Orchestral art rockers The Red Paintings are on tour in support of the release of their debut album The Revolution Is Never Coming.

Based in London and Los Angeles – and having been fortunate enough to already tour much of the globe – The Red Paintings are a five-piece group (guitar, violin, cello, bass and drums) whose sound evokes everything from child-like lullabies, to tearing, biting, alternative-rock numbers. They incorporate multimedia performance art wherever possible and seek submissions from local artists who paint the band’s live energy onstage in real time. With costumes, conceptual stage shows, live painting and human canvases their performance combines sound and visuals.

The debut album was 5 years in the making and features a 35-piece orchestra, 22-piece choir, harp players, French horn, Theremin and more across 13 tracks.

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“You’re Not One Of Them” by The Red Paintings

Lachlan Bryan’s heart is steeped in the drama and imagery of country, roots, and Americana music. An Australia-based songwriter with true authenticity, Bryan’s songs are draped with dark characters, back stories, and sub plots flavored with dustbowl balladry, old school country, and nu-folk undertones. Together with his band The Wildes, Bryan has built a genre-defying catalog beginning with 2009’s Ballad of a Young Married Man. The new album, Black Coffee, has garnered glowing reviews, packed houses, and a slew of awards and nominations in Bryan’s homeland this year. It was awarded this year’s Golden Guitar for Best Alternative Country Album at the 2014 Country Music Awards of Australia.

“Black Coffee transcends expectations and sets the new standard in roots and Americana music in Australia. We knew it was going to be good, but this is an exceptional album.” ~ Adam Simon, Rolling Stone

You may view videos for the album’s first single and its title track, “Black Coffee” and its new single “You Me and the Blues” via YouTube. Black Coffee features the full band plus special guests Melody Pool and Bill Chambers.

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“Black Coffee” by Lachlan Bryan and The Wildes

Seattle, Washington-based Jason Sees Band will celebrate the release of their third full-length, A Single Frame Passing Through the Light, nationally on October 28.

Compared to a cross between Austin, Texas troubadour Bob Schneider, Portland, Oregon’s space-rock act Helio Sequence, and a shot of top-shelf tequila, A Single Frame Passing Through the Light is a mixture of upbeat, bouncy pop-rock and melodic, swirling space-pop — the lyrics contradicting the hook-laden pop feel of the songs with sorrow, sadness, and mourning, yet a light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel hopefulness compliments the music nicely.

Danceable, hip-shaking, with a rocking rhythm section, “Your Favorite Song” is a prime example of the dichotomy between lyrics of reminiscing and mourning coupled with a melody that will make you dance and smile.

When all was said and done, Sees was brought to near tears at how good the album turned out, making it a fitting tribute to his late wife.

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“Your Favorite Song” by Jason Sees Band

Portland, Oregon-based Hook & Anchor delivered Americana self-titled debut on July 22 via Jealous Butcher/Woodphone Records.

The band is comprised of Blind Pilot’s Kati Claborn, Luke Ydstie, and Ryan Dobrowski, as well as old-time music veteran Gabrielle Macrae and Erik Clampitt.

Hook & Anchor is a story of lost songs finding a home. After a busy five years of touring with Portland-based band Blind Pilot, Claborn was sitting on a steadily growing pile of tunes. As chance would have it, long-time friend and collaborator Clampitt was looking for material and musicians to play a handful of gigs culminating in a show at the San Francisco Old-time and Bluegrass Festival. Songs were dusted off, friends were gathered, and the music that emerged had a voice and cohesion that immediately resonated with audiences and demanded to be more than a mere one-off.

Although generalizations don’t come easy, the album exists somewhere at the confluence of country, folk, and rock and roll, with every track pushing definitions across a new border. The songwriters of Hook & Anchor combine a roots theme with thoughtful lyrical arrangements.

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“Concerning Spectral Pinching” by Hook & Anchor

Longtime Portland band Sassparilla has released not one but two albums via Fluff & Gravy Records. A listen to the pair of platters — Pasajero and Hullabaloo — reveals two very different approaches. Pasajero is a studio-driven, atmospheric record with rock flourishes and careful craft; Hullabaloo is rawer, rootsier, and rustier, bearing the traits of the band’s boisterous live show.

Songwriter and front man, Kevin Blackwell, has simple reasons for making two different records, yet packaging them together — to provide fans two distinct experiences: A studio record, and a “come as you are” record. With Hullabaloo, the band left behind a proper studio for Blackwell’s attic. The two albums also showcase the breadth of the Sassparilla experience: one moment beautiful, the other falling down the stairs. Pasajero starts with “Overture,” a saxophone-driven, beat-infused burn with a late-night, blurry-eyed Kerouac sprawl to it. Proclaiming, “If it doesn’t burn, it was never alive.” The band’s infectious groove sets the stage for the rest of this dark, yet melodic collection.

While they may be two completely different records, they compliment each other implicitly. Please have a listen to “What The Devil Don’t Know” from Pasajero below.

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“What The Devil Don’t Know” by Sassparilla

Portland, Oregon-based shoegazer country act Hearts of Oak are celebrating the release of their third, and first nationally-distributed full-length New England (Deer Lodge Records).

Fronted by singer-songwriter Nate Wallace, Hearts of Oak has been referred to as “a singer-songwriter with a druggy, psychedelic backing band.” Engineered and produced by Ezra Meredith, the band’s guitarist, at Meredith’s Deer Lodge Studios in Portland, Oregon, Hearts of Oak is rounded out by the rhythm section of J Lever on drums and Keith Richard McCarthy on bass, as well as Ezra’s brother Joel Meredith on pedal steel.

Entitled New England for numerous reasons, including the fact that Wallace is from there, the album chronicles tales of love, loss, and longing, a theme that commonly runs through Hearts of Oak songs, but is prevalent on this album, which Wallace attributes to the constant struggle he feels of being pulled back home.

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“Tunnels” by Hearts of Oak

The new album, Good Things Will Happen (Tiny Drum Records) from Ray Tarantino, is a tribute to the American dream: the story of a guy who walked a road of trial, carrying nothing but a good dose of courage.

His father was a Sicilian diamond dealer; his mother a Tuscan countess. Born in the north of Italy and raised in the UK, Tarantino brings an international sensuality to Americana music.

The start of Tarantino’s music career was as dramatic as his lyrics. After a high-speed traumatic car crash nearly ended his existence, he threw in the towel on his life as a money-making corporate drone and traded a pencil-pushing nine-to-five for a guitar and a ’97 Econo-line van with a queen-size bed in the back. This is the kind of hope-filled journey Hollywood makes movies about.

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“Brand New Day” by Ray Tarantino

mp3s courtesy of Alex Steininger at In Music We Trust PR

Country music legend George Jones (aka “The Possum”), a man credited with having the finest voice in the recorded history of country music, passed away on April 26, 2013.

In honor of the man who started out as a hardcore honky tonker in the tradition of Hank Williams but, over the course of his career, developed an affecting, nuanced ballad style, Portland, Oregon-based independent record label Deer Lodge Records put together a two-CD, thirty-track collection of songs from artists across the West Coast, paying homage to “The Possum.”

Produced by Deer Lodge’s Ezra Meredith and Bert Sperling, the album spans the gamut from punk, bluegrass, post-modern pop, and even reggae, putting Jones’ songs in a different light while giving them praise.

When asked why Deer Lodge decided to do a tribute to George Jones, Deer Lodge Studios owner and co-producer Ezra Meredith quickly states, “he’s the greatest singer of all time.”

The process for picking the bands on the tribute album, which includes heavy Northwest hitters including Sassparilla, Fernando, Water Tower, Drunken Prayer, Lewi Longmire & Portland Country Underground, Hearts of Oak, and Meredith Brothers, to name a few, started with Sperling and Meredith picking artists they knew and respected, then they “reached out to some personal heroes of mine and artists that I’d always wanted to work with,” says Sperling.

The end result is something Sperling and Meredith are very proud of, something they are happy to stamp the Deer Lodge name all over.

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“Tennessee Whiskey” by Brush Prairie (Tribute to George Jones)

The popular Portland group formerly known as Starfucker went back to the studio to add some fresh touches to their 2009 mini-LP, Jupiter. The result is a complete re-imagining of the original — as all eight songs received brand new mixes, three more tracks were added, and the entire record was re-mastered.

Jupiter features the songs “Girls Just Want to Have Fun,” “Biggie Smalls” and a remix of “Rawnald Gregory Erickson the Second” – the original version was featured in ad spots for Target and helped break the band.

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“Girls Just Want to Have Fun” by STRFKR

Nestled in Portland, Oregon’s predominately white and hipster culture is all-Asian American dance rock band, The Slants. The Slants took their influence from grabbing onto the corners of foundational 80s synth-pop music and blending it with modern dance rock sensibilities. They call this amalgamation of contagious, energetic, and danceable music “Chinatown Dance Rock.”

Their third full-length release, The Yellow Album, explores the dichotomy between darker undertones and the thrills of new love.

The Yellow Album could be a natural progression from either 2010’s Pageantry or their 2007 debut Slanted Eyes, Slanted Hearts. Musically, it draws from the wider synthesizer driven palette of the first album while retaining the harder hitting rock sounds of the second. The lyrics explore the personal lives and experiences of the members of the band.

Frontman Aron Moxley’s life began with abandonment. He explains, “I was one of the babies born in Saigon during the Vietnam War. I’ll never know my real birthday, let alone find out who my mother is or know if she’s still alive.” The song “Adopted” illustrates Moxley confronting these feelings, which have plagued him for so long.

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“Adopted” by The Slants