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Mark Griffin – Taking Over My Mind
Mark Griffin Finds The Sweet Spot Between Folk Honesty And Pop Lift
Perth’s Mark Griffin has a knack for making plainspoken stories feel quietly magnetic, and “Taking Over My Mind” is a fine example. Built on guitar, banjo and a voice that leans warm rather than polished, the song folds folk detail into a pop frame, catching that strange moment when love arrives before you’ve even noticed the door opening. It’s the sort of writing that feels lived-in, shaped by farm memories, years in different cities and a songwriter’s eye for small truths with a little irony.
The single’s Top 30 placement on the ASA Country Song Chart and airplay across 26 community and independent stations suggest the track has travelled well beyond Perth. With a finalist nod in Australia’s Songwriting Competition and a Writers in the Round slot at Hats Off to Country ahead, Griffin is sounding less like an artist chasing a lane and more like one steadily carving his own.
The Amanda Emblem Experiment – Lazy Sunday
The Amanda Emblem Experiment Finds A Leaner, Louder Sweet Spot
Amanda Emblem has a gift for making space feel alive. On Lazy Sunday, she trims two fan favorites from The Wood into sharper, more playful shapes, then slips in “Old Romantic” like a porch-light confession. The result is a three-track set that keeps the easygoing drift of her Queensland surrounds — Kandanga, Tinanbar, K’Gari in the distance — but gives the songs a firmer pulse, with grooving bass, twangy slide guitar, and vocal interplay that nods to JJ Cale without ever sounding borrowed.
Emblem has been a musician all her life, and you can hear that ease in the way these tracks breathe. Working from a treehouse studio in Gildora with Andy Tainsh and a circle of local players, she treats arrangement like instinct rather than polish. “Lazy Sunday” may be the attention seeker, but the whole EP feels like a reminder that a song can grow up without losing its laid-back charm.
Reece Sullivan – To Tir na nOg
Reece Sullivan Turns Celtic Myth Into A Playful Folk Reverie
Reece Sullivan has a knack for making the old feel freshly turned over, and “To Tir na nOg” is one of his most curious detours yet. Loosely rooted in the Celtic land where no one grows old or gets sick, the song leans into myth with a wry, human pulse, folding in echoes of W.B. Yeats and the faerie-haunted Irish imagination that’s long shaped Sullivan’s writing. It’s playful without losing its weight, the kind of folk song that reaches for legend but keeps its boots on the ground.
Originally from Arkansas and now based in Lafayette, Louisiana, Sullivan has spent years reinventing his own voice across piano, guitar, classical, art rock, and folk. That restless path gives “To Tir na nOg” its charm: it feels lived-in, literate, and slightly off-center in the best way. As the fourth release from SWAN SONG, it hints at an album with range, patience, and a taste for the uncommon.
Nancy Carey Johnson – Shine Your Light
Nancy Carey Johnson Finds Grace In The Grain Of Everyday Life
With Shine Your Light, Nancy Carey Johnson leans into the kind of songwriting that doesn’t need to shout to land. The four-song EP folds Americana, folk, and classic singer-songwriter craft into something warm, patient, and quietly sure-footed, from the sly pulse of “Guano Loco” to the title track’s steady glow. Across “She Let Him Go” and “Take Me To The River,” she writes like someone who knows the weight of ordinary days and the lift that can still break through them.
Johnson’s voice carries the lived-in ease of a Vermont homesteader and the precision of a writer who has learned how to say more with less. After Chaos & Grace and the national recognition of “Birthday Cake For Breakfast,” this release feels like a deeper settling-in: less about proving range than trusting resonance. It’s music rooted in real life, and that’s exactly why it stays with you.
Pony Gold – Highroad Reverie
Highway to Heartfelt Reverie: Pony Gold’s Mesmeric Journey
Pony Gold‘s Highroad Reverie is rooted in the kind of storytelling that values honesty over polish. Led by songwriter and vocalist Theresa Anne Bromley, the album moves through themes of resilience, loss, hope, and redemption with a lived-in warmth that feels deeply personal yet widely relatable. Produced by Leeroy Stagger and recorded live at Vancouver’s Hipposonic Studios, the performances retain an organic immediacy that suits the record’s alt-country and Americana foundations. From the restless ambition of “Big in the City” to the quiet tenderness of “Little Horse,” Highroad Reverie finds beauty in life’s detours and grace in the road back home.
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