Another Monday Morning Brew playlist for those that favour human curation over algorithm. The Monday Morning Brew playlist is sent to our paid Substack Subscribers every week. Substack membership helps keep the ball rolling here at KLOF Mag which began life 21 years ago – Sign up here.
Iron & Wine and Ben Bridwell open this week’s Brew with Ab’s Song, their unhurried take on the Marshall Tucker Band classic from 2015’s Sing Into My Mouth — an album we reviewed and whose creators we interviewed at length on these pages. It’s a fitting way in: warm harmonies, an easy generosity between friends, and a reminder that the best cover versions are born from a genuine passion for the music rather than imitation.
From there, the playlist fans out. Meg Baird‘s The Waltze of the Tennis Players, from her 2007 solo debut album Dear Companion, has that Espers characteristic movement between folk melody and impressionistic experimentation. Rozi Plain‘s Roof Rook Crook Crow catches her in her element — understated, rhythmically curious, built on those signature short repeated riffs. Sally Anne Morgan‘s Beekeeper, the banjo instrumental that opens her Thrill Jockey album Carrying, and Sarah Louise‘s Daybreak sit side by side here, two musicians whose work with each other as House and Land has helped define a strain of Appalachian music that feels both rooted and genuinely modern.
Jim Ghedi‘s Phoenix Works, from A Hymn for Ancient Land, an album we called “a timely reminder of the potency of art,” brings its Sheffield grit and robust intensity, while James Elkington‘s Ever-Roving Eye is all intricate, tumbling fingerpicking and restless compositional intelligence. Sam Amidon‘s Little Johnny Brown — a track from his eclectic back catalogue — sits comfortably alongside the late Michael Hurley‘s Hoot Owls, a meeting of two artists whose deeply individual approaches to traditional material have long been championed on these pages.
The Weather Station‘s Know It to See It, Brigid Mae Power‘s reading of Townes Van Zandt’s I’ll Be Here in the Morning, Fruit Bats‘ Discovering, and Jolie Holland‘s Roll My Blues all make their case. And closing out the middle stretch, the late Jack Rose‘s Dark Was The Night which serves as a reminder of how much his playing continues to resonate through the work of those who followed.
Elsewhere: Luluc, Great Aunt Ida, Larkin Grimm, Great Lake Swimmers, Tim Eriksen, Dead Goat, Mountain Man, First Aid Kit, Woods, My Bubba, Dawn McCarthy, and Kacy & Clayton round out a playlist that covers a lot of ground without ever losing its thread.
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