Blue Balloon

A decade in the making, this is the fifth album and first live publication for Portland-based singer-songwriter, Emilia Dahlin titled, “…Green Things To Grow”. Dahlin, also an activist who’s interested in how to use music to build healthier communities, transformed an industrial warehouse on Portland’s Fore River waterfront into a pop-up venue for a one-evening community event last fall. Handcrafted stages and walls embraced listeners sitting at long, candle-lit tables and the audience shared a hot middle-eastern meal made by a New Neighbor together before the show. The audience and musicians made music as a whole and two local Non-profits were invited to speak about their missions. The album captures the vital connected feel of this special night.

Welsh trio with a predilection for delivering stadium-sized riffs with shoegazey vistas and dreamy post-punk riffage, The Joy Formidable return with their stunning new album Into The Blue.

The third and last of Bear Family's Everly box sets, Chained to a Memory 1966-1972, chronicles the final act of the Everly Brothers' prime years, beginning just after the duo started to shake their mid-'60s doldrums and documenting their subsequent revival as they shifted to country-rock, the sound they continued to mine until their acrimonious split in 1973. This is a weighty set, containing a hefty hardcover book and a bonus DVD in addition to ten CDs, but the extra length isn't merely Bear Family's modus operandi – it's needed to bring an end to a story this epic. Indeed, the music on Chained to a Memory is in some ways some of the most interesting the Everlys ever produced. As their star began to fade, the Everlys reconnected with their country beginnings, quite deliberately titling their 1968 makeover, Roots, finding a wealth of new sounds and sentiments within country-rock. They exhibited a keen ear for material from emerging songwriters, and they wrote some terrific new songs, songs that exhibited the widening chasm between the two brothers who shared a sound and continued to harmonize beautifully together even as their sensibilities began to drift apart.

Produced by Los Angeles-based producer, composer and conducted Clarence MacDonald, "Music On My Mind" featured mostly songs written specifically for Nancy by writers that included MacDonald, Deniece Williams, Lani Groves and Fritz Baskett. Recorded live at Capitol Records with a full complement of rhythm, strings, horns and background vocalists, the well-received album was both fitting for the times and for the pioneering songstress, then celebrating her 25th year as a recording artist at Capitol.

a 3048-paged downloadable eBook + personalized videos

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the band's debut album, Mystery Jets unleash "Curve Of The Earth", which finds the progressive British group stripping back some of its more shapeshifting tendencies to distill its essence. Considered one of the band's strongest, most personal and most coherent set of tracks to date, Curve Of The Earth displays influences from King Crimson and Pink Floyd and particularly highlights Mystery Jet's evolving songwriting skills.