New Music Monday: Flint & Feather, Andrea Nixon, Any Which Way, Lucky Sonne

Catching up on some excellent Alberta releases from the past few weeks

Life stops, the world does not.

Well, not yet. Let’s talk tomorrow, shall we …

But for now we can appreciate that it keeps spinning and the songs keep coming.

We’ve let the goodness backup, let’s let it flow.

We’ll start good and easy, with husband-and-wife team Joal and Lauren Kamps who record under the moniker of Flint and Feather. Presumably fans of the heavy-light duality of sound in band names (Iron Butterfly, Led Zeppelin and … Pillow Fist? Cement Snowflake? Concrete Peach? Cotton Jimmy. Please, feel free. Just remember where you got it).

As for F&F, the duo, which leans towards the genuine, sincere, harmonic and honest side of folk-pop songwriting, has just released a pair of new offerings to get spring started. Hear the buds, um, bud in the effortlessly sunny and sweet The Very Thing I Fear and co-single We Belong Together, which is just a goddamn delightful starry-sky. moon-shot of a love proclamation.

Like a James Taylor and Carole King collaboration, or, more precisely, a prairie Once, the pair are the right side of pleasant and pleasing without finding the valley of too precious.

Keeping the streak of lovely summer strummers alive, we turn next to Edmonton country artist Andrea Nixon and her heart-tugging new beauty Barbed Wire Dreams.

With a trail of accolades and acclaim stretching back a decade, Nixon adds to her impressive resume with a superb precursor to an album of the same name — the first full length since Nixon’s 2017 debut Diary of a Housewife.

Written with longtime collaborator Bobby Cameron, musically the track is a walk through knee-high, bitter sweetgrass and thistles, a promise of better days, better damn things to come, maybe, wrapped in the sadness of summer-in-the-city, fair-ground, melted-ice-cream stickiness. It’s a messy stickiness, that obviously robbed Nixon of something, but which produced something hopefully more meaningful — an Emmylou-esque song about surviving dream-stealers.

Had it on a loop for 40 minutes. You might do the same.

Check out andreanixon.com for more about the Alberta artist and watch for updates on future releases.

If it be punk rock and roll of the old-school variety, perhaps monsieur can recommend the Any Which Way (right turn, Clyde).

Specifically, their song Blamefree, of recent but cask-aged vintage. The local ogp crew is fronted by longtime DJ, musician and Ship and Anchor Punk Rock Bingo legend Sabo Forte (a.k.a. Robey Stothart) and featuring fellow sonic stalwarts Scott Parrell, Josh Jones, Mike Pardy and Chuck E. Deadman.

This first fistic volley is a go-ask-your-folks amalgamation of early, predominantly American punk pioneers, such as Fear, Black Flack and Husker Du, with a little Huevos surf and twang, and at times, with Stothart’s vocal delivery especially, a little snotty British spit and sneer. It’s got some grit and muscle to go along with the attitude, which makes it a pretty forceful kind of excellent.

Check out the locally shot video for Blamefree by Dog Driver Media, and aim to catch Any Which Way out live Saturday, May 24 when they perform as part of the International Avenue music and food festival, East Town Get Down (easttowngetdown.org).

My love of Lucky Sonne is not something I hide. Band played my housewarming. I think frontman Luke Colborne is one of this part of the world’s finest songwriters, truly, and partnered with producer multi-instrumentalist Arran Fisher, they make one of Alberta’s most exciting and impressive roots acts — in their own world, happy to share it with us.

So an “election surprise” drop of a new EP from Lucky Sonne is a campaign promise we can all get behind. And it delivers.

“The record’s title speaks vaguely to the creeping emergence of a modern cultural ice age; the chilling of human relations; and an invisible border – the frostline,” Colborne said in a dm.

“This is a not a political record, but it is very much a record for our times.

“These were the first 6 songs across the finish line after Arran and I decided to get back in the studio. We had demoed 12 about a year ago, but decided to go EP rather than full length to lighten our individual as well as collective load.

“We wanted this EP to represent our stage sound, so we kept production simple and recorded ‘feel’ tracks (guitar, lead vocals, bass and drums) live off the floor.”

The six-song effort is predictably exceptional and only further cements the legend of Lucky. Opener Walking Tall (b:c we’re right) is a shambling, hony-tonk rambler, with Colborne acting as casual observer to the absurdity of life today; Greenland, ED couldn’t be a prettier and more vulnerable of a country-pop love song/apology; and chug-chugging Dylanesque closer Tears In the Eye of My Hurricane is Spanky feeding Froggy salteens, so thirsty for a libation does it fucking make you.

Keep an eye out for Lucky Sonne dates and pick up the EP — and past glories — from their official Bandcamp site.

Before you do, have a listen to the track Return of the Prodigal Sonne. You’re welcome.

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In fact, in the next couple of days, expect a review of the spectacular new release from Joile Laide and an interview with Sargeant X Comrade, who are releasing their new album on Thursday, May 1, with a show at the Ironwood.

Sound Up.