New Song by Cullen Omori, "Cinnamon" (New Album Out)

Cullen Omori (photo via Sub Pop Records)

My new favorite song "Cinnamon" has a familiar sound - shiny pop melodies, a peppy beat and just enough of a laid back sensibility to call it indie. The tune is off the solo debut New Misery by Cullen Omori of Smith Westerns, a band formed with his brother Cameron back in their Chicago high school.  I eagerly picked Smith Westerns for my Spring 2011 New Music Playlist and Early Summer 2013 New Music Playlist before catching them at the 2013 ACL Music Festival.

Without the groupthink of being a band member, Cullen Omori wrote, played and oversaw all the parts played by Ryan Mattos (additional bass and keyboards), Loren Humphrey (drums) and James Richardson (guitar). It is the result of his musical growing pains of going at it alone (see the poignant moment where he takes a match to some old concert posters in the video.) Omori says the album's title reflects "not so much the distress that comes with failure, but the troubles and complexities that come with any type of success. No matter what you get you’re going to want more, you’re going to want something different. That’s the catch.”

Here's to 2015 -- New Releases (Listen to "Daffodils" by Mark Ronson w/Kevin Parker of Tame Impala)

New Year's Eve Festivities in Easton, Maryland via The Star Democrat

Happy New Year to my fellow new music fiends! After celebrating the arrival of 2015 worldwide (even the Eastern Shore of Maryland where I spent much of 2014 was featured on CNN, although it was probably just chosen so Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin could make raunchy crab jokes) winter has settled in with a vengeance here in the Northeast. It seems a perfect time to focus on future releases that will warm my soul with new tunes in the coming months. After pouring over comprehensive lists of upcoming albums, I found plenty of favorite bands to get excited about (see list below).

Mark Ronson's song with Bruno Mars "Uptown Funk" might be everywhere, but his "Daffodils" is a catchy groove with floating psychedelic vocals by Kevin Parker of Tame Impala -- an instant favorite for my next playlist and I crank up the volume every time it gets a play on KEXP or KCRW.  Check it out below and also if you haven't heard the new song "Take My Side" by Will Butler head over to Soundcloud. The kid brother of Arcade Fire singer Win Butler is staking his claim to a solo career after various side projects. As he asks in song, "Are you gonna take my side?" I'm already there.

NEW RELEASES TO WATCH FOR IN 2015: Updated as needed
January 13 - Mark Ronson, Uptown Special (Sony Music Entertainment)
January 13 - Panda Bear, Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper (Domino Recording Company)
January 20 - The Decemberists, What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World (Capitol Records)
January 20 - Belle & Sebastian, Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance (Matador Records)
January 27 - The Dodos, Individ (Polyvinyl Records)
February 10 - Father John Misty, I Love You Honeybear (Sub Pop Records)
February 17 - José González, Vestiges & Claws (Mute)
February 27 - Dan Deacon, Gliss Riffer (Domino Recording Company)
February 27 - of Montreal, Aureate Gloom (Polyvinyl Records)
March 1 - Jon Hopkins, Late Night Tales (Night Time Stories Ltd)
March 3 - Modest Mouse, Strangers to Ourselves (Epic Records)
March 10 - Will Butler, Policy (Merge Records)
March 24 - The Cribs, For All My Sisters (Sonic Blew/Sony Red)
March 24 - The Go! Team, The Scene (Memphis Industries)
March 31 - Death Cab for Cutie, Kintsugi, (Atlantic Recording Company)
March 31 - Sufjan Stevens, Carrie & Lowell (Asthmatic Kitty)
April 7 - Toro Y Moi, What For? (Carpark Records)
April 7 - Lord Huron, Strange Trails (IAMSOUND Records)
April 14 - Calexico, Edge of the Sun (Anti, Inc.)
April 14 - Villagers, Darling Arithmetic (Domino Recording Company)
April 28 - Mew, +/- (Play It Again Sam)
April 28 - Blur, The Magic Whip (Parlaphone Records/Warner Music)
May 5 - Best Coast, California Nights (Harvest Records)
May 19 - Hot Chip, Why Make Sense (Domino Recording Company)
May 26 - Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Multi-Love (Jagjaguwar)
TBA - My Morning Jacket, Beach House, Band of Horses, Passion Pit, Radiohead, Django Django and Tame Impala!

New Song by Washed Out "It All Feels Right" (Album due August 13)

Ernest Greene (Photo via iTunes)

Washed Out's Ernest Greene is ready to release his second full-length album next month, letting loose a single "It All Feels Right" that I already have on heavy rotation.  His critically acclaimed debut EP, Life of Leisure (2010), practically coined the term chillwave and the song "Feel It All Around" can still be heard during the opening credits of Portlandia.  I caught the band during the tour supporting 2011's Within and Without, a fave album that was a top ten pick for the year and the write up for this concert is one of my most read posts ever.

The new album, Paracosm (due out August 13 via Sub Pop Records), is filled with the synth magic expected of Washed Out and more.  According to Sub Pop, Greene employed over fifty different instruments for the new songs, including a collection of old keyboards (Mellotron, Chamberlin, Novatron and Optigan).  "I've grown as a songwriter to the point where I want to have more involved arrangements, and that's really hard to do with sampling," says Greene. "These machines were kind of a happy medium: the sounds have a very worn, distressed quality about them, much like an old sample.  But they also offer much more flexibility because they're playable." Greene has relocated from the city life of Atlanta to Athens, but returned there to record again with producer Ben H. Allen (Animal Collective, Deerhunter and Gnarls Barkley) at Maze Studios.

Available now is the single, "It All Feels Right," which opens with a shiny bling of sound until moving percussively into a sunny groove. In the lyric video, blissful thoughts are conveyed beyond the buried vocals, from "the sun comes out" to "music's playing loud," while deeply colored flora spin and turn. The cheery crowd noises brings in a human element as the song comes to a close. Greene says: "I knew from the beginning I wanted this record to be optimistic, very much a daytime-sounding album.  I think the last record felt more nocturnal in some ways.  This one I just imagined being outside, surrounded by a beautiful, natural environment."

Track List:
1.  Entrance
2.  It All Feels Right
3.  Don’t Give Up
4.  Weightless
5.  All I Know
6.  Great Escape
7.  Paracosm
8.  Falling Back
9.  All Over Now