Back due to popular demand – Annie Williams phenomenal record Visitor is now available on gold marbled vinyl. It’s a space-y swirl that is as captivating to look at as the album is to listen to.
Even better news: the vinyl is already in our hands and ready to ship. No extra waiting!
When Alex Caress told me of his situation involving the Lost Wave community, an album he recorded when he was 18 and a forthcoming Public Radio piece about the whole undertaking – I was shocked! I also got a twinge of familiarity, as I recalled something similar happening to Beth Cameron of forget cassettes / Black Bra.
Turns out, both Alex and Beth recorded music in their youth, had it find its way online in way form or another, be lost in some form or another and then be rediscovered. It is wild that such an event would happen to one person, much less two in the same social circle. Even more stunning, Alex and Beth used to be in the band Ponychase together – so the circle is closer even still.
I wanted to know more about these experiences, so I chatted with the both of them and put it into an episode of YK WORLD! We talk about the specifics of how the discoveries occurred but, more importantly, about how the experience felt learning that music you made as a kid had reached so many people, without your knowledge.
You can pick up the music of 2005 Alex Caress in his album i’m always here (2005) – more new songs on the way soon. You can find Beth’s early band Fair Verona over on Bandcamp but you’ll have to stick to YouTube to hear that LostWave track.
The episode is in your podcast app now. Find it on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, Overcast, etc etc.
Overjoyed to announce the new single from Jessica Breanne – “Over the Bayou.” The song is now streaming everywhere and the gorgeous new video awaits your eyeballs.
Directed by Brooke Bernard and DP’ed by Kevin Doyle, the video was shot in Caddo Lake in Uncertain, TX. Of the song, Breanne notes: “No matter how bad you miss it… sometimes you just can’t go back home.”
The single is the first peek at Breanne’s upcoming album, Electric Heart (due out Oct 16, 2025). More details to emerge as we get closer to that date but preorders are now open.
“Over the Bayou” is available on Bandcamp, Ampwall, Apple Music, Spotify and anywhere else you stream your music. Make sure you watch that video on YouTube in full screen!
Song Credits:
Written by, sung by: Jessica Breanne
Produced by: Jake Davis & Jessica Breanne
Guitar: John Fox, Sean Thompson
Bass: Jack Lawrence
Drums: T. Minton
Piano: Christina Norwood
Cello: Holden BitnerEngineer: Jake Davis
Recorded at Laughing Heart Studios & Big Planet
Inspired by the Earth’s greatest cataclysmic event, Miles Davis and experimental electronic sounds – sugar sk*-*lls and Coupler collab to create a three part composition traversing the stages of life, destruction and recreation – The Great Oxidation Event.
As the story was told to me, sugar sk*-*lls found themselves at Second Floor Recording Co. recording a longform improvisational piece. These electronic recordings would be handed off to Coupler with the intention of his mixing, editing and mutating the sounds into their final forms. This was a nod to the techniques used on Bitches Brew – a collaboration between Miles Davis and Teo Macero.
The 30-minute composition that emerged is best appreciated through full immersion, listening start to finish through the conceptual movements of the Earth’s changing environment. The sounds may conjure a sense of impending sense of dread, a desolate quiet and a dominating unease. The arrival of modern life on terra firma comes at a price. This could be as atomic as learning to synthesize sunlight into oxygen or may manifest as a mechanical self-supervised machine traversing one’s and zero’s.
Collaborations between sugar sk*-*lls and Coupler date back some 25 years. We’re happy to report, this synthesis will continue as additional collaborations are already on the horizon.
How do you summarize the works of Chris Crofton? For most, he is known as a comedian or satirist. His column for the Nashville Scene, The Advice King, is always a keen balance of humor and hard reality. His podcast, Cold Brew Got Me Like, is a litany of insights on politics and recent events served with a wry yet insightful take on the topic. His stand-up act is always hilarious and revealing in its honesty.
With his new album, I’m Your Man, Crofton is not channeling comedy in the slightest but continuing to embrace honesty, personal insights and hard realities. In a word, it is extremely authentic.
This excerpt from the bio sums up the motivation, the impetus and the creation process quite nicely:
With his new album, I’m Your Man, Nashville’s Chris Crofton has a simple goal – “I want to connect with listeners on a deep level, in plain language, just like the singer-songwriters of the 1970s connected with me.”
Artists like Gordon Lightfoot and Carly Simon.
“She [Simon] wrote about the most personal, often devastating things, and made her confessions catchy, and beautiful,” Crofton said.
But the writing process for this, his second solo album, was different than in the past. “I used to wait for songs to ‘arrive’ — to land on me from the heavens. But, unbeknownst to me, an anti-seizure drug that I had been taking for 20 years was literally making it harder for me to think.”
The drug caused “brain fog” – and bone loss that resulted in a broken hip in 2018. He was able to safely wean himself off the medication (with a doctor’s help) in the early months of 2019 and, thankfully, didn’t need to find a replacement.
From the difficult withdrawal, he emerged markedly energized. “I was suddenly able to write at any time of the day, not just after my first cup of coffee, so I decided to write an album.”
Musically, I’m Your Man delivers the catchy, honest acoustically-driven songs that Crofton has always written. The difference is, the songs on I’m Your Man are almost all anthems. Epic meditations on big subjects: aging, recovery, depression, medication …John Denver – and, of course, his favorite topic – loneliness. Its eleven tracks are bolstered by an all-star cast of supporting musicians, including Jim James, Bo Koster (My Morning Jacket), Jenny O, Kevin Ratterman (Yim Yames, Twin Limb), Leslie Stevens and Alex McMahon (The Handsome Family).
If the goal for I’m Your Man was to deliver an album of highly personal insights, through catchy, memorable and downright beautiful songs then I think it’s safe to say it accomplished everything it set out to do (no small feat!).
Speaking personally: the songs on I’m Your Man are heartbreaking. You’ve hopefully already heard the singles and watched their videos – “Vitamin D“, “Side Effects” and “I Don’t Believe” are all excellent examples of the tone of the album but it really must be taken as a whole. I hope you will spend some time with it.
The album is available on limited edition vinyl, digital download in the YK Shop, Ampwall and Bandcamp, and streaming on Apple Music, Spotify and everywhere else. Give it a listen and let me know what you think.
A little science history: “The Great Oxidation Event” is a natural event caused by the development of early unicellular life releasing a mass amount of oxygen into the atmosphere, killing everything. A massive cataclysmic event but one that results in life as we know it.
In an ode to this destructive event, sugar sk*-*lls and Coupler have created a three part composition traversing the stages of life, destruction and recreation. All together, the movements are entitled The Great Oxidation Event, due out on Aug 20th. More details on that next week but in the meantime…
Today, “Part I” of those movements is available everywhere. It takes us up to the precipice of the massive event itself. Early cellular life is beginning but the journey is tightly wound and anxious.
Ben Marcantel created this gorgeous video that blends the natural world with the highly technical – video processed through code with results that are both unnatural and entirely Earth bound. I suggest you lock in.
Collaborations between sugar sk*-*lls and Coupler go back as far as 2000; when the two discovered a Venn diagram of overlapping interest in generative, progressive, electronic music. The Great Oxidation Event exemplifies this decades long friendship with a seamless melding of their contributions.
The EP will be released August 20th – you can pick it up in the YK Shop, Ampwall and Bandcamp. Expect more from these two throughout the remainder of 2025.
Very happy to announce that yk Records will be releasing the next full-length album from Jessica Breanne. Her 2021 album, Rosebud Queen, was in regular rotation over here at YK HQ, largely due to Breanne’s distinctive and mesmerizing voice. The forthcoming album continues to entrance and evolves her musical styles even further. There’s plenty of bias here but you’re going to enjoy it.
The first single drops Aug 21st – and Breanne will be playing that same night at Vinyl Tap at 7pm to celebrate (along with Annie Williams and Holden Bittner).
The exact details of the full release are under wraps for a little bit but in the meantime we suggest you follow Jessica on Instagram at @jessieeebreanne, listen to Rosebud Queen and be sure to join the yk Mailing List to not miss out on notifications!
The new release from Alex Caress simply can’t be enjoyed without the proper context. All records benefit from a little background information but i’m always here (2005) requires an especially critical bit of history. For the best version of the story, enjoy this WPLN report – “Worldwide hunt for long lost song ends in Nashville.“
Today Chris Crofton releases the song and video for “I Don’t Believe” – the lead track from his forthcoming album I’m Your Man and the last single before the album is properly released. Here’s Crofton about the release:
Beautiful video directed, shot and edited by my partner-in-crime Alex R. Johnson. So grateful.
The melody for “I Don’t Believe” was improvised at the mic, the lyrics scribbled on the back of an envelope. It’s my favorite vocal performance on the record. It’s a song about the ephemeral nature of love, and how, sometimes, while you’re over-examining it, you might miss it.
Production, guitar and drums by Kevin Ratterman. Bass by Dave Dawson. Keys by Bo Koster. In the middle, that’s Jenny O‘s stunning voice, singing a melody she wrote.
You can watch the video here and pre-order the album in the YK Shop, on Ampwall or on Bandcamp. You can also stream the song everywhere.
On a personal note, this is a favorite from the album. You haven’t heard I’m Your Man yet but the entire record is filled with poignant, insightful and vulnerable songs. Crofton is a sharp songwriter by every stretch of the imagination but there’s a particular heaviness to “I Don’t Believe” that’s really hits home. The song is lonesome, melancholy, wistful, regretful… laden with real emotion.
You probably get a lot of emails every day telling you about some new music to listen to. I hope you’ll consider this one seriously. It’s heavy but it’s a must hear.
Cody Uhler is an incredibly gifted musician, exploring sonic spaces that may sound downright intimidating to explore at first blush. For instance, with his new EP Gluggle Jug, he was inspired by minimal house, microbeats and experimental synth – phrases and genres that may not have the instant appeal of something like “indie rock” depending on the listener. However, listening to the tracks on the record – they are instantly memorable and downright dance-y.
“I became fascinated by the squelchy, glitchy, short sounds and the repetitive, slowly changing patterns of minimal house,” Uhler explains. “To me, it’s very dimensional and spatial—like you can feel it in your jaw and mouth.”
The tracks on Gluggle Jug begin deceptively simple with rhythmic and chordal ideas that evolve through looping, sequencing, and live experimentation. Analog synths, drum machines, effects boxes, and custom software “instruments” developed for 2021’s Darbo’s Island push the songs into a flurry of layers – rewarding multiple listens. The music bubbles and flows like its namesake: it’s playful, unique and deeply immersive.
As for that title – Gluggle Jug – it was inspired not by the sound of a gluggle jug itself – “I’ve never heard what they sound like haha,” says Uhler – but by the whimsical name and its accidental resonance with the EP’s gurgling, elastic sonics.
The EP is available everywhere – the YK Shop, Ampwall, Bandcamp, Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube Music, Soundcloud, etc! Go get this into your ears.
Believe it or not, the mailing list persists as the most effective means of communication for me and for you.
