Americana music is expansive, like America itself and talks to movement - traversing a mountain pass or burning along a highway. It can give you wanderlust even when you're locked down! With Frazey Ford, Waxahatchee, Courtney Marie Andrews, Marble Waves, BIg Thief et. al.

The opening lines of Courtney Marie Andrews’ new song If I Told, might do something to you. They did to me. They had me longing to travel again, specifically to L.A. but just to move, to go somewhere else. Americana music is expansive, like America itself, and talks to movement - traversing a mountain pass or burning along a highway. It brings on a bout of wanderlust even if you are locked firmly down. But then try this. Stick your headphones on and head to the park for a walk and listen in, and on New Americana Vol. 3! We’ll take you on a journey from Courtney Marie’s Venice Beach to Nicole Atkins’ boardwalks of the Jersey Shore. 

We have spent two months living apart together, locked down and finding our own ways through. Some can focus on creative work, some can catch-up on box sets, some have done their best to throw some structure around their days. Others are finding their concentration shot, or scattered. One thing we can all do perhaps, is listen better. Think about it. If your usual habit was to listen to music on your commute to work or school, how many distractions would you have to navigate that take you away from hearing the nuances in the music. 

In lockdown, use music to ease your anxiety, lift your mood, or indeed connect through the stories in the songs. Remember the last time you did wander along Santa Monica Boulevard or observed a Neon Skyline. On Vol.3 we take the usual broad church approach to Americana and go with the feel, the movement and the stories. The wealth of Americana sweeping through music’s landscape is remarkable. Waxahatchee and Frazey Ford have both released recent albums that remind one of other landmark albums of the genre such as Cat Power’s The Greatest or Hurray For The Riff Raff’s The Navigator. Something of the classic return to songwriting, understated but meticulous production and an unhurried pace, setting aside the gimmicks and tricks that have crept into the streamification of songs in recent times. A return to depth over the shiny, thin production of the top 100. 

We have some Showcase tracks this time from artists Marble Waves, Alex Nicol and Ben McGlaughlin, who have made new songs worthy of being placed alongside the established peers of the Americana scene. And the women of Americana continue to step up, whether they are simply experimenting with the form (nice to hear Rumer playing with Americana tropes in Bristlecone Pine, all the way from London) along with some of the best up & coming singer-songwriters from as far as New Zealand (Nadia Reid), Canada (Basia Bulat) and back again to England with Bess Atwell. 

What a perfect time to enjoy such slow music. Some of it will make you feel longing for a return to travel, to visit other cities, to exchange a few simple words of polite talk with a stranger, to take in unfamiliar awe of nature perhaps. A swim in the ocean or a long drive for the sake of it. Wanderlust. This is music to make you ready to feel what those experiences will be like, and how much you will appreciate them in whole new ways. Sooner or later.