For over a decade, singer/songwriter/Southerner Kim Ware has been crafting indie-folk songs full of heart and twang with her project Kim Ware and the Good Graces. On her latest album Ready, she’s digging deeper inside then ever before. The result is an album overflowing with brutal honesty, (often hilarious) youthful angst, and an emotional core that could melt even the most hardened of hearts. Join us as we sit down with Ware to discuss the new album, making music in isolation, teaming up with producer Jerry Lee, and much, much more.

PLUS! Music we love from Chicago’s Bitchin Bajas, some tasty guitar work from Jon Camp, and a whole lot more!

On their 11th album Strange To Explain, indie-folk band Woods isn't rocking the boat, they're just continuing in their tradition of making consistently exciting and slightly left-of-center folk psychedelia. We're digging into this dazzling release and making the case that Strange To Explain isn't just one of 2020's essential releases, it warrants a revisiting of this just-under-the radar band's entire career.

On an all-new episode of Discologist, we’re taking you on a musical journey with three great releases from three completely different genres. The first stop is the refined folk of North Carolina’s The Dead Tongues and their new album Transmigration Blues. Next, we’re moving on to the London scene and Ego Ella May’s uplifting Honey For Wounds. And finally, it’s back home for a history lesson with saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins’ stirring Blue Note debut, Omega.

Ripley Johnson’s Rose City Band project started as an act of wish fulfillment. One of the creative minds behind Wooden Shjips and Moon Duo just wanted to “start a country-rock band so I can retire and just play down at the pub every Thursday night during happy hour.” The resulting first album in 2019 was a hazy stroll through the morning dew of a not yet technicolor world. With hints of psychedelia and twang, it was a peak at the source of a style of music before it heads further out into the cosmos.

One year later, Johnson is back with Summerlong, an album that echoes Rose City Band’s quiet beginnings but imbues its primal sound with brightness and warmth that is worthy of its title. Brokedown Pod’s Jonathan Hart joins us to discuss this latest chapter in Ripley Johnson’s wild trip across the universe.

2017’s Semper Femina found Laura Marling examining the power of femininity and feminism in the modern age and was a breakout hit of that year. On her new LP, Song For Our Daughter, Marling continues that journey of discovery, exploring the tolls romantic relationships (and their dissolution) can have on women in today’s unrelenting patriarchy. Over ten songs, Marling firmly establishes herself as one of the songwriting giants and sets yet another high-water mark for her career.

John Moreland songs always could hit you straight in the heart, but on his latest effort, his deep baritone is resonating even deeper. His first album working with a producer (Matt Pence), LP5, finds new sounds and instrumentation seeping into what his fans have come to love about his music. The results are as surprising as they are revelatory, painting a picture of an artist who, twenty years into his career, is still evolving, still searching for some truth. 

PLUS! Elkhorn’s The Storm Sessions expands on the acid-folk duo’s sound with the help of their friend Turner Williams and an actual snowstorm. Tune in and drop out with their track “Electric One (Part B).” 

On their eighth LP Wave, Patrick Watson (the man) is figuring out how to stay afloat as personal tragedy and loss threaten to drown him in an ocean of hopelessness and despair. Lush, sophisticated, and at times transcendent, Wave isn’t just Patrick Watson’s (the band) best album, its ability to speak to not just personal pain, but the existential threats many are facing in 2019 make it a late entry in the race for one of best albums of the decade.

After several years working behind the scenes, the legendary Raphael Saadiq returns to the spotlight to deliver his most personal, and compelling album to date. Jerry Lee (named after his brother who was an addict who died of AIDS) takes a profoundly human look at not just the consequences of addiction, but the underlying causes. Oppression comes in many forms in this world, and Saadiq explores that theme with compassion, an understanding of just how deeply all of us are connected, and a belief that it is only love that can save us in the end.

On his latest album, I Love You. It’s a Fever Dream., Kristian Matsson aka The Tallest Man On Earth is, in part, following in the grand tradition of “life on the road” albums. The road is fucking hard. The road is fucking TOUGH man…but does the world in 2019 need any more sad songs? Special guest Wes Covey joins us to discuss sad songs and much more on an all-new Discologist.

On paper, an album about heartache, anxiety, and ancient aliens doesn’t seem like something that would work (or should even exist), but on Pyramid Theories, Mink’s Miracle Medicine are singing about those themes and more resulting in their best release to date.

We’re catching up with the Melissa Wright of this Appalachian-based duo to dig into the trials of life as a creative, edibles, woodworking, aliens, and how their remarkable new album came to be.

On her new album Lake Accontink, Marian McLaughlin invites the listener along on her quest to try and make sense of the many ways in which we impact and are impacted by the environment, and what it all may mean in the long run. We’re sitting down with the Baltimore-based musician to talk about what inspired her self-described “music for the Anthropocene Epoch,” the perils of capitalism in the modern age, the joy of playing in a room with one-hundred other guitarists and much more!

Over the past few years, Israel Nash has been building a solid catalog of cosmic folk and country from his home-base in Dripping Springs, Texas, and his, ahem, uplifting new LP Lifted is the latest product of his time in the proverbial desert. PLUS we’re sitting down with Joachim Cooder to talk about his latest EP, Fuschia Machu Picchu!

Erin Rae joins us in the basement to talk about her stellar sophomore release Putting On Airs PLUS our review of Lori McKenna’s stellar new album, The Tree.

It's likely that we'll look back at 2017 as the year almost everything fell apart, downerism ruled the land, and we came very close to being broken as a people. 

But we didn't break. We made it. And on this final installment of ChunkyGlasses: The Podcast for 2017, we're discussing the music that lifted us up, dropped us down, and sometimes even showed us the way, but never, ever let us down.

Thanks for tuning in all year. We'll see you soon. Until then be good to your ears, but be better to your people...

Over the course of nine LP's Langhorne Slim (real name Sean Scolnick) has been crafting folk-pop gems that have taken him from small, backroom shows to the stages of the legendary Newport Folk Festival.

On his latest effort, Lost At Last, Vol. 1, having grown weary of the usual recording cycle and the daily pressures of always being connected, the singer/songwriter and his band "...holed up in a friend's house in San Francisco to rehearse about twenty-five songs for five days and headed up to Stinson Beach to play 'em live in a room all together and press record." 

The result? Nothing less than one of the best albums of 2017. An album that feels spontaneous yet lived in, with songs that are just the right salve at just the right time to help heal the spiritual wounds that this year has set upon us all. 

David Rawlings has made a career out of being the literal best. His work with Gillian Welch and under the moniker of The Dave Rawlings Machine isn't just a shining example of how "pure" music can succeed; it is peerless. With Poor David's Almanack,  Rawlings and crew are growing up (the Machine is no more) and digging deep into the traditions that continue to shape their musical direction and legacy.

PLUS! The duo of Penny & Sparrow is taking Nashville, and the world by storm with their pop/folk sensibilities and stunning harmonies. Get acquainted with the track "Double Heart" off their latest LP, Wendigo, out now!

Together, Melissa Wright and Daniel Zezinski are known as Mink's Miracle Medicine, and from their trailer in Harpers Ferry, WVA they're making music that might just heal what ails ya. On their first full-length House of Candles, the duo explores country, folk, and even punk traditions to deliver a stripped down set of poignant (and often hilarious) songs centered around relationships, small-town life, and existing in the modern age. Recently the duo paid a visit to the basement to talk about minimalism, Patsy Cline, the joy of a good riding mower and much, much more.

PLUS! DC synth-pop "revivalists" Loi Loi are dropping a five song EP on Blight Records later this year, but you can check out the first track "1985" right here, and right now!

From his stint with the legendary Drive-By Truckers, to a run of solo albums with his band the 400 Unit, it's always been clear that Jason Isbell is a master songwriter. With 2013's Southeastern, a newly sober Isbell was embraced by the world at large and has been winning awards and selling out shows ever since. 

On The Nashville Sound, Isbell is putting his band front and center and delivering some of the strongest songs of his career...except one. Join Kevin, Paul, Eduardo, and Marcus (Dowling) as they dig deep into this national treasure's latest, consider the art of songwriting, and take a serious look at what being woke in 2017 can, and should mean. 

PLUS! We've got a killer track of of Mink's Miracle Medicine's debut LP, House Of Candles! Fans of Neko Case/Patsy Cline... GET IN HERE!

Over the course of 6 albums Laura Marling has proved that she's a force to be reckoned with. On her latest effort, Semper Femina, set out to explore her relationship to feminism, femininity and relationships in a modern age, and the result is a flat-out masterpiece. Join us as we gush over this unexpected triumph of feelzcore. 

PLUS! Swedish prog/jazz rockers brought their latest album Haxan to US shores recently and blew a lot of minds in the process. Buy the ticket and take the ride with a track from their latest atmospheric masterpiece.