The year of the dragon has just begun, and the mythical lizard has already tinged us with its fire! In a good way, because often a bit of heat is necessary to nudge you over the edge to actually do what you wanted for a long time. We’ll report more on this here in the newsletter.

But first, we fly off to Lisbon this Wednesday evening. Of course, we have our editorial calendar filled with our daily Song Picks, and I will try my best to give all songs the proper newsletter treatment next week. We also may be able to provide you with some first-hand photo impressions of Portugal’s capital, but we won’t bring our laptops, and Substack on the iPad is a bit sketchy.

When we’re back, it will be time for The New Colossus Festival prep. Elke has already been working through the lineup for weeks, and we will create a short list of acts we want to see. Even if you can’t attend the festival, expect some exciting discoveries.

Last Friday, dark alternative rocker Chelsea Wolfe released her seventh album. With her, I’m often lingering on the edge of super-fandom. Whenever I heard a new song of hers, I felt ready to explore her extensive discography. But then, Chelsea’s music is not for every day, so this plan has never come to fruition. Her new album She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She is again excellent, though, in its effortless range from metal over industrial electronic to folk.

If you need a lift from the abyss after Chelsea, I recommend Fatal Flaws by Brooklyn singer/songwriter Lily Hain. Here, you have the sassy account of a young woman who moved from North Carolina to the big city to make music. So far, I’ve neither met Lily nor seen her live, but I imagine her as a funny, honest person, a bit like an American Fenne Lily. It also helps that lilies are my favorite flowers.

A fellow UK blog Teases and Dares, brought a collaboration between NINA and Ricky Wilde to our attention. The latter is the younger brother of Kim and wrote all of her 80s hits together with their father, Marty. It would be interesting to know why they didn’t let the sister participate in the songwriting process. Still, these were the times when everything except singing was considered exclusively men’s work. Anyway, the album Scala Hearts came out last fall, and will be accompanied by a remix album tomorrow. Both are delightful throwbacks to a time when synth-pop was a fresh new musical genre.

As an exciting surprise, the best band in the world, Warpaint, celebrated its 20th birthday this Valentine’s Day with a brilliant new song, “Common Blue,” and a video shot by their longtime tour manager Robin Laananen:

We close out with a new song by James Brown. Elke and I did not grow up with music from that era, so we are not particularly familiar with the work of the late Godfather of Soul. But we loved the newly surfaced track originally recorded on August 16, 1970, and its message, “We Got To Change,” indeed resonates today. The song is out tomorrow on all streaming platforms.

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Song Pick of the Day

Listen to/watch all seven songs on YouTube. Follow our daily updated playlists on YouTube and Spotify for the 50 latest Song Picks of the Day. Thank you for following us and sharing the excitement.

It is Valentine’s Day week, so why do we start the playlist with two breakup songs? First, because we don’t theme our Song Picks of the Day. And second, because love is a complex, messy emotion, and those first songs reflect this beautifully.

“Don’t” by the Atlanta-based five-piece The Future Babes is a heartbreak song that rings familiar to Elke and me, and probably to you too. It is the painful phase when you still care for each other even though it is irrevocably over. But: “The music behind the lyrics is upbeat and lighthearted as if to say that there are better days ahead despite what you may be going through,” says singer Ian Klin.

In “Hate You,” the Austrian singer/songwriter Fanny Tauscher, aka fanschko finds herself in a similar situation: she cannot dislike her ex as much as she wanted to. The elegantly produced pop song packs a punch in the bridge as Fanny looks for ways out of the dilemma.

We stay with the theme: “Hey Man” is again about a complicated phase between two people, this time in a friendship. The song is “about checking in on a friend who is probably taking advantage of your kindness,” the London singer/songwriter Ed Riman aka Hilang Child explains. He added “that crunchy guitar style” to add some drama to the choruses.

Leland Ettinger, who records as Leland and the Silver Wells has a universal message: “Don’t wait too late, don’t miss this time around, [...] when you’re Six Feet Underground.” So go out, grab life by its horns instead of waiting for “better” times. Leland releases her fifth album Riverboat next Friday.

“Teardrop” by the Australian synth-pop trio Telenova is about “the volatile nature of our ever-changing human emotions in this song,” and hence fits somewhat into the theme of the week. “I have this innate longing and hope for stability and joy, but in tension to that, I often find myself doing and saying things I don’t mean to say or feel,” singer Angeline Armstrong admits. She also co-directed an atmospheric video together with Claudia Sangiorgi Dalimore:

In 2018 Elke and I had the debut album by UK quartet Black Gold Buffalo on our list of favorite albums. The band also played one of our showcases at The Delancey, a performance we are still swooning about. They never released more music, but the powerhouse singer Keziah Stilwell is back under the name Ziah Ziah. The music has evolved, but the energy is still the same in her new song “Muscle In.”

We are closing this week with an upbeat thank you to the good people in your life. You know who they are. In “Ripples,” the Australian singer/songwriter Stacey Ann sings about the “people around me who made me see how important it is to surround yourself with positive people and how when this happens, it creates ripple effects in other areas of your life, too.”.

Nine Photos from Bushwick Then & Now

Ridgewood borders Bushwick in the southwest, and from our home, it’s only a couple of minutes walking south until we’re no longer in Queens but in Brooklyn. Granted, it doesn’t look any different at first, but once you walk deeper into Bushwick, you quickly come across the plethora of colorful murals that change regularly. Over the years, we’ve been on many walks through that particular part of Bushwick, and last Sunday, it struck me how much it has changed and then again not. Nine photos are not enough to show all that is going on, but two big developments are currently underway, and Oliver’s and my guess is that they will become the planned additions to the music Venue Brooklyn Made.

1 & 7 - Troutman Street and St. Nicholas Ave in 2014 & 2022
2 & 3 - Seawolf on Troutman in 2020 & 2024
4, 5 & 6 - Starr Street 2022 & 2024
8 & 9 - Troutman Street 2023 & 2024