You may have noticed over the last few years that the magnificent Mary J. Blige had somewhat disappeared from the top of the pops.  Well that seems destined to change since Blige is back with a vengeance and will in December release her new album entitled The London Sessions on Capitol Records.  Blige decided to go about reprising her popularity by hanging out in London this past summer with the likes of Disclosure, Emile Sande and Sam Smith.   If the songs below are any indication, it sounds like the fountain of youth superbly sated her musical needs. Check out below the lyric video for the intimate, brutally-honest and brutally-beautiful song Whole Damn Year.  After, check out another winning track, Right Now, with updated and enhanced production by the dynamic Disclosure.  Bring on The London Sessions!

Canadian producer-composer Ryan Hemsworth will soon release his second album Alone For The First Time.  Late last month we fell in love with Hemsworth’s superb, Postal Service-esque first single off the album, Snow In Newark, which features the vocals of Dawn Golden.  Today the song’s beautifully-captured official video for the song was released.  Check out the Nepalese travelogue and soundtrack below, and prepare to get Alone For The First Time.

Just two days ago we posted our first impression of Britain’s Glass Animals and their song Gooey.  A scant 48 hours later they appeared out of the blue on Late Night With Seth Meyers and played that very song.  The band still has a sumptuous groove-psychedelia about it.  Check the performance out below, and by all means: get gooey.

Following on the heels of fantastic live sets in San Francisco last weekend at the Make-Out Room and at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, Chuck Prophet has released a new video for the cut Ford Econoline from his stand-up (tube-of-a) new album Night Surfer.  Listen/watch as Prophet pays his respects to a vehicle that rockers immemorial (including Prophet, his talented wife Stephanie Finch, and his various bandmates) have driven around the world and back.  That’s life (for musicians).  And death (for vans). Along the way Chuck name-checks the Talking Heads.

Amongst others, REM’s Peter Buck was enlisted on guitar on the new album.  Go buy Night Surfer HERE.

As mentioned repeatedly, Caribou yesterday released its infectious and entrancing new album Our Love.  Coinciding with the album’s release, the band also released the official video for the album’s title track.  Check it out below.  The video’s director Ryan Staake had this to say about the video shot on location in Ireland at the Lough Ine House:  “I wanted to create a slow, brooding film that contrasted the seeming limitless of youth with the reality of death in later years.”  Mission accomplished.  For a more lively (if you will) interpretation of the song, afterwards watch Dan Snaith and band perform the track recently on KCRW.  Go pick up Our Love soon.  You won’t be disappointed.

One of Britain’s latest buzz-band is Glass Animals.  We were minding our own business the other month when out of nowhere the band’s song Gooey gummed up our earwaves.  What a groove!!  “Ride my simple song,” indeed!  The only knock on the band has been their lyrics, which are laden with abstraction and vague allusions.  We here promise, though, even there.  Let’s see what the future brings for this promising band.

Today, we happened upon KCRW where the band just happened to show up and play Gooey off of their critically-acclaimed debut album Zaba (there’s lots more where Gooey came from).  Check out the hypnotizing performance below.  You can listen to entire worthwhile session on Morning Becomes Eclectic HERE.  And go HERE to pick up the get their new album HERE.  Unfortunately, we were unavoidably elsewhere and couldn’t catch their raved-about shows at the Troubadour this past weekend in LA.

We’ll have more about Glass Animals soon come.

We receive intermittent song-semaphores from the interweb-acreage known as Crackerfarm.  Coming off our three-day-and-night Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival extravaganza (more on that later), we were particularly struck by the latest vignette of Seth Avett (you know, The Avett Brothers) singing his new, rootsy/satirical song California. Why on earth The Avett Brothers aren’t an annual staple at Hardly Strictly (rather than merely appearing in 2010 and 2006) we will never understand.  They were meant for the HSB Festival, and this song is living proof.  Let’s hear it for the Avetts at HSB 2015!

We are huge fans of Chuck Prophet and never miss an opportunity to pick up each newly-released album or to catch him live with the Mission Express (or otherwise).  Prophet recently released his fantastic new album Night Surfer.  To get a feel, check out his hilarious, heartwarming Official Video for new track Wish Me Luck below.  And then make your way to The Make-Out Room in San Francisco’s Mission District tonight (7pm sharp) and tomorrow (Sunday) at 2:45 at the Rooster Stage at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival.  At HSB, Prophet will also be backed by a string section for what he’s dubbed the “Strings in the Temple” in which they perform songs from his superb, San Francisco-centric album Temple Beautiful.

So go make out tonight and get strung up tomorrow.  You’ll thank us later, despite how that sounds.

It’s been a busy week for the gifted rocker, Chrissie Hynde, who is out making the media rounds in support of her superb first solo (non-Pretenders) album entitled Stockholm.  First, she appeared on Conan and gave an electrified performance of new song You or No One.  She then followed up with a soulful, acoustic performance at KCRW’s Morning Becomes Eclectic of Adding The Blue off the new album and the Pretenders’ I Go To Sleep (the latter with atmospheric melodica added).

Check ’em out below and get your tickets to see her at the Arlington Theater on December 5th HERE.