Best Indie/Pop/Folk - May 2020

Indie Music 2020 // Alternative, Folk, Rock, Punk, Ska Reggae, Pop, Singer-Songwriter - Part 1

Fingerpicking Acoustic / Guitar-centred Indie Folk

Mood Spirals

Moochin' About

Track credits: 

Melody and Lyrics: Elena Loper (2019)
Guitar: Elena Loper (2019)
Recorded and Mixed by: Johnny Bregar, Brickyard Studio (2020)
Mastered by: Ed Brooks, Resonant Mastering (2021)

Album art photo: Tiffany Tomkinson of Center Point Photography (2021)

Album cover design by Bridget Beorse (2021)

Music & Lyrics: Elena Loper © 2019

Lyrics: 

Warm winds and curling oak trees
Scattered in a golden field
Lakes and creeks and colored clouds
Housed a truth I’d concealed 

I heard it in the sanctuary
I sang it in secret to the eaves
Strength came to tell you
On a summer Paso breeze
 To love, to love with ease


There’s a blue canyon of syntax separating you and me
Your spirit spins up and out and around in apogee 

I heard it in the sanctuary
I sang it in secret to the eaves
Strength came to tell you
On a summer Paso breeze
 To love, to love with ease


Fear my oldest friend
Told me to wait and wait and wait
And anticipate every disaster
But our friendship’s at an end
Since feeling and fate they heal us faster 

About this track: 

“Blue Canyon” is my attempt to capture, in song, a magical afternoon: I was driving through the hills of the California Coast during the ‘golden hour,’ while on a summertime tour with my Dravus House bandmate. I was nostalgic for this day before it even ended, and set out to write a song about it. 

On this day, even though the grass in the hills was dry and dead, just before sunset, the hills took on a glowing aura. After the sun went down, we drove through the hills near the coast at dusk until we reached the canyons that lead down to towns along the Pacific Ocean. There’s something about that post-sunset time anywhere along the West Coast, where mountains and the ocean seem to take on hundreds of shades of the most magnificent blues.  

(Earlier that day, we had visited a relative of my bandmates who was not well. I loved connecting with him, and it gave me a poignant gratitude for the ability to pursue playing music and doing what we love.) 

“Blue Canyon” is about feeling incredibly lucky for companionship and friendship- the kind of friendship that sparks admiration, speaks to your soul, and kindles bravery inside yourself you never knew you had. 

“Blue Canyon” has a reference to a line from an e. e. cummings poem: “since feeling is first, who pays any attention to the syntax of things”. To me, this line and poem are about pursuing sensation, the spiritual, the intuition, the intangible... as a way to propel you forward in life. 

I generally feel so much more comfortable operating in ‘left-brain’ mode - as an analytical writer, working at a library, making spreadsheets, etc. “Blue Canyon” is a reminder to myself to be bold enough to create, and to pursue feeling through my experiences, rather than intellectualizing them. It’s about looking at life holistically, rather than getting bogged down by the details. 

It’s also a song of gratitude, of friendship, for my musical partner in my duo project...for all of the wonderful moments we’ve spent together playing shows and taking our music on the road around the PNW and the west coast. 

I wanted this song to be the first single I put out under my own name, to honor my bandmate in Dravus House as we pursue solo musical projects for the time being.

Blue Canyon

Our Endless Numbered Days

Naked as We Came

The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan

Don't Think Twice, It's All Right

Scarlet

Nothing To Hold On To

Ruthless Cupid

Some Kind Of Perfect

Joshua Hyslop - Gentle Heart

Come My Way

Download/Stream "Six Feet Apart": AlecBenjamin.lnk.to/SixFeetApartSO

Pre-order 'These Two Windows': https://AlecBenjamin.lnk.to/TheseTwoWindows


Follow Alec Benjamin
http://alecbenjamin.com
https://www.facebook.com/AlecBenjaminMusic
https://twitter.com/alecbenjamin
https://www.instagram.com/alecbenjamin
https://soundcloud.com/alecbenjamin

Six Feet Apart

Stream my new single ‘Can You Hear Me’ -  https://fanlink.to/AnsonCYHM
Text Me! +18162088349

Anson Seabra Merch: https://shop.ansonseabra.com

• Socials
instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ansonseabra/
twitter: https://twitter.com/ansonseabra
facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ansonseabra/
soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/ansonseabra
twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/ansonseabraofficial
tik tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ansonseabra

lyrics:
I've been chasing the pavement,
I've been sleeping with strangers,
dealing in danger,
passing by faces so cold

I've been running to places,
I've been broken and nameless,
hopeless and shamed,
I've never been so low

Zoom out to everything
Zoom into me
Zoom out to tragedy
Zoom into me

Can you hear me out there
Can you help me I'm scared
Can you lift me, can you give me
a sign
Can you beat back the night
Can you make things alright
Can you hold me, can you show me
the light

All alone in the basement
Where it's always the same and
Nothing can change and no one can see
me cry

I don't know how to face it
I don't know how to name it, know who to blame but
nothing seems alright

Zoom out to everything
Zoom into me
Zoom out to tragedy
Zoom in to me

Can you hear me out there
Can you help me I'm scared
Can you lift me, can you give me
a sign
Can you beat back the night
Can you make things alright
Can you hold me, can you show me
the light

(Humming)

Can you hear me out there
Can you help me I'm scared
Can you lift me, can you give me
a sign
Can you beat back the night
Can you make things alright
Can you hold me, can you show me
the light

Can You Hear Me

Written and Produced by Phil Danyew
Drums by Dan Bailey
Mixed By Carlos de la Garza
Mastered by Dave Cooley at Elysian Masters

My Muse (lyrics)

Take me where you want for the thrill
We got a little time to kill
The moment is a jaw to fill
Oh you crept behind the gods in my hallway
Swept me like a fever in all ways
Now there’s nothing I can do 
You’re my muse you’re my muse

Be mine be mine awe
Like it was always the beginning of time
The only people just you and I
Be mine be mine awe
Don’t cry
I promise you I’ll be fine
No nothing could go awry
When we’re together it’s all right

Secrets I’ll keep ‘em safe
Whisper through the ether strain 
I know there’s magic in your DNA
Oh I swam until the river was empty
Sank into the black hole inside me 
You woke me up with hazel & blue
Then I knew, you’re my muse

Be mine be mine awe
Like it was always the beginning of time
The only people just you and I
Be mine be mine awe
Don’t cry
I promise you I’ll be fine
No nothing could go awry
When we’re together it’s all right

it’s all right

Be mine be mine awe
Like it was always the beginning of time
The only people just you and I
Be mine be mine awe
Don’t cry
I promise you I’ll be fine
No nothing could go awry
When we’re together it’s all right

My Muse

A Hero's Death

Beautiful Anyway

Let Me Down

Born in Amsterdam, Robin Cause first held a guitar at 12 years old and has rarely put it down ever since. A life of music at home led to him hitting the road at 19 years old with just a backpack and guitar. Robin soon found himself dropped off by a truck driver at a dropzone in northern California. While at The Parachute Center, Robin made friends with Darrel Dier who is a professional gambler that just moved into a tent one month earlier next to the airplane hangar. A friendship formed in the two weeks Robin spent at the airport that would mould into a kindred bond as Darrel became Robin's songwriter. Over two cross country road trips, the two went to Fame Studio in Muscle Shoals, Alabama plus another trip to continue writing and recording in Ventnor, Isle of Wight. With the focus being on the creative process, Batshit and Robin Records was born from a vision for the future of music.