Jonatha Brooke

Jonatha Brooke has updated her website for the release of her latest album "Careful What You Wish For" on April 3rd. The first single, the title song, has been available for download on iTunes for a while now and I encourage any fan to go check it out.

If you are new to Jonatha's music I must admit that I am not sure her new song would be what I would recommend to get someone hooked on her. Myself, and at least one or two friends of mine have had the same experience with her music. We become interested in hearing her music some how or another and then once we get the album or a few songs in our possession we aren't immediately sure we care for it. On the surface, her music seems unimpressive, a fine but average voice, nothing overly impressive about the tunes...but then something happens. You listen harder and something clicks. I have heard Jonatha described as "the songwriter's songwriter". Indeed, her lyrics and themes are what finally sealed it for me. On first listen you may only get a glimpse of an interesting lyric or think "yeah, that explains how I feel better than I could ever explain it" but then you go back and listen and before you know it you are singing along and listening to the albums non-stop. Go figure!

Jonatha's last studio album "Back In the Circus" was good, but not her best. My hopes aren't overly high that this will be one of her best to date, having heard her first single from the new album, but I still plan on getting it because there are always gems and she is a consistently good songwriter.

Until then, enjoy this recently remixed version of her song "War" and go listen to clips from her other albums on her website...

• War

'Tis the season for free music

One last post about Christmas music before it's Christmas...
I wanted to share a few more tracks that artists I like have made available for the season. It is the season for giving and here are a few more artists giving us Christmas songs!

Hem is offering up their lovely rendition of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas". Hem is a great folk/americana band that sounds a bit like country and folk lullabies, they're really great and a band that can definitely pull off a Christmas carol.

• Hem - "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas"

Sufjan Stevens, one of the latest indie darlings, has released a whole box set including 5 EPs of original Christmas songs, stickers and other various sundries to keep you in the spirit. He is making one of the songs from this set available to all of us, and it's a nice one.

• Sufjan Stevens - "That Was the Worst Christmas Ever" ( left click )

Jonatha Brooke makes her rendition of "Emmanuel" available on her website every December. I love Jonatha, she's got some great lyrics and great tunes. This version of Emmanuel is so sad sounding. I never understood why Emmanuel was usually sung so somberly as someone telling me to "rejoice!" when it doesn't sound like they are doing it themselves. Hmm...all the same, it's pretty and worth a listen.

• Jonatha Brooke - "Emmanuel"

Wild Colonials have made their Christmas original "Christmas is Quiet" available on their MySpace page. This song doesn't scream Christmas to me, but the Wild Colonials are so good, who cares? Angela McCluskey has such a unique and strong voice and I love their use of violin in most everything they do.

• Wild Colonials - "Christmas Is Quiet" ( left click )