Tag Archives: USA

Reviews for Jack Nolan’s Album ‘Jindabyne’

August 27, 2023 Marshall Cullen

Jack Nolan Released and Launched his New Album ‘Jindabyne’ earlier this month and
now the Reviews are in – here are a selection of some standouts and the links.
Recorded to tape in Nashville and with players like this theres no wonder folks are raving about it.
Producer guitarist Justin Weaver (The Chicks/Wynonna Judd), drummer Jimmy Paxson (Lindsey Buckingham/The Chicks/Ben Harper) and bassist Chris Autry (Josh Turner/Lee Anne Womack).

“As I’m listening through Jindabyne, I’m taken aback. It’s such a solid, mature, full-bodied album of unflinchingly well-written songs. He’s not fucking around.”
Coyote Music

“Perhaps the delay worked in Jindabyne’s favor as it’s rare to hear such a coherent and complete collection. It’s Jack Nolan’s finest moment yet.”
Curious For Music

[About the last track ‘All The Ships In The Ocean’]
“This one is also reflective of the recent pandemic…At one point he asks the question, “What’s a nation?/Does anyone know?” When the world gets all weird, some of the questions that, at one time would have had easy answers, start to get overly complicated.”
Skype Magazine

““Jindabyne” has a quiet grandeur, with Jack Nolan’s robust and assured voice telling tales from lives lived most fully.”
Beach Sloth

“As a true purveyor of Americana, Jack stays true to the staples of roots music while also taking the genre to a fresher perspective with his Aussie twist. Named after the New South Wales town of the same name, “JINDABYNE” feels familiar, yet nostalgic, as it truly bridges two distant sides of the world, as if there was no ocean between them!”
Ghost Blog

The Album
Jack Nolan’s JINDABYNE, released August 4

The same band assembled again to record, with no backing tracks, all but live to tape – and why wouldn’t you

The album’s title is lifted from the ever so sweet ‘Solo Sailor’ that lets us in on a journey. Other highlights include, the up-tempo ‘She Knew’ where nothing’s perfect, but she knew he loved her, and her knowing that will have to do for now, and the timeless finger picker, ‘All The Ships In The Ocean’.

Two years of stolen liberties has only hardened Jack’s resolve, to remain forever suspicious of rule makers and even more dedicated to his ongoing contribution to art, to song writing. JINDABYNE is a record for this year, where we are all staggering on after two years of madness, and we have all arrived back to that place we had drifted too far from, the simple things, love and reality, family, and community.

Based in Sydney, Australia, singer songwriter Jack Nolan has been performing and releasing music and albums since the mid 1990’s. Along with a six-album solo catalogue Jack also fronted The Kelly Gang, with Rick Grossman, bassist for The Divinyls and Hoodoo Gurus along with Midnight Oil drummer Rob Hirst and guitar player Martin Rotsey. Their 2004 album Looking for the Sun is still considered a hidden gem, with an incredible line-up of musicians that delivered passionate and energetic live shows of the time.

Within Nolan’s music, mysterious and shimmering chords unite his sound. Once quaintly described as ‘Darlinghurst Country’ his sound unites elements of folk, country, rock ‘n’ roll and ambient atmospheres fusing Nolan’s passion for intensely charged electric guitar and finger-picked acoustic guitar.

Of recent years, the critically acclaimed 2018 album ‘Our Waverley Star’ was followed by the equally impressive 2020 outing ‘Gabriel’. It was these two outings that cemented Nolan’s love of recording in Nashville, with guitarist/producer Justin Weaver (Dixie Chicks/Wynonna Judd). What started with a one-off phone call, developed into an alliance that Nolan describes as “arriving in town, in the northern winter, when everyone’s off the road, with my swag of songs to greet all the boys again to collaborate”.

Performing in & around the traps Jack’s Australian band includes Travis New (Andrew Farris/Imogen Clark) on guitar, Tim Samson (Christine Anu/Andrew Farris) on bass and long time drummer & Hamish Stuart (Don Walker/Ian Moss et al).

Jindabyne album is OUT NOW
Quay Records

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Jack Nolan Releases Album ‘Jindabyne’

August 4, 2023 Marshall Cullen

Following his successful Album launch at The Clovelly Bowlo last night (August 3) the long delayed(see below) full length LP is now Out Today(August 4)

Jack Nolan’s JINDABYNE, was so frustratingly delayed by that virus. This is an album that waited in the wings while lockdowns and rules ran their course. “March 2020 the world was turned on its axis and we all went into lockdown –suddenly there were no certainties in life; this created a sense of urgency in me, so I made a conscious decision not to waste the time and went to work writing JINDABYNE. As soon as I could post lockdown, I was booked and took off back to the US.”

The same band assembled again to record, with no backing tracks, all but live to tape – and why wouldn’t you with personnel like producer guitarist Justin Weaver (The Chicks/Wynonna Judd), drummer Jimmy Paxson (Lindsey Buckingham/The Chicks/Ben Harper) and bassist Chris Autry (Josh Turner/Lee Anne Womack).

Jindabyne album is OUT NOW
Quay Records

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Jack Nolan’s Latest Single ‘Solo Sailor’ from Upcoming ‘Jindabyne’ Album and Live Launch

July 7, 2023 Marshall Cullen

Just ahead of the Album launch and release next month Jack Nolan will be Ross M Fear’s studio guest on Alive 90.5 fm Australian Spectrum Show 9pm Tuesday 11 July 203 featuring a steal preview of his latest album “Jindabyne”.

The new single is Solo Sailor – see below for details including the Live Album Launch

Documenting the loss of a distant complicated man, ‘Solo Sailor’ is a soft farewell capturing a send off, a silent understanding reached, of melancholy and a life lived by the water. With an acoustic guitar augmented beautifully with a simple electric line and understated backing band, this is an ocean journey where the writer asks all fellow mariners to give the man right of way as he makes his way home. In true singer songwriter style ‘Solo Sailor’ is surely an acoustic playlist contender.

A deep cut ballad from the new Jack Nolan album: Jindabyne (released 4 August). Solo Sailor features distinctive slide and picked guitar, lush backing vocals, ambient drum backing and more than enough ducking and weaving through the textures of the song arrangement and lyrics to hold your interest.

‘JINDABYNE Album Launch’

Book here – Tickets
Thursday 3 August, 2023
From 7pm
First 50 ticket sales will receive a copy of the LP on arrival.
Clovelly Bowling & Recreation Club
1 Ocean Street Clovelly, NSW 2031

Based in Sydney, Australia, singer songwriter Jack Nolan has been performing and releasing music and albums since the mid 1990’s. Along with a six-album solo catalogue Jack also fronted The Kelly Gang, with Rick Grossman, bassist for The Divinyls and Hoodoo Gurus along with Midnight Oil drummer Rob Hirst and guitar player Martin Rotsey. Their 2004 album ‘Looking for the Sun’ is still considered a hidden gem, with an incredible line-up of musicians that delivered passionate and energetic live shows of the time.

Of recent years, the critically acclaimed 2018 album ‘Our Waverley Star’ was followed by the equally impressive 2020 outing ‘Gabriel’ – both long players being ethereal story books and rich song collections. It was these two outings that cemented Nolan’s love of the working town Nashville, an association with guitarist/producer Justin Weaver (Dixie Chicks/Wynonna Judd) that started with a one-off phone call and developed into an alliance that Nolan describes as “arriving in town, in the northern winter, when everyone’s off the road, with my swag of songs to greet all the boys again to collaborate”.

Performing in & around the traps, Jack’s Australian band includes Travis New (Andrew Farris/Imogen Clark) on guitar, Tim Samson (Christne Anu/Andrew Farris) on bass and long time drummer & Hamish Stuart (Don Walker/Ian Moss et al).

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Jack Nolan Releases Single ‘She Knew’

March 17, 2023 Marshall Cullen

SHE KNEW is the fourth cut from Jack’s next LP set for release mid ’23.

What started as a little fingerpicker became one punchy alt folk pop number that grabs you from the top. Featuring Jack’s Gretsch fingerpicking hanging off Justin Weavers powerful electric guitar hooks, this song moves along at the pace of a storyteller running away. Like so much of Jack’s music, regret, joy, love, and redemption all play a part in this poetic soundscape.

Jack Nolan has delivered a true rocker for his new single. Electric guitars start the tune, a fast drum beat and classic arrangement make the tune ear catching and accessible straight away. This one would sit alongside classics Tom Petty, Paul Kelly and Springsteen for sure.

“Driving down to my mining town

I was swerving

I turned the wheel

I was drifting lanes

He’d broken down in traffic

I told her I loved her

She Knew”

And when all is said and done you can only do what’s possible; you can only be responsible for yourself.

About Jack Nolan

Based in Sydney, Australia, singer songwriter Jack Nolan has been performing and releasing music since the mid 1990’s. Along with a five-album solo catalogue Jack also fronted The Kelly Gang, with Rick Grossman, bassist for The Divinyls and Hoodoo Gurus, along with Midnight Oil drummer Rob Hirst and guitar player Martin Rotsey. Their 2004 album Looking for the Sun was critically adored along with their energetic live shows.

Once quaintly described as ‘Darlinghurst Country’, his sound unites elements of folk, country, rock ‘n’ roll and ambient atmospheres fusing Nolan’s passion for intensely charged electric guitar and finger-picked acoustic guitar.

The critically acclaimed 2018 album ‘Our Waverley Star’ was followed up by the equally impressive ‘Gabriel’. It was these two American outings that cemented Nolan’s love of Nashville and built from a connection with guitarist/producer Justin Weaver that started with a one-off phone call and developed into an alliance that Nolan describes as ‘Team America’. What’s now become a regular jaunt is an opportunity for Nolan to get away from all the distractions of home, and “arrive in town, in the northern winter, when everyone’s off the road, with my swag of songs to greet all the boys again to collaborate”.

Jack’s new album – JINDABYNE – is set for release thus year. This album has waited in the wings while lockdowns and rules meant the guitar took on a whole new meaning. “I arrived home from Nashville in early March 2020 with ‘Gabriel’ ready for mastering. One week later, the world turned on its axis and – lockdown. This created a sense of urgency in me, so I made a conscious decision not to waste the time and went to work writing JINDABYNE. As soon as the plane could fly I was booked and took off back to the US”.

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Jack Nolan Releases New Single ‘Oh My Darling’

January 12, 2023 Marshall Cullen

Oh My Darling is the third cut from Jack’s fifth solo album release ’23. A love so deep but a resignation, where you must stand by & watch the one you love work through a process where nothing you say can help, where all you can do is stand by & be there when it gets too much. Here’s yet another step, a story adding to Jack’s commitment of producing one album per annum because ultimately the best promotion is the hard work, the output, the live shows & the letting go of outcomes, the life.

Oh my darling

There’s nothing I can do

I will row the boat my darling

That I promise you

Oh my darling

There’s nothing I can say

I’ve played around with versus

Only words get in the way

Based in Sydney, Australia, singer songwriter Jack Nolan has been performing and releasing music since the mid 1990’s. Along with a five-album solo catalogue Jack also fronted The Kelly Gang, with Rick Grossman, bassist for The Divinyls and Hoodoo Gurus along with Midnight Oil drummer Rob Hirst and guitar player Martin Rotsey. Their 2004 album Looking for the Sun was critically adored along with their energetic live shows.

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Jack Nolan Releases New Single ‘Reading Minds’

December 9, 2022 Marshall Cullen

READING MINDS is the second cut from Jack’s next LP set for release March ’23. This is a farewell, a song that sees the flag at half-mast.

There’s a backstory, and in this one instance, I’ve decided to repeat it. We were two little boys with our families buying ice creams. I was more friendly with his younger brother in my schoolyear, but on this day, I recall a tap on the shoulder, to turn around & watch my soon to be friend reach into a cabinet to take a handful of cigarette lighters. It was right then, that very act of delinquency, where I thought “he’s going to be my friend”
We became best friends, and we were lucky to survive as long as we did.

Cut to 1994, we’d reached a nadir & I ended the ride, I wanted him to join me, and for a while he did, but jail cells and more catastrophe awaited him.
It’s been a while now, but yea, he’s been on my mind. Where is he? Maybe he’s in the Bardo. Is it addiction, is it mental illness, is it both? Who knows.
I know for the last five years or so he’d spent a lot of time in and out of a psychosis of some sort, things were said, we lost touch, but we both know what the truth is.

Nobody likes talking about suicide, but I’ve come to thinking that maybe he couldn’t help it, and that horrific act serves as the ultimate statement of the failures we’ve all created, where the only way out for some of us, is to end it.
There’s simply no way to try and make sense of it all but maybe a song will help. Reading Minds is a deep pulse, delivered by the brilliant Jimmy Paxon @jimmypaxon & Chris ‘Cowboy’ Auty @autbra11 that floats my eerie Gretsch finger picker around a masterful Justin Weaver @notnotweaver soundscape & production.

“Farewell friend
Sleep softly now
Sleep softly I will be
Lost in a dream myself
Yeah maybe it was me
That made my mind up like a fool
Call me that don’t call me cruel
It could be worse it could be me
You are reading minds”

Music was our first and lasting bond, I know he would have loved this track.

Basic Credits
By Jack Nolan
Produced by Justin Weaver
Recorded @ Welcome to 1979 Nashville, February, 2022
Engineered by Chris Mara
Mixed by Mitch Furr @ Early Bird Studio Nashville
Mastered by Bobbi Giel @ Welcome to 1979

Personnel Credits
Jack Nolan – Vocals & guitars
Justin Weaver – Electric & acoustic guitars
Jimmy Paxson – Drums & percussion
Chris Autry – Bass guitar

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Darlene Koldenhoven’s new album has reached #1 on the Soundslikecafe instrumental chart

November 27, 2022 Marshall Cullen

GRAMMY® Award Winner and 3 time Nominee Darlene Koldenhoven’s new album ‘Traveling the Blissful Highway’ has been cruising up the Soundslikecafe charts since its release in October and has now hit the number 1 instrumental album spot!!

Not only that but the single ‘Jade Dreams’ is hanging out at number 2 on the overall top 10.

Click below for the chart:

The album also had local Australian articles in Scenestr magazine and Whats My Scene. Darlene was recently interviewed across the pond for Aparna Vats Point of View show on Alive 90.5 fm Sydney.

The chart position isn’t surprising considering these great reviews of the album below:

It is some of the most relaxing and
dreamy music you will have the pleasure of enjoying – a slice of heaven.
– Keith “Muzik Man” Hannaleck, New Age Music Reviews, Founder 7/18/22

The music of “Traveling the Blissful Highway” is colored with many colors, as if you are enthusiastically
leafing through a color album of a wonderful photographer who captured the most beautiful landscapes
that he met on his way. And each new page is even more beautiful… There is sophistication and a lot of the
smallest nuances in its perfect sounding music. A wonderful end to a hard day, bringing peace to the soul
and clearing the mind of worries.
– Serge Kozlovsky, Minsk, Belarus skozlovsky.com 7/30/22

“Traveling the Blissful Highway is an album you will want as your musical companion, to help make your life
joumey a more enjoyable and beautiful discovery. Darlene’s experience and exposure to varied cultures,
countries and traditions have contributed positively to her broad and diverse vision of humanity and our
world which comes through in her musical compositions and especially shines on this album.”
-Lizzette Cascante, Aurelscapes 8/3/22

Travel with Darlene Koldenhoven and her musicians on the blissful highway in her new album that features twelve instrumental tracks including four with her angelic, harmonic vocalese, occasionally used as background instrumentation. All of her compositions and arrangements invite us to go out and see the world and have a good rest at the end of an exquisite day. There are 53:46 minutes of colorful timbres and some nature sounds to keep you balanced, focused, refreshed, and joyfully relaxed. Darlene performs on keyboard synths, creating a culture of calm: half the album has ethnic influences to gently keep you going on the road and half lets you exit to the rest areas. Even when real travel is not in the picture, pack these traveling soundscapes for your inner and outer journey. With this album, the only passport you’ll need for these destination cities – peace, calm, happiness and bliss is your own mindfulness to visit them and the album as your tour guide.

About

GRAMMY® Award Winner and 3 time Nominee, Darlene Koldenhoven is a vocalist, pianist, composer, arranger, lyricist, speaker, and sonic therapist from Studio City, CA, born and raised in Chicago, IL. Her last two albums, “The Grand Piano Spa” and “The Grand Piano Spa: Legacy” debuted on the prestigious Billboard Classical Crossover Charts at #4 and #8, respectively in May & November 2021.

She was inducted to the Indie Music Hall of Fame at the GRAMMY® Museum in 2019 by the Indie Music Channel Awards and the COVR Award hailed her “Chromatones” as Album of the Year a few months later. Several of her albums ranked #1 on the worldwide ZMR Radio Charts and she has 2 Best New Age Vocal Album and Best Holiday Album from ZMR.

Darlene is best known worldwide as the featured soprano in “Yanni, Live at the Acropolis” and for her role as the tambourine-waving choir nun in both “Sister Act” films with Whoopi Goldberg.

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Cody and the Blackouts – New Album – Living Asleep

October 18, 2021 Marshall Cullen

Cody and The Blackouts(USA)
Living Asleep (12 Track Album)

Release Date: October 20 (Chance Music) All Digital Platforms

Extrapolation, n:An educated guess or hypothesis. To extrapolate isto use observations about a current situation to make a prediction.

‘Extrapolation’ is not a word you’d expect to find in a modern pop song, but there it is in the title track of the thoughtful and heartfelt debut album by Los Angeles band Cody And The Blackouts:

“Present finally caught up to my past / Surprised my house of cards had been built to last / Extrapolation – gift and a curse / It helps connect the dots but can make things worse” (Living Asleep).

He’s the lead singer and keys player in the band, but Cody Hudock’s most striking asset is his songwriting. Notable LA music blog, Buzzbands.la, held up Hudock’s work to “any number of rock-Americana greats and piano-wielding popsmiths who can seize the moment with a single couplet … owing to Hudock’s often-cutting, always-earnest lyrics, the Blackouts come off as the band most likely to have put down their history textbooks long enough raise hell at the local bar.”

A dab hand with a lyric, Hudock often takes a song title and runs with it, as in “I’m gonna crack the code / it’s just a matter of time” (Matter of Time), or “All I’m asking for’s the last word” (The Last Word). Even the album’s closing track, tender piano ballad Love Song To You, pre-empts its own chorus as Hudock vows to “learn the vocab to say what I felt”.

There he goes, extrapolating again.

Cody Hudock was born into a family of songwriters. He learned the trade from his father and older brother, Jordan, who also plays keys on Living Asleep. After acquiring early performance experience playing keys in Jordan’s bands, Cody wrote and released 3 EPs between 2011 and 2015 under the moniker Cody The Band, and the ambitiously titled The Great American Album LP under his own name in 2016. The LP garnered some delirious word of mouth, with LA blog The 704 gushing, “If there were an award for ‘greatest living songwriter you’ve never heard of’, then Cody Hudock’s sterling solo effort would place him firmly in the running.”

Rounding out the Blackouts are guitarist Jimmy Holman, drummer Brent Stranathan and bassist Will Weissman, with Joanna Hudock on backing vocals. Joanna shines on the country-tinged I Confess, a duet with husband Cody, And contributes celestial harmonies to the choruses of several other songs on the album.

Recorded at Hollywood studio Elephant In The Room, produced by Ethan Kaufmann (Avril Lavigne, Wild Party) and Brent Stranathan, and mixed by veteran Capitol Records engineer Chandler Harrod (John Mayer, Neil Young), Living Asleep captures the unique studio chemistry of Cody And The Blackoutslike lightning in a bottle.

From the pop-cultural history lessons of opening track Time Stood Still (the band’s head-turning 2020 debut single), through the pendulum swing of Matter of Time, to the hook-laden pop bauble Sister Sister, Living Asleep extrapolates an uncommon range and versatility. As for predictions, heed the title of the album’s penultimate song: Somehow I’ll Make Good. Believe it.

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Living Asleep is Released In Australia by Chance Music

Videos

Cody and The Blackouts – Time Stood Still(Official)

Video October 6, 2020 Marshall Cullen

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Loren Evarts- Newest album Home Again

May 15, 2018 Marshall Cullen

Loren Evarts newest album Home Again

Home Again is the 6th original album, of this amazing contemporary pianist. It revisits several pieces previously recorded by Loren in the 1980’s, and eight new ones. It was produced by Grammy award winner Will Ackerman (Windham Hill Records) at his Imaginary Road studio in West River valley, Windham County, Vermont and was engineered by Tom Eaton.

Featuring Grammy-winning artists and Grammy-nominated Artists Eugene Friesen on cello (Paul Winter, Trio Globo), Rhonda Larson on many types of flutes (Paul Winter, Ventus) and Jeff Haynes on percussion (Pat Metheny, Pete Seeger), bassist Tony Levin (Peter Gabriel and King Crimson).

Besides Piano, Loren Evarts has been known to perform by singing, trombone, hammered dulcimer and organ.

Loren has performed professionally in the Connecticut area of USA in a variety of musical situations for over 40 years. He has been grateful to have been involved in performances with artists such as Dave Weckl (Chick Corea), Gerry Neiwood (Chuck Mangione), Everett Silver (Chuck Mangione), Mike Davis (Rolling Stones), Danny Stiles (Bill Watrous), Fred Vigdor (Average White Band), Rhonda Larson (Paul Winter Consort).

About Loren Evarts:

I was in first grade when I heard a fellow classmate play the piano, and I said, “Hey, I want to do that, too.” Of course, I had no idea that you had to practice, which made me think twice about my choice. But due to frequent beatings from my mom, I persisted, Partially kidding!

I started playing classical piano at age 7, but like a lot of kids, I started listening to pop radio in middle school. Fortunately, I was allowed to stick in a few popular tunes in my lessons along with the serious music. In high school I started to get influenced by jazz. My biggest influences were bands like Chicago and Tower of Power, Elton John, James Taylor, Carole King, Jazz singer Al Jarreau, and jazz pianists like Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock and Liz Story.

What can a crowd expect at a live show?

My music is probably best described as a mix of new age, jazz, classical and world. It’s piano-based but sometimes I will add a percussionist, bassist or woodwind player for concerts.

What are your future plans for 2018/2019?

Well, I am an American so, like many of my fellow citizens, I am looking to survive until 2020(enough on politics). But otherwise, At my stage of the game, I just want to put out a good product, and I hope to write some new material now that my newest album has been released. And that means I have to sit down at the piano and start! I am always gratified when people enjoy my music. I no longer crave being a big star. It’s nice being in this place.

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