Trapper Schoepp – “Kate Blood”
-Maybe it’s because his name’s Trapper and he writes songs like he’s from the early 20th century, but I have trouble hearing Trapper Schoepp’s music as anything but Americana. Bringing back the sad, tragic, and emotional songwriting of yesteryear, Schoepp reminds me a bit of Colter Wall. While the vocal is quite different, the overall vibe is certainly timeless and engaging. I could listen to this style of narrative storytelling for hours and hours. I appreciate how the instrumentation calls on equal parts classic country and mid century folk music. To quote Kristofferson, “if it sounds country, man, it’s country.” I guess this emotional track is a bit of all of these things and we’re happy to support it here.
Seth Gallant – “Summer of the Strike”
-I’m a sucker for a good labor folk song. It’s hard to find good music in this subgenre of working people’s storytelling. But it’s well in the tradition of folks like Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger to tell the stories of workers. There’s an emotional connotation to this song that resonates with any of us who grew up in post industrial areas. Gallant’s command of the acoustic style is evident. The song carries this historical weight of economic inequality and the pain that so often accompanies it. It’s a ballad for a generation and deserves to be widely heard.
Chace Rains – “HouseGhost”
-If you’re looking for a gritty-yet-upbeat Americana tune, look no further than Chace Rains. The line “who is the ghost in my house?” really hits on this one. Something about Rains reminds me of a mashup of some of the new country/Americana artists that are forging a new path forward. It’s aggressive, yet captures a sentiment of justified self defense. This is not a whiny breakup song; this is a declaration of purpose and moving on out of necessity. The emotions are raw and real. It’s nice to hear someone is bold enough to express these difficult yet honest emotions about a relationship split. The gritty instrumentation is a perfect fit for the hard message.
Image courtesy: Trapper Schoepp IG
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