Hurray for the Riff Raff

Hurray for the Riff Raff released a really great LP entitled "Small Town Heroes" at the beginning of this year.  The album sways between upbeat bluegrass tunes and more downtempo, dark ones. The constant throughout it all, though, is lead singer Alynda Lee Segarra's super smooth vocals.  Collectively, it's a really nice work.

Hurray for the Riff Raff

Perhaps the most interesting part of discovering this band was learning about the road (or should I say tracks) that Segarra traveled to found this band & create music.  The following is an excerpt from wuis.org about her journey:

"Alynda Lee Segarra - the singer, songwriter and musical force behind the group - first captured national attention in 2012, when her album Look Out Mama earned glowing reviews.  Born to a Puerto Rican family in the Bronx, Segarra grew up making weekly trips to New York's Lower East Side for punk matinees.  After extensive traveling [including hopping freight trains for years], she found her own musical home in New Orleans."

Now it's time to sit back (preferably on a front porch rocking chair) and take a listen to the band, live in a KEXP session:

Some new favorites.

A couple days ago, I took the initially scary but eventually liberating step of restoring (i.e. deleting) my entire IPod.  I was sick of the same old stuff on it that's been accumulating over the past 5 years.  Now that the clean slate is filled up with new stuff, I've got a whole bunch of random songs to share (in addition to some songs I just haven't been able to get out of my head for a while).

Sylvan Esso - "Uncatena"

Amelia Meath's innocent, folksy vocals laid over infectious beats

Hiss Golden Messenger - "Mahogany Dread"

Classic American roots rock... done right.

Alt-J - "Nara"

Off their newly released EP, "This is All Yours".  If you're short on time, just start the video at 2:55.  Enough said.

FKA Twigs - "Two Weeks"

Listened to this for the first time while on a plane, looking out the window as we soared back and forth between massive cloud formations.  The chorus fit the setting to a tee.

Marissa Nadler - "Drive"

This checks off all of my typical boxes:  sad, haunting lyrics, pedal steel, angelic harmonies... super emo.