Browsing Tag folk
Werner’s Weekly (week 36)
This is Werner’s Weekly, your compass to the music that matters, containing the two most recent Carte Blanche Music Wildcards, and the best of the other new releases in alphabetical order:
- Lush Puppy – Ms. Grey (Wildcard this week)
- Nicolah – Holiday (Wildcard last week)
- Ana & The Changes – Differences
- beabadoobee – She Plays Bass
- Raffaella – Ballerina
- Union Duke – 123
- Zuzu – Get Off [2019 Version]
Click the links for more info and listen to each of the tracks via the Werner’s Weekly player below. Only Differences by Ana & The Changes is not available on Spotify yet.
For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist. Also added last week: Cigarettes After Sex, Sheryl Crow & St. Vincent, Beth Hart, Alphabeat, Sløtface, and many more.

I’m a music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Have been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, I developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart. CEO of Werner Bros. tekst | uitleg.
Union Duke – 123
For American artists combining genres like country, folk, pop and rock, the term ‘Americana’ was invented. So why not call this melting pot ‘Canadiana’ when served up by musicians from Canada? Union Duke is a great example of an act qualifying for this umbrella genre.
Following the release of their second album Golden Days, in 2016, the band have been touring constantly. Thereafter, they went into the studio, ready to share their lessons learned. They came out with a tape full of songs about love, distance, heartache and revelry. These will come out over the coming months.
123 is their fourth single in 2019 already. Union Duke explain: “The original plan was to write a balls-to-the-wall drinking diddy with shades of psychedelia and no social commentary. Apparently, we’re too jaded for that now. Pretty quickly, it turned into a song about being young and getting drunk as a desperate act of escapism.”
For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist.

I’m a music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Have been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, I developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart. CEO of Werner Bros. tekst | uitleg.
Werner’s Weekly (week 32)
This is Werner’s Weekly, your compass to the music that matters, containing the two most recent Carte Blanche Music Wildcards, and the best of the other new releases in alphabetical order:
- Tape Toy – Sad Girl (Wildcard this week)
- Baker Grace – Sad Summer (Wildcard last week)
- Kesha – Best Day [Angry Birds 2 Remix]
- Lola Marsh – Echoes
- Prince – Holly Rock
- Sheppard – Kiss My Fat Ass
- Wallis Bird – Salve!
Click the links for more info and listen to each of the tracks via the Werner’s Weekly player below.
For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist. Also added last week: Haim, Nouvelle Vague feat. Julie Delpy, MisterWives, and many more.

I’m a music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Have been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, I developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart. CEO of Werner Bros. tekst | uitleg.
Lola Marsh – Echoes
Lola Marsh is formed by Tel Aviv, Israel-based lead vocalist Gil Landau and multi-instrumentalist Yael Shoshana Cohen. They came to prominence in 2014, when they played the Primavera Sound festival in Barcelona as a five-piece band.
Inspired by artists ranging from Edith Piaf to Sufjan Stevens, their catchy, cinematic indie-pop combines folk and surf music. Listening to their new single Echoes makes me think of a Quentin Tarantino directed Wild West movie. It sounds like an up-tempo Lana Del Rey track, if you will.
Lola Marsh say about the song: “Echoes is about that feeling you sometimes have when you want to disappear, but at the same time, want to be found. That scary beautiful moment just before falling asleep, when you are the most lonesome version of yourself.”
For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist.

I’m a music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Have been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, I developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart. CEO of Werner Bros. tekst | uitleg.
Werner’s Weekly (week 24)
This is Werner’s Weekly, your compass to the music that matters, containing the two most recent Carte Blanche Music Wildcards, and the best of the other new releases in alphabetical order:
- Rammstein – Ausländer (Wildcard this week)
- boy pablo – 50 Souls And A Discobowl (Wildcard last week)
- Lucy Spraggan – Today Was A Good Day
- Mosa – Losts And Founds
- Otherkin – On And On
- The Allergies feat. Andy Cooper – 2 Much!
- The New Nostalgia – Fragile Bones
Click the links for more info and listen to each of the tracks via the Werner’s Weekly player below.
For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist. Also added last week: Death Cab For Cutie, The Divine Comedy, Fatboy Slim, Jovanotti (with Dardust), Liam Gallagher, Machine Gun Kelly (with Yungblud & Travis Barker), Sofi Tukker & Bomba Estéreo, and many more.

I’m a music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Have been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, I developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart. CEO of Werner Bros. tekst | uitleg.
Lucy Spraggan – Today Was A Good Day
At 19, Lucy Spraggan had the guts to play her own song Last Night (Bear Fear) during her participation in X Factor 2012. While still in the show, it became a Top 20 hit, and her self-released debut album hit the charts as well.
A month ago, she put out her fifth long-player Today Was A Good Day. It’s a confident album full of musical stories, inspired by real-life themes such as marrying her girlfriend and fostering children together. Spraggan explains: “We’ve had 14 kids stay with us so far. We are also trying for our own child so we will see what happens. All this has played a huge part in my writing. It’s an album about growing up.”
The title track is one of the quieter songs on the record, where the singer is accompanied by only an acoustic guitar and strings, to great effect. This would be a wonderful single!
For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist.

I’m a music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Have been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, I developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart. CEO of Werner Bros. tekst | uitleg.
Bess Atwell – Swimming Pool
Bess Hildick-Smith, known by her stage name Bess Atwell, grew up in the English countryside, one of four children to an eclectic family of artists, songwriters and doctors. Soon after starting her own musical career, she was described in the press as ‘a promising folk poet of suppression and inner anxiety’ and ‘a gifted singer-songwriter with a voice like slow, cool water’. Eventually, her former solo project evolved into a full band affair, incorporating traces of traditional folk music with newer indie-rock influences.
Atwell’s just-released EP Big Blue includes the new tracks Harvested and Ventnor Villas. The other three songs have been issued as singles via Spotify, but were never actively promoted outside her home country. Swimming Pool, which was met with praise in late 2018, now gets a proper promotional treatment outside the UK. A romantic yet realistic song, influenced by the likes of The National, Fleet Foxes, and Sharon Van Etten.
For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist.

I’m a music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Have been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, I developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart. CEO of Werner Bros. tekst | uitleg.
Werner’s Weekly (week 15)
This is Werner’s Weekly, your compass to the music that matters, containing the two most recent Carte Blanche Music Wildcards, and the best of the other new releases in alphabetical order. No complaints about diversity, I’d say, 6 out of the 7 being female(-fronted) acts:
- Georgia – About Work The Dancefloor (Wildcard this week)
- Maggie Lindemann – Friends Go (Wildcard last week)
- Moddi – Kriegspiel
- Self Esteem – Girl Crush
- Stefanie Heinzmann – You Get Me
- The Veronicas – Think Of Me
- Yonaka – Lose Our Heads
Click the links for more info and listen to each of the tracks via the Werner’s Weekly player below.
For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist. Also added last week: Alex Lahey, Circa Waves, The Heavy, Vampire Weekend, whenyoung, and many more.

I’m a music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Have been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, I developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart. CEO of Werner Bros. tekst | uitleg.
Moddi – Kriegspiel
Moddi is the stage name of Pål Moddi Knutsen, a progressive folk musician from Norway. I first heard about him in 2016, when he released the album Unsongs, comprising songs that had been banned throughout the world. I was especially struck by the song A Matter Of Habit, originally by Israeli singer Izhar Ashdot and at the time forbidden because of its anti-military lyrics.
Last week, Moddi released Kriegspiel. His cheeriest tune to date, which also has one of the darkest backdrops. In an Instagram post, the singer explains the song is about the former Norwegian border inspector Frode Berg, who is facing a Russian court this week, charged with attempting espionage against the Russian Navy on behalf of the Norwegian Intelligence Services. Ever since his arrest, Norwegian politicians and government officials have remained silent about the case and referred to it as ‘a consular matter’.
Moddi, however, wants to tell Frode Berg’s story and wrote this wonderful song about it. A song that needs to be heard.
For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist.

I’m a music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Have been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, I developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart. CEO of Werner Bros. tekst | uitleg.
Mighty Oaks – Driftwood Seat
Eight years have passed since Ian Hooper, Craig Saunders, and Claudio Donzelli of Berlin-based band Mighty Oaks self-released their first EP Driftwood Seat. Although the collection was never officially released – not supported by a label anyway – the songs garnered several hundred thousand plays on SoundCloud.
While working on their third album, the band decided to have another go at the four songs on the EP that started their career, and whose title track closed almost every show over the years. The new recording reflects the current change over time: not a radical rework but a natural evolution.
For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist.

I’m a music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Have been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, I developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart. CEO of Werner Bros. tekst | uitleg.