Spanish singer Amaia is walking contradiction. She’s a multi-instrumentalist, easily traipsing between piano, chair flute and — not featured in this Tiny Desk performance — her signature harp. But all of this hardly compares to a voice that dances between ferocity and softness.
Video of the Week: Tiny Desk Concert–Amaia
24 May 2026 Leave a comment
in Video of the Week Tags: amaia
Recommended Albums #116
20 May 2026 Leave a comment
in Recommended Albums Tags: matt duncan, soft times
Matt Duncan: Soft Times (2013)
Matt Duncan, who calls himself “the Elvis of self-doubt”, is a purveyor of tuneful soft rock that sounds like it ought to be playing from an AM transistor radio.
In a good way.
Though actual 70’s pop spanned a single decade, in the four-plus decades since we’ve been hearing people try to approximate its magic.
And though plenty of contemporary artists catch interest for their retro 70’s musical dialect, seldom does their mere facsimile of sound actually summon the aura of that decade.
Maybe the secret is to not try too hard.
Duncan acknowledges his first LP Beacon lived in the 60’s, and that his sound moved onward one decade for this, his second.
But while he cites Steely Dan and Joni Mitchell among others as influences, his music is never mimicry. Did you hear an Atlanta Rhythm Section groove in “The Keys”? A little Van Morrison in the horns on “Idle Hands”? The influences are hard to pin down because it’s all more evocative than derivative.
Duncan just tastefully employs a variety of elements: soulful violins, sax, scratch guitar, and harmony vocals span the album. He arranges with lots of pauses, breakdowns and tempo changes, ensuring that “mellow” never becomes “dull”. And it’s all done with an impressive overall gloss and sophistication.
Lyrically, Duncan avoids cliche territory completely, and a barbed line here or there is a pleasant surprise.
One might call this lightweight stuff, but so were Hall & Oates after 1980. Not everything has to be “Kashmir”.
Soft Times feels like a pleasant escape back to 1977 and a brief respite from our own hard times.
Listen to: “The Keys”
Listen to: “Rube Goldberg Machine”
Listen to: “Soft Times”
Listen to: “I Don’t Know”
Listen to: “Idle Hands”
Listen to: “Lone Ranger”
Did You Ever Realize…
20 May 2026 Leave a comment
in Did You Ever Realize Tags: devo, oh pretty woman, roy orbison, whip it
Songs You May Have Missed #842
19 May 2026 Leave a comment
in Songs You May Have Missed Tags: julieta venegas, tu historia
Julieta Venegas: “Tu Historia” (2022)
The title track from Julieta Venegas’ 2022 Tu Historia (“Your Story”) is an exhortation to own your mistakes and carry them forward as part of your life’s journey.
By this time the Latin music icon had moved on a bit from the irresistible Mexican indie pop of her early career to a more measured, mature, reflective style.
Some fans clamored for a return to the early, poppier sound.
This song found the middle ground: sung from a wizened perspective, but a catchy little earworm of a tune too.
Julieta’s real-life friend Maria Yzabal appears in the video with her.
Lyric translation:
You tell me that you don’t feel like thinking about him
again His memory hurts so much and how sad it was to lose
I tell you: “Friend, wait, breathe, time will do you good
You have learned something and you will take it with you, you will see”
Let your past be part of you
Carry your mistakes with pride
Don’t let the past ever be forgotten, never ignore
it Take with you what you were and hold it well
Don’t let your story ever be forgotten, tell it
again From the first day to the end it’s part of you
There’s nothing wrong with losing, the important thing is to rescue
What you’ve learned and you’ll carry it with you until eternity
If your uneasiness runs out of a name, you won’t
understand You need to know it so you don’t stumble anymore
Let your past be part of you
Carry your mistakes with pride
Don’t let the past ever be forgotten, never ignore
it Take with you what you were and hold it well
Don’t let your story ever be forgotten, tell it
again From the first day to the end it’s part of you
You tell me you don’t feel like thinking about it
again Its memory hurts so much and how sad it was to lose
I tell you: “Friend, wait, breathe, time will do you good
You have learned something and you will take it with you, you will see”
Let your past be part of you
Carry your mistakes with pride
Don’t let the past ever be forgotten, never ignore
it Take with you what you were and hold it well
Don’t let your story ever be forgotten, tell it
again From the first day to the end it’s part of you
There’s nothing wrong with losing, the important thing is to rescue
What you’ve learned and you’ll carry it with you until eternity
If your uneasiness runs out of a name, you won’t
understand You need to know it so you don’t stumble anymore
Let your past be part of you
Carry your mistakes with pride
Don’t let the past ever be forgotten, never ignore
it Take with you what you were and hold it well
Don’t let your story ever be forgotten, tell it
again From the first day to the end it’s part of you
See also: Recommended Albums #101 | Every Moment Has A Song
See also: Songs You May Have Missed #755 | Every Moment Has A Song
See also: Songs You May Have Missed #830 | Every Moment Has A Song
See also: Julieta Venegas: Why the Mexican pop icon wouldn’t call herself a pioneer | Every Moment Has A Song
Video of the Week: Mono No Aware with Ai from Haku: “Kamukamo-Shikamo-Nidomokamo!!”
19 May 2026 Leave a comment
in Video of the Week Tags: haku, mono no aware
Singer Ai, whose band Haku covered Mono No Aware’s “Kamukamo-Shikamo-Nidomokamo!!”, joins them onstage to render a stupefyingly-paced version of the song at the 2025 Asian Pop Festival.
See also: Video of the Week: Haku Cover Mono No Aware | Every Moment Has A Song
Recommended Albums #115
12 May 2026 Leave a comment
in Recommended Albums Tags: duncan browne, give me take you
Duncan Browne: Give Me Take You (1968)
The 1968 cult classic Give Me Take You was birthed when producer Andrew Loog Oldham requested that Duncan Browne, formerly of failed folk rock band Lorel, record a solo record for Oldham’s Immediate Records label.
Collaborating with lyricist David Bretton, Browne crafted a baroque folk pop gem of a record, albeit not one with mass appeal.
Give Me Take You possesses a peculiarly English tint in much the same way the Kinks’ Village Greeb Preservation Society has an English flavour–but a rock record this is not.
The mood is more Nick Drake, but with a more antique sound. As for Browne’s excellent guitar work, Steve Hackett comes readily to mind. And the songwriting evokes some of Donovan’s flights of fancy.
From the first notes of the opening title track, with ethereal chamber choir, harp and woodwinds, the album creates its own sad, beautiful world and populates it with sad and beautiful characters.
On “The Ghost Walks”, sympathetic neoclassical guitar frames a portrait of an aging thespian replacing reality in his fading mind with a play of his own making.
“On the Bombsite”, the album’s unsuccessful single, places childhood games of make-believe (“we fought a war in time for tea”…“on snow white horses we rode right through our dreams”) against a backdrop of a bombsite as its lyrics hint at the inevitable impermanence of youthful innocence and imagination:
“But there came a giant I couldn’t fight, he was too strong“…“I wish that I had never left, now it’s too late”
And indeed, it was too late.
As the Immediate label collapsed, Oldham cut the sessions for the album short to save expenses. Browne was ultimately billed for 2,000 pounds to cover recording costs.
Give Me Take You remained unavailable for two decades until its first CD release, which was patched together from several vinyl sources due to the fact that the master tapes were missing at the time.
In the 2000’s the album received more suitably reverential treatment, with expanded reissues on specialty labels–mastered from tapes, not vinyl.
Listeners again have the opportunity to appraise a quietly introspective baroque folk record created by a relative unknown barely out of his teens.
See where Give Me Take You takes you.
Listen to: “Give Me, Take You”
Listen to: “The Ghost Walks”
Listen to: “On the Bombsite”
Listen to: “The Death of Neil”
Every Moment Has A Song 