)
8. Durango Blue -- “See You Home” (Single)
9. Hannah Lee Thompson -- “Handsome Ugly” (Single)
10. John Calvin Abney -- “Shine Like a Friend” (Single)
11. Bug Martin & Co. -- “Just For the Hell Of It” (All That Is and What Ain’t)
12. Tyler Childers -- “Long Violent History” (Long Violent History)
13. Maple Run Band -- “Borderline” (Maple Run Band)
14. Charles Ellsworth -- “Paranoia (A Nü Start)” (Single)
15. Thomas Stajcer -- “Who Will Listen to Country Music When the Trucks Drive Themselves?” (Single)     Send me music via SubmitHub! Send me money via Ko-fi or Patreon. Find Rachel and her comic via https://linktr.ee/rachel.cholst

L’Shanah tovah! Let’s dig deep into an extra-large episode of blues, punk, rock, pop, and country music. Why is it longer? Because I can! Also, some good news!   Don’t forget to back the Rainbow Rodeo Kickstarter!   Album of the Week: Daniel Romano -- How Ill Thy World Is Ordered   This is a stunning album, with dense prophetic lyrics. Romano’s delivery is eerie and damning, songs that speak truth to power with Dylan-esque poetry -- but none of his vagaries. This album has genuine power, an electrifying energy that will send chills up your arms. And it’s Romano’s 10th of the year. Clearly he’s not running out of steam.

1. Daniel Romano -- “A Rat Without a Tale” (How Ill Thy World Is Ordered)
2. Tender Creature -- “Climbing Trees” (If Anyone Asks)
3. Liz Longley -- “Finally High” (Funeral For My Past)
4. Stephen Clair -- “Come Down” (The Small Hours)
5. Photo Ops -- “Walking Under the Trees” (Pure at Heart)
6. Victoria Bailey -- “Honky Tonk Woman” (Jesus, Red Wine, & Patsy Cline)
7. Elliott Brood -- “Full of Wires” (Keeper)
8. Dustbowl Daddies -- “Goodbye Great Society” (Single)
9. Lucinda Williams -- “Maria” (Happy Woman Blues)
10. Matt Woods -- “Take It Slow” (Mornings After)
11. Brennan Leigh -- “Billy and Beau” (Prairie Love Letter)
12. Dan Lepien -- “Outlaw Songs” (Single)
13. Kristopher James -- “Never Had to Find Our Way” (Single)
14. Mickey Guyton -- “Black Like Me” (Bridges)
15. Smooth Hound Smith -- “Little Rock’n’Roll Clubs” (Single)

Send me music via SubmitHub! Send me money via Ko-fi or Patreon. Find Rachel and her comic via https://linktr.ee/rachel.cholst

The refrigerator saga concludes! Also, jazz, country, and punk -- and it all works, I promise!   Contribute to the Rainbow Rodeo Kickstarter here!   Album of the Week: Matt Woods -- Mornings After   Matt Woods’ new EP Mornings After is signature Woods: his powerhouse vocals make the stories of small peoples’ pain operatic in scope. Woods can crank it up and get people dancing as well as anybody, all with a twinkle of his eyes and a workingman’s righteous fury. But on Mornings After, as the title suggests, Woods slows things down a bit, giving us one of his more contemplative works to date. Mornings After has a little more country soul than his past few releases, but all of the heart and explosive energy you can expect from Woods. With Glossary’s Joey Kneiser as producer, you know that the EP is as genuine as beautifully engineered as they come.

1. Waylon Payne -- “Back From the Grave” (Blue Eyes, The Harlot, The Queer, The Pusher & Me)
2. Matt Woods -- “Take It Slow” (Mornings After EP)
3. Heather Valley -- “That’s How I Got To Memphis” (Single)
4. Vi Redd -- “I Remember Bird” (Bird Call)
5. Renee Rosnes -- “The Sounds Around the House” (Ancestors)
6. Tennessee Jet -- “Off to War” (The Country)
7. Namoli Brennett -- “The Whiskey Don’t Help” (The Simple Life)
8. Sally Anne Morgan -- “Polly On the Shore” (Thread)
9. Russell Patterson -- “Empty Road” (Single)
10. Pseudo Cool -- “Modern Man” (Single)
11. Raye Zaragoza -- “The It Girl” (Single)
12. Bad Mother Nature -- “Time to Run” (Single)
13. NQ Arbuckle -- “Love Songs For the Long Game” (Single)

Send me music via SubmitHub! Send me money via Ko-fi or Patreon. Find Rachel and her comic via https://linktr.ee/rachel.cholst

Rachel talks Justin Townes Earle, Williamsburg blues, and an inspirational quote from Leslie Feinberg’s Stone Butch Blues. (Also, she misspoke -- this is episode 135, not 136!) Click here for the Rainbow Rodeo Kickstarter!

1. Justin Townes Earle -- “Workin’ For the MTA” (Harlem River Blues)
2. Bronwyn Keith-Hynes -- “North Garden” (Fiddler’s Pastime)
3. Erin Frisby -- “Theia and Gaia” (ECDYSIS)
4. Jeremy Parsons -- “Good Ole Days” (Single)
5. Emily Barker -- “The Woman Who Planted Trees” (A Dark Murmuration of Words)
6. Lawn -- “Nighttime Creatures” (Johnny)
7. Fuimos Viajeros -- “Viaje 3” (Dulce Condena)
8. Tennessee Jet -- “Off to War” (The Country)
9. Rachel Angel -- “Strapped” (Highway Songs)
10. Ashley Riley -- “Close To Me” (Single)
11. Bethany Thomas -- “Walls + Ceilings” (BT/SHE/HER)
12. Billy Edwin -- “No More Clouds” (New American West)
13. Caitlin Quisenberry -- “Imogene” (Single)

Send me music via SubmitHub! Send me money via Ko-fi or Patreon. Find Rachel and her comic via https://linktr.ee/rachel.cholst

Hey! We had 1000 downloads a month!   Also, Country Queer Spotlight is live now! Listen to my interview of Jaime Wyatt!   Also also, I had to scratch the first artist I planned to play because I couldn’t get a hold of those mp3s after all. Hopefully the edit isn’t too weird!   Album of the Week: Bethany Thomas -- BT/SHE/HER   This album is a masterpiece. Thomas, who has played with Jon Langford (hence her connection to Bloodshot Records), is also a classical musician, plays jazz...pretty much everything. No matter what the song sounds like, though, Thomas absolutely RIPS on guitar. Her songs are beautiful, too, relating the life of a queer black person in the Midwest with skill and grace. The album is confident and bold and one of the best this year.

1. Zephaniah O’Hora -- “Living Too Long” (Listening to the Music)
2. Jeremy & the Harlequins -- “Let’s Ride” (Single)
3. Bethany Thomas -- “Walls + Ceilings” (BT/SHE/HER)
4. Half Gringa -- “Transitive Property” (Force to Reckon)
5. Our Man in the Field -- “Thin (I Used to Be Bullet Proof)” (Single)
6. Oceanator -- “A Crack in the World” (Things I Never Said)
7. Jeremy Squires -- “Hummingbird” (Many Moons)
8. Water Liars -- “I Want Blood” (Water Liars)
9. Ozymandias Carter -- “Rebels Like Us” (The Vanishing Crowd)
10. Atta Boy -- “Lucky” (Big Heart Manners)
11. The Wonderful Nobodies -- “Walk That Road Alone” (A/B)
12. Have Gun Will Travel -- “Melancholy Moon (Everything Dies)” (Single)

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Vacation, Bella in the country, work troubles, refrigerators, spicy takes about Bright Eyes, and a whole buttload of music!

Album of the Week: Hayley Thompson-King -- Sororicide

This album is so cool. Thompson-King is a woman with intense artistic vision: her debut Psychotic Melancholia introduced the main themes on Sororicide. Thompson-King, a trained opera singer, used her sophomore album to tell the story of a woman (who may or not be the artist herself) whose artistic vision is so all-consuming she’s convinced it’s the voice of the twin she absorbed in utero. Thompson-King uses this album to explore the musical motifs throughout her life so far: New York punk, opera, and Americana. It’s a bold and adventurous vision and Thompson-King and her band realize it with aplomb.

1. L.A. Witch -- “Gen-Z” AND “Motorcycle Boy” (Play With Fire)
2. Hayley Thompson-King -- “All the Boys Love You” AND “Liederjahr” (Sororicide)
3.  Benchmarks -- “Six One Way” AND “The Good Fight” (Summer, Slowly)
4. Juni Ata -- “Good Enough Ain’t Bad” AND “When it Rains in LA” (Saudade)
5. Chuck Prophet -- “High As Johnny Thunders” AND “Love Doesn’t Come From the Barrel of a Gun” (The Land That Time Forgot)
6. Caleb JE Brown -- “Ellie” (Single) 
7. HC McEntire -- “Footman’s Coat” AND “Time, On Fire” (Eno Axis)
8. Kathleen Edwards -- “Ashes to Ashes” AND “Birds on a Feeder” (Total Freedom)
9. Rebecca Karpen -- “Minyan in a Ghost Town” (Corona Park) 
10. Ross Cirri -- “Kings in Paradise” (Blood Red)
11. Bad Flamingo -- “Butter” (Single)
12. Jessye de Silva -- “Missouri” (Quarantine Sessions)

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It was my birthday! I got a refrigerator I can’t use! Also, there’s music!!!   Album of the Week: Scott Cook -- Tangle of Souls       Damn, this is a gorgeous album. Scott Cook’s voice -- vocally and lyrically -- is as clear-eyed, optimistic, and straightforward as ever. I lost track of Cook for a while but he’s produced some of my favorite music that I’ve reviewed in 9 years of Adobe & Teardrops. Tangle of Souls is the medicine we could all use right now. As much as I enjoy the wave of experimentalism in Americana lately, at the end of the day you need great lyrics and a guitar and that’s what Cook does best.

1. Wilma Burgess -- “Baby” (Her Very Best)
2. Jenny O. -- “God Knows Why” (New Truth)
3. Wild Earp -- “Don’t Play the Waltz at the California Clipper” (Single)
4. The Slow Blade -- “Death Letter” (Remain)
5. Severed Fingers -- “Hospital Beds” (Trust No One)
6. The Cry -- “Everything and Nothing” (Beautiful Reasons)
7. Scott Cook --“Let Love Have Its Way” (Tangle of Souls)
8. Arlo McKinley -- “Die Midwestern” (Die Midwestern)
9. Bridget Dowling -- “Back to Her” (Single)
10. Crystal Shawanda -- “When it Comes to Love” (Church House Blues)
11. Lyn Avenue -- “Sophisticated” (Sophisticated)
12. Jessye DeSilva -- “Missouri” (Quarantine Sessions)

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We built a desk! Also, stay tuned for a Facebook livestream. And we raised another $200 for the Trans Justice Funding Project in July!   You can read Andrea Williams’ latest article about the intersection of racism and sexism in country music in the Nashville Scene.   Album of the Week -- Golden Shoals, Golden Shoals     This week’s album is Golden Shoals. This is the new project of duo Amy Alvey and Mark Kilianski, formerly of Hoot and Holler. The album has the warmth of any classic bluegrass and old time jam combined with modern 2020-era wit. The album is beautifully engineered, and with Alvey and Kilianski’s (platonic) intimacy, listening to Golden Shoals feels like you’re hanging out with your best buds on your favorite porch.

1. Sam Rae -- “Just in Case” (Ten Thousand Years)
2. Golden Shoals -- “Love From Across the Border” (Golden Shoals)
3. Kyle Cox -- “Toy Trains” (Single)
4. Steven Bruce -- “Weekend Song” (Same Time, Same Place, Same Station)
5. Crystal Shawanda -- “When it Comes to Love” (Church House Blues)
6. The Mesa -- “Keeping Company” (Single)
7. Black Guy Fawkes -- “Less Songs, More War” (Less Songs More War)
8. Creature Comfort -- “Arcade Fire” (Single)
9. Tan Sanders -- “Convenient Chaos” (Dead Strings EP)
10. Michelle Billingsley -- “Gaslighting” (Not the Marrying Kind)
11. Molly Maher -- “Bird Song (I’ll Follow You)” (Follow)
12. Her Dad’s Banjo -- “Forever Wild” (Single)

Send me music via SubmitHub! Send me money via Ko-fi or Patreon. Find Rachel and her comic via https://linktr.ee/rachel.cholst