Kristin Andreassen
Kiss Me Hello
Featured Download: "Crayola Doesn't Make a Color for Your Eyes " MP3

Borne from organic environs—specifically, a communal farmhouse in rural Maryland—the charming Kiss Me Hello suggests a whiff of patchouli, patchwork quilts and verdant country gardens. Kristin Andreassen finds her muse in the rhythms of life.

Taking leave from her band Uncle Earl, Andreassen opts for stripped-down settings. Several spry songs reflect a homespun humor that complements her unpretentious approach. The opener, “Crayola Doesn’t Make a Color for Your Eyes,” is sung practically a capella to a tap-dancing rhythm. The sprawling “My Crazy” and the trudging banjo/fiddle accompaniment for “Fly” further enhance the lo-fi milieu. So, too, the elegiac, half-lit lament “Like the Snow” and the folk-flavored “Pale Moon” probe deeper emotions buried beneath these unadorned trappings.

myspace.com/kristinandreassen

Five Times August
Brighter Side
Featured Download: "Who You Are " MP3

There’s something vaguely familiar about Five Times August, a one-man band helmed by 24-year-old Dallas native Brad Skistimas. His honey-sweet vocals bring to mind John Mayer, projecting an attitude that meshes effusive yearning with wide-eyed enthusiasm. Still, Five Times August is singularly appealing, both for the quality of Skistimas’ songs and breezy tone that pervades the set.

Brighter Side continues the upward trajectory established by its predecessor, the aptly-titled Independent, which sold 13,000 copies and tallied airtime on some 30 network television programs. With “Giving It All to You,” “The Good Life,” “Beautiful Girls” and “It’s Not Over” projecting its architect’s amiable outlook, look for this sophomore set to find similar success.

fivetimesaugust.com

Jacob Golden
Revenge Songs
Featured Download: "Out Come the Wolves" MP3

Revenge Songs may seem an ominous handle, but California singer-songwriter Jacob Golden makes music that’s anything but. Intimate and embracing, it radiates from hidden spaces—bedrooms, a subterranean art gallery and even underground parking garages.

Golden retains a freewheeling, bohemian mindset in keeping with his DIY aesthetic. Songs like “Hold Your Hair Back,” “Zero Integrity,” “Shine a Light” and the title track are reflective and revealing. Golden provides a pathway to his innermost soul, ruminating with a brutal honesty that strips him to his emotional core. The arrangements are rooted in these hushed circumstances, but they undulate and billow with a captivating sound.

jacobgolden.com

Lisa Hake
Tree Over Sea
Featured Download: "Logging Saw" MP3

Lisa Hake has an unusual backstory. An ophthalmologist by trade, she gave up her practice to move to Ireland and pursue a full-time music career. The result is an affable effort informed by contemplative musings and quiet deliberation.

Hake’s folk-like finesse casts the material in serene environs, from the breezy, ambling “In Limbo” to the plucky rhythms of “Faint of Heart” and “Man-Made.” However, Hake finds deeper connection with the lovely “Logging Saw” and “Love Is What’s Left,” songs that radiate with clearly etched emotion. Delicate and unobtrusive, Tree Over Sea finds Hake’s talents just beginning to blossom.

lisahake.com

Terri Hendrix
The Spiritual Kind
Featured Download: "Acre of Land" MP3

Over the course of nine albums and a dozen years, Terri Hendrix has been writing about the ironies and observations of everyday existence. Her last effort, 2004’s The Art of Removing Wallpaper, found her chronicling adversity in depth and despair, but her new album signals a renewed optimism that’s as insightful as ever.

“My career has been all about the winding journey and not so much the destination,” Hendrix insists. “With The Spiritual Kind I had one goal—make my fan base happy and satisfied that they spent a bit of their gas money on my music. I think we succeeded.”

That confidence is well founded. The album’s imbued with instantly embracing melodies and songs that detail life as defined by today’s challenges and circumstance. The jaunty “Life’s a Song” sets up this scenario, while “Bottom of the Hill,” “Acre of Land” and the pointedly barbed “Things Change” skewer life’s follies and offer encouragement for dealing with a modern malaise. A Woody Guthrie remake (“Pastures of Plenty”) and a touching discourse on maintaining optimism and equilibrium (“If I Had a Daughter”) enhance self-described themes of “spirituality, hope, the working class and the love of song.”

Veteran producer Lloyd Maines and a seasoned backing band help maintain the album’s earthy ambiance. “I’ve been blessed to work with the same players since 1996,” Hendrix notes. “They know what I like melodically, and I know to let them play and leave them be. I think it’s important to stay out of the way. These players won’t walk on the lyrics. And Lloyd’s a good coach to make everything come together as it should when it should.”

terrihendrix.com

Courtney Jones
Awake & Dreaming
Featured Download: "Relief" MP3

Given her authoritative delivery, it’s hard to believe that Awake & Dreaming marks Courtney Jones’ debut. Never mind the assists from respected session pros such as producer Peter Malick (Norah Jones), bassist Bob Glaub (Bob Dylan, Stevie Nicks) and drummer Butch Norton (Lucinda Williams, Tracy Chapman); Jones’ vibrant vocals and instantly infectious songs make her sound more like a seasoned veteran than a newcomer.

Opener “See Me” provides a bold intro as assertive as its title suggests, a solid bid for well-deserved recognition. Sounding like a compelling combination of Christine McVie, Annie Lennox and Bonnie Raitt, Jones turns emotive ballads like “Based on Real Life,” “Relief,” “Passenger” and “Change My Place” into plaintive torch songs of soul-searing intensity.

myspace.com/courtneyjonesmusic

Julia Jordan
Urban Legacy
Featured Download: "Revolution" MP3

Like willowy smoke rings lingering in the ether, Julia Jordan’s languid vocals smolder with a seductive glow. The daughter of guitar great Stanley Jordan, she embraces her jazz pedigree via a supple lilt and a drifting, unhurried sway.

Jordan blends a nightclub sensibility with the contemporary shadings of Norah Jones and Corinne Bailey Rae. Her beguiling melodies are unobtrusive yet mesmerizing. “Patience” exudes a sense of quiet contemplation, sung to the gentle strum of an acoustic guitar. The affecting ballad “Still Life With a Guitar” creates an intimacy that resonates long after its final notes fade. Likewise, the spunky, insistent “Naked” and the quiet samba “Revolution,” featuring her father, reflect the attitude and aptitude she expresses in equal measure.

juliajordanmusic.com

Alex Nackman
Still Life Moves
Featured Download: "A Letter" MP3

There’s a thin veil of tears underscoring this remarkably affecting fifth album by New York native Alex Nackman, a prolific young artist of unquestionable ability. His songs leave a lingering impression, their slow-burning melodies working their way into a seductive dissolve—a sound that’s ghostly and radiant by the same measure.

Nackman proffers the melancholy discourse of Nick Drake and Damien Rice, but he’s more than another tepid troubadour. The restrained urgency and plaintive desire imbedded in “A Letter,” “Memento” and “Beyond the Blame” make them all but unshakable. When festering emotions are finally unhinged with the surging “Berlin” and “Polaroid Face,” Nackman’s brittle nuances shift to bold and stirring refrains, a tenacity imbued with passion and purpose.

alexnackman.com

Rod Picott
Summerbirds
Featured Download: "Sinner's Prayer" MP3

Rod Picott’s fifth album finds the Maine singer-songwriter bidding for mainstream acceptance thanks to a series of carefully crafted songs that tally instant accessibility. Picott serves up a broad range of styles within his Americana template, molding them into a distinct sound.

All the proof needed is manifest in “Jealous Stars,” an exuberant opener that reflects Picott’s ability to parlay snappy rockers as surging power pop. The sound is skewed with “Sinner’s Prayer,” a contemplative ballad that brings to mind Steve Earle’s tangled deliberations, and “Just Like Love,” a swampy crawl that suggests a connection to Creedence Clearwater Revival. “Moscow, Idaho,” “You Can’t Talk to Me Like That Anymore” and “Little Bird” reflect Picott’s sensitive side, further reason why Summerbirds soars.

rodpicott.com

Brett Ryan Stewart
Necessary Lies
Featured Download: “Needle & Spoon” MP3

Claiming classic influences that run the gamut from Neil Young’s Harvest to the Who’s Who’s Next, Brett Ryan Stewart carves an enviable imprint on this sterling debut. Stewart’s music navigates a road atlas of emotions, from the insistent pulse of opener “Yet Again (Politic)” to the half-whispered drift of “Needle & Spoon” to the nocturnal deliberation of “Closer.” Even within a single song, he reveals an ability to temper cloaked ruminations with sheer elation, as manifest in the sweeping refrain of “Don’t You Ever.”

Lyrically, Stewart is equally agile. “I’m reaching out so I don’t cave in,” he declares on “Appalachian Heartache.” It’s a supple twist of wordplay from a talent worth watching.

brettryanstewart.com

Kate Tucker and the Sons of Sweden
Kate Tucker and the Sons of Sweden
Featured Download: “In the End” MP3

The self-titled debut by Seattle singer Kate Tucker and the curiously dubbed Sons of Sweden entices with a whisper rather than a scream through songs both beautiful and complex. Stirred from a mix of emotions—equal parts angst and anticipation—the music carries a mysterious undertow that’s genuinely affecting.

That sleepy suggestion takes root in Tucker’s ethereal vocals, which have been frequently compared to Beth Orton, Mazzy Star and Neko Case. Add Sinéad O’Connor to that list, given the emphatic desire that frames her delivery. “The Way You Went,” “The Hours” and “Saturday Night” find the band adding conviction to her caress, while a duet with Damien Jurado on “In the End” hints at even greater glories to come.

katetuckerandthesonsofsweden.com

LisaBeth Weber & Maggie Marshall
The Fire Tower Sessions
Featured Download: “Evergreens” MP3

Billing their latest collaboration as “songs ranging from the state of the world to the state of grace,” Weber and Marshall live up to that designation with these spirited bluegrass rambles and earnest folk anthems. Weber’s sweet vocals affirm a purity of purpose appropriate for these platitudes about the folly of war and the need to embrace our universal humanity.

The music is stripped to basics with Weber on guitar, Marshall on bass and assorted players contributing fiddle, mandolin, percussion and harmonies. The rootsy appeal of “Oyster,” “Evergreens” and “Trouble on My Mind” meshes with the duo’s back-porch sentiments, but ultimately, it’s the pair’s unabashed joy that leaves the most indelible impression.

lisabethandmaggie.com