Claire EP by Ella Woolsey

I must make a big deal out of this because it is unlike much of the pedestrian pabulum that main-stream commercial radio forces us to listen to on a daily basis from which I joyfully rebel. Additionally, because her bio made a point of highlighting it, she is only 17 years old. What is remarkable here is that most of the kids in my classroom aren’t listening to anything this original and probably with one or two exceptions, probably wouldn’t be able to or even want to consider making anything so beautiful.

Song of Sorrow by Rx27

Joie Blaney has retired his former project, Joie Dead Blonde Girlfriend. While occasionally enlisting a few additional players to round out his sound, it was primarily an extremely powerful one-man-band. Moving to Los Angeles about ten years ago more or less, Joie fought like hell to thrive as we all do in a new place and he has done very well for himself, establishing and exercising his musical chops like I always expected him to do when I first encountered his musical cyclone in New York City.