Produced in-house by Furr, The Spirit marks E.Z. Shakes’ dreamiest, darkest, and most driving work to date. What began taking shape as an acoustic duo in 2017 — the year Seibert first teamed up with Hicks, looking to pair his own left-of-center country songwriting with Hick’s spacey pedal steel — has since turned into a cinematic band, its sound rooted in the stomp and swagger of five musicians who’ve all made unique marks upon the fertile music community of Columbia, South Carolina.
On their second LP, Columbia’s E.Z. Shakes expand what they can be by getting closer to who they were in the first place.
The songs are more narrative-driven, but they still chase quandaries of good and evil, faith and disbelief. They accomplish this by focusing on singer-songwriter Zach Seibert’s experience growing up, bouncing from town to town and church to church with hippie parents, the source of his spiritual wanderlust.
Listen to this week’s State of the Art Spotify playlist featuring:
8 Inch Betsy – Arise (Baby Robot Records)
Amyl and the Sniffers – Gacked on Anger – Live At the Croxton
This Way to the EGRESS – Gravedigger
The Nude Party – Lonely Heather
Stuffy Shmitt – Jim’s Dad
Mallrat – Rockstar
Lazerbeak – Feels
A$AP Ferg, Nicki Minaj, MadeinTYO – Move Ya Hips
Left at London – Choke
Tkay Maidza, Kari Faux – Don’t Call Again
Misty Boyce – story of skin
Anna of the North – Someone Special
Wyatt Blair, $ugar Bae – Gimme Gimme
EG Vines – Them
Cayley Thomas- Midnight Hours
*repeat repeat – Wind in My Sail
Ron Gallo – PLEASE DON’T DIE
Tuk Smith & The Restless Hearts – Lookin’ For Love, Ready For War
Bob Mould – Siberian Butterfly
Death Valley Girls – Under the Spell of Joy
Pup – Rot
Skegss – Fantasising
Downtown Boys – L’Internationale ( Sub Pop)
Night Birds – Barred Out
Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth) – Cantaloupe
Scout Durwood – Sexually Implicit (Blue Elan Records)
Black Geez, Eto, Crissy – Streets All Day
Rakim Ali – Nosferatu
Blu & Exile – Blue
Injury Reserve, Jockstrap – Robert
Nuvolascura – For Their Own Diversions
Boneflower- Tangled
Tough Age – My Life’s a Joke and I’m Throwing it Away
Year of the Knife – virtual narcotic
Constant Elevation- Krs Two
MIKE- love supremacy
The Budos Band – Long in the Tooth
Listen to this week’s Captain Americana Spotify playlist featuring:
Wayne Graham – Pay Phone – single edit (K&F Records)
Katie Pruitt – Look the Other Way
Ned Hill – Take Me out of This World(WhistlePig Records)
Stuffy Shmitt – Jim’s Dad
Tender Creature – Count to Five
Laura Rabell – Are You Feeling
The Savants of Soul – Something
Joe Stamm Band – Good Times
Juana Everett – Until the Sky Ain’t Blue
GoldenOak – Maple Spring
Sammy Kay – Methamphetamines
Sam Morrow – Round ‘n Round
Anna Ash – Dream a Little Dream of Me
Earl St. Clair – Sober
Emily Keener – Do You Love Me Lately?
Tre Burt, Leyla McCalla, Allison Russell, Sunny War – Under the Devil’s Knee
Holy Motors – Trouble
Tim Heidecker – Fear of Death
Bettye LaVette – Black Bird
ERIC SELBY – Anxious Zen
PAPA ROSKO – Folsom Prison Blues (Johnny Cash cover)
Freddy & Francine – What Did You Do With My Love
Thomm Jutz – Pieta
Mike McClure – Your kind of Blue
Megan and Shane – Daffodil
Steep Canyon Rangers – Honey on My Tongue
James Coates – One Last Ride
Paisly Fields – Other Boys
Karen Jonas – Pink Leather Boots
Sally & George – Fish for Free
Caamp – Officer of Love
Bronte Fall – Freeway High
“It’s more efficient to be without pain”—for years, this mysterious line was floating around inside James Houlahan’s head. It wasn’t a voice that the L.A.-based indie-folk artist immediately recognized as his own. Still, it intrigued him. “It was something I could almost hear Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy sing,” Houlahan says. “It was much more snarky and tongue-in-cheek than anything I’d written before.”
Eventually, the moment struck and from these words a fully formed song materialized. “What Is Our Love” is the lead single from Houlahan’s new record Ordinary Eye, set to release on November 20th. The song delivers its sly, sarcastic comedy in the most disarmingly earnest musical packaging.
Indiana-based David Quinn is gearing up to release his sophomore LP, Letting Go (out Oct. 23). Most of the songs on his second solo album came to him during a ramble around the Midwestern countryside. The barnstorming “Thunderbird Wine” and woe-is-me “I Hope I Don’t” integrate a wide range of influences—from Texas outlaws to Bakersfield badasses, from Southern rock heroes to Nashville cats. Wherever he rambles, however, Quinn remains rooted in Midwestern soil, “It always comes back to John Prine,” he says. “I got started in the Midwest, so he’s somebody I love.”