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DownTown Mystic – Maybe Love’s A Crime
A Shuffle Finds Its Place
DownTown Mystic’s “Maybe Love’s A Crime”. Writer and producer Robert Allen was considering how the song should move when bassist Paul Page suggested a groove in the spirit of Dion. Page and drummer Steve Holley recorded the resulting shuffle in one take, with Jeff Levine’s piano adding another voice to the arrangement. Allen’s production approach draws on vintage guitars and analogue recording.
That exchange captures the collaborative character of Allen’s roots-rock project: a song taking shape through the experience and instincts of the people playing it. The single follows Mystic Highway Road Trip and On E Street Remix, continuing Allen’s work with musicians steeped in American rock and roll. Here, the shared point of reference becomes the motion beneath the song.
Photo: Mark Maryanovich Photography.
Brian Asha – Mighty Man (Jack De Keyzer’s Rock’n’Roll Remix)
An Old Connection, Recut in Blues and Rock
Brian Asha and Jack De Keyzer’s connection reaches back to Asha’s CIUT radio days, when he interviewed De Keyzer’s band The Bopcats. On “Mighty Man”, that long acquaintance becomes a studio collaboration, with De Keyzer contributing six tracks of guitar.
The song began as Asha’s tribute to Muddy Waters’ “Hoochie Coochie Man” and Bo Diddley’s “I’m a Man”. Asha’s original electro recording of the song dates to 2013. For the rock-and-roll version, Asha and collaborator Karl Mohr applied DJ cut-up techniques to De Keyzer’s playing, combining guitar hits with a bassline inspired by Hot Chocolate. Toronto singers Aria Zenua and Erin Reece add backing vocals. The arrangement brings Asha’s electronic and DJ experience into contact with the blues references behind the writing, letting an older musical conversation take another form.
The Mustard – Where we’re Goin
A Family Story, Carried by Twelve Strings
The Mustard’s “Where we’re Goin” begins with guitarist Ollie Foord’s experience of caring for his mother alongside his sister as she lived with dementia. The song opens that private situation towards a wider uncertainty about how to move through a life-changing event.
Its arrangement centres on twelve-string acoustic guitar and keyboards, with Simple Minds’ “Goodnight”, a B-side to the band’s “Stand by Love”, providing a reference point. Echo, delay and chorus extend the guitar’s presence, while quieter pre-choruses give way to the fuller chorus. Even the distorted solo parts were played on an acoustic Gretsch. Recorded at Sunshine Corner Studios with Steve “Smiley” Barnard engineering, the track brings those production choices into the service of a family story, keeping the emotional question close to the song’s forward motion.
The Oldman Sound – Fair-weather
Two Andrews and a Wider Circle
The Oldman Sound began with two unrelated Andrews from South Shields: Andrew Coiley and Andrew Forster. Their Fair-weather EP places bittersweet writing within melodic, off-centre guitar music, drawing on a shared range of reference points that includes XTC, Wilco, The Kinks and Field Music.
The project grew beyond home recordings through local collaborations and sessions with producers Adam Forster and Mark Broughton. These sessions and collaborations built a catalogue of more than twenty songs. Kristos Kabiotis, Wez Westgate and Sarah Farrell-Forster complete the core line-up, widening the partnership that started it. Several members also bring experience from Minotaurs, while appearances alongside Gruff Rhys, Nev Clay and SLUG connect the band to a broader live community. Fair-weather carries that collective history into a release shaped by the interplay between direct melody and inventive arrangement.
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