2:59

There are some excellent things on the horizon, particularly if you’re into the loosely defined indie folk / alt-country / cowpunk genre that we can’t seem to name. My old favourites Cuff The Duke return this October with “Sidelines of the City,” following up 2005’s eponymous Cuff The Duke. The song “Surging Revival” is up on MySpace now and it promises a great record. I’m getting a much stronger vibe about this than the prior record in fact. If you give it a listen give the opening a bit of patience, as the payoff’s grand.

I’m not sure how I stumbled across Akron/Family, but I absolutely love the label “freak folk” that they’ve been attached with. Some fine soul out there has blogged about them recently and they’ve attached the song “Ed Is A Portal” as a download. You just need to hear this one, the group energy’s off the charts. I’m not familiar enough with the style to really say if this is something atypical, but to me it just sounds so fresh and fun. A lot of cabaret-punk / folk-punk acts that I’ve heard try to do this raucous group sound, but it always sounds fake to me. This, however, sounds incredible. The rest of the record’s all over the place, but it’s certainly worth digging into. I don’t think this is in stores as of yet, but it’s definitely on eMusic already.

Now I’m going to go finish my mojito and fantasize about this mythical upcoming Constantines record. They’re finally back with a Canadian label (and holy crap it’s Arts & Crafts!) and the big announcement’s expected in a week or so (at least according to Radio 3). Here’s hoping.