Their infectious personalities glow just as much as their sun-drenched calypso sound. Cassia combine the positive indie pop of bands like Foals and Vampire Weekend with the jazz-tinged afrobeats of Fela Kuti and Ebo Taylor and American folk influences like Paul Simon to create an individual sound that uplifts.
Cassia have announced the release of their new album Why You Lacking Energy?, and shared ‘Motions’, a brand new single from the forthcoming record.
To the younger Americana audience, Edie Brickell is most recognized as Steve Martin’s duo partner, and to others she may be best known as the wife of Songwriters Hall of Fame icon Paul Simon. But before she was either of those, she fronted Edie Brickell & New Bohemians, whose breakout (and pretty much only) hit, “What I Am,” took Top 40 radio in a different direction in 1989.
The band’s folky jazz sound was a breath of fresh air for radio listeners who were recovering from a decade of hair bands and omnipresent MTV acts. Driven by a fretless bass, “What I Am” was heralded as everything from beatnik-inspired existentialism to complete gibberish.
NorCal singer-songwriter Luke Temple refuses to put down musical roots. Both under his own name and as part of Here We Go Magic, he’s wandered from dreamkraut to reggae-tinged synth-pop, to severe, off-kilter folk. The only constant in his journey is his light, twangy tenor—it’s no wonder he’s frequently compared to Paul Simon.
And like all journeys, Temple ends up right back where he started, wiser and wearier than when he began. “Wounded Brightness,” the lead single from Temple’s forthcoming album Both-And, refracts his earliest Sufjan Stevens-meets-Timothy Leary freak-folk through a mature, bossa nova prism.
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