Old Fellas New Music
Episode 109
Alanna Matty – Kitchen Scissors
Anna B Savage – The Ghost
Man/Woman/Chainsaw – Only Girl
Billy Strings – Mill Town Flood
Durutti Column – Echoes in the Memory
Begonia – Hotter Than the Sun
Jayhawks – Keeping Our Heads Above Water
Jack Johnson & Hermanos Gutierrez – Hold On To the Light
Boards of Canada – Father and Son
Anna B Savage – The Ghost
From the Amplifier – a great music source, a new playlist every week!!
Where does love go — like, energetically speaking — after the relationship that contained it ends? That’s the question that the British singer-songwriter Anna B Savage stares down in “The Ghost,” a quivering, emotionally raw incantation that begins her gripping new album, “In/Flux.” “I thought you were gone, but six years on, you’re back again,” Savage sings through gritted teeth before unlatching her jaw to let out a keening plea: “Stop haunting me, please.” There’s a rattling immediacy to Savage’s music; she writes like someone with a direct, unimpeded channel to her innermost feelings. “The Orange,” the album’s cautiously optimistic closer, provides a satisfying counterpoint to “The Ghost” and, I’d venture, a pretty good ending to this little playlist. “My new love is wind in the poplar trees,” Savage sings, finally free of the ghost’s interruptions and able to take stock of the simple pleasures all around her: “Round pebbles, poetry/Orange peel hacked on my knee.”
from Wikipedia: Savage released her debut EP on 1 June 2015, titled EP.[3][1] In June 2020, she released the single “Dead Pursuits”.[4] In January 2021, she released her debut studio album, A Common Turn.[2][5] In 2022, she released the single “The Ghost”, which was produced by Mike Lindsay, and included on her second album.[6] She performed the song live at Village Underground, London, on 28 March 2023.[7]
Her second studio album, In Flux, was released on 17 February 2023.[8][9] She released her third studio album, You & I Are Earth, on 24 January 2025.[1]
If that’s not enough new music, Jon Pareles and I have 9 more song recommendations for you in this week’s Playlist.
Yours in imagining Kim Gordon meeting Cookie Monster,
Lindsay
Mill Town Flood – Billy Strings
The singer and virtuoso guitar player shares how his mother’s death inspired his new album, “So Much for Goodbyes.”
Aug. 8, 2026
Billy Strings has drawn from something old to do something entirely new. The singer and virtuoso guitarist, who is 33, has broken ground by using the elements of traditional bluegrass to become an arena-filling, chart-topping phenomenon, straddling the worlds of roots music and jam bands. Along the way he has also acquired a Deadhead-like legion of fans who follow his tours from concert to concert.
I started this interview – really interesting.
and here is the interview
Begonia – Hotter Than the Sun
Alexa Dirks, also known by her stage name Begonia, is a Canadian pop singer and songwriter.[1] She is most noted for her 2019 album Fear, which was longlisted for the 2020 Polaris Music Prize[2] and shortlisted for the Juno Award for Adult Alternative Album of the Year at the Juno Awards of 2021.[3]
and this year too for Fantasy Life
Begonia – Hotter Than The Sun (Official Video)
The pounding in my head, the making of my bed
Some things I’m quick to tend to, others overwhelm me, yeah yeah yeah
I’ll often therapize, then intellectualize
Why there’s something inside that makes me want to hate myself
[Verse 2]
My need for validation (led to a)
Self asphyxiation (which made me)
Up my medication
Oh, and then an
Everyday sedation (fueled my bi)
Bisexual frustration (so I bought)
Bought cigs at service stations
‘Till the novеlty wore thin
“I can honestly say with this record that I’m accepting myself now fully for the first time. I feel like I’ve said that before but this time I actually mean it. I’m not saying it’s easy but it’s far less exhausting then trying to fit in anyone else’s version of who I should be. I’ve always struggled with a very loud inner hater and I feel like making this song is attempting some kind of scruffy diy exorcism. I’ll let you know how I feel the more I sing it.”
MORE ABOUT BEGONIA + FANTASY LIFE
The stage name of Winnipeg entertainer Alexa Dirks, Begonia has many stories to tell, many iterations of life to walk you through, and she takes her fans on the journey with a stumbling grace and an uncanny wit. A true sight to behold, sometimes clunky but always beautifully and refreshingly entertaining. Begonia crafts some of the most honest pop music out there. With her new record Fantasy Life, she’s simply at the top of her game. There’s more risk, more complex vocals, more pop diva mania, more feeling, more truth, and more fantasy.
Jack Johnson & Hermanos Gutierrez – Hold On To the Light
a great article from the NY Times that made me choose something from his latest album
Stressed? Overwhelmed? Have You Tried Being Jack Johnson Instead?
His frozen-in-time anthems, odes to going with the flow, are the soundtrack to a summer of “hopecore.”
here’s a bit
As the house lights crept up, Jack Johnson ambled — does he move at any other speed? — down the center aisle of a Manhattan movie theater.
It was a rainy Monday night, and “SURFILMUSIC,” a documentary about the singer-songwriter’s enviously low-cortisol life, had just screened at Angelika Film Center. At 51, Johnson hovers an inch or two below the rarefied air of household-name status. His catalog of unassuming beach pop is a staple at many a white-walled brunch spot where drinks come in Mason jars. “Banana Pancakes,” his song about, among other things, the tyranny of getting out of bed, has more than 750 million streams on Spotify. He is the soundtrack for a Sunday drive in a sensible hybrid vehicle, and, these days, his original devotees are, like him, navigating the turns of midlife. Surprisingly (or not), some of their kids have become Jack Johnson fans, too.
Alanna Matty – “Kitchen Scissors – Epilogue
Alanna Matty is a Canadian singer-songwriter and producer. Her last album Subject to Change was nominated for Pop Album of the Year by Music Nova Scotia, and the companion album “Epilogue” was just released on August 4th. The single is featured here.
Man/Woman/Chainsaw – “Only Girl” – Cannonball
Man/Woman/Chainsaw is basically Billy Ward and Vera Leppänen . They began way back when they were 14 at school. They released their debut EP in November 2024, By 2025, the band was named as one of NME’s 100 Essential Emerging Artists. Their new full length album is Cannonball. The NME loves these guys.
Only Girl is the featured single.
Man/Woman/Chainsaw – Only Girl (Single Version)
Durutti Column – “Echoes in the Morning” – Renascent
The Durutti Column is in essence, Vini Reilly. He has been making and releasing music since 1978. He was among the first acts signed to Factory Records by label founder Tony Wilson. For a background into Wilson and Factory records, there was a pretty fair movie made in 2002 called 24 Hour Party People starring Steve Coogan as Wilson.
Renascent is the 28th album by Durutti Column. The first since 2010’s A Paean to Wilson.
The selected song is pretty representative of the band.
The Durutti Column – Sketch For Summer
Jayhawks – “Keeping Our Heads Above Water” single Sanctuary Park
The Jayhawks are an American band originating from Minnesota. They have released eleven studio albums. After going on hiatus from 2005 to 2009, the 1995 lineup of the band reunited and released the album Mockingbird Time in September 2011. I became hooked on The Jayhawks when I heard this song way back in 1992.
They have a new record coming out . Keeping our Heads Above Water is a taste.
Here’s a nice little set from NPR’s Tiny Desk Series in 2016.
Boards of Canada – “Father and Son”- Inferno
Boards of Canada are two Scottish brothers who have been making electronic music since 1986. The band is named after the National Film Board of Canada as the brothers spent a brief period living in Canada while their father, who worked in construction, took part in the project to build the Calgary Saddledome.
Although they have been releasing music since 1998, this is only the 5th album. My selected track:
Pitchfork and a random YouTube Reviewer chime in.
Next week’s show will be on Sunday at 11:00 AM EDT
Whole-Hearted 