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Black Belt Eagle Scout - moniker of Swinomish, WA-based multi-instrumentalist Katherine Paul - returns with a new single, “Don’t Give Up.” This is Black Belt Eagle Scout’s first new release since 2019’s At the Party With My Brown Friends, an album “encased in swirls of dream-pop production…[that] represents a softer, more subtle sort of resistance” (Pitchfork), and her debut, Mother of My Children. Throughout “Don’t Give Up,” Paul’s heartfelt vocals are wrapped in gauze, rising over guitar, percussion, and mellotron. "‘Don’t Give Up’ is a song about mental health awareness and the importance that my connection to the land plays within my own mental health journey,” says Paul. She wrote the track over the course of two years, first starting right before the pandemic in 2020 at a songwriting residency in Coast Salish territory and ending in November 2021 while attending that same residency again.
She elaborates: “Spending time with the land and on the water are ways that strengthen my connection to my ancestors and to my culture. It helps heal my spirit and is the form of self-care that helps me the most. The lyrics ‘I don’t give up’ mean staying alive. I wrote this song for me but also for my community and anyone who deals with challenging mental health issues to remind us just how much of a role our connection to the environment plays within our healing process. At the end of the song when I sing ‘the land, the water, the sky,’ I wanted to sing it like my late grandfather Alexander Paul Sr. sang in our family’s big drum group - from the heart."
With Trying Not to Have a Thought, Algernon Cadwallader juggle intrinsic musical connection and shrewd lyrical intention with remarkable poise. The album’s title perfectly captures that dual approach: the effort to resist being mentally bogged down by the bottomless list of daily atrocities, and the band’s decision to let their unspoken connection guide this rejuvenated take on their classic sound. “This is just what comes out of us when these four people get in a room,” Helmis says. And this record is exactly that: an Algernon Cadwallader album that's leisurely, intensely, tremendously their own.
The 21st installment of Saddle Creek’s Document series features Whitmer Thomas, a multi-hyphenate whose unique vision has percolated across a range of mediums including TV, film, podcasts, and music. Tilt was recorded in Los Angeles with Jay Som and features contributions from Ian Farmer (Slaughter Beach Dog, Modern Baseball).
With I Hope We Can Still Be Friends, his debut for Saddle Creek, Dean Johnson makes a pact with the listener: He will sing you his truth in the most heartfelt and charming way possible, if you promise to keep an open mind.
