Singer-songwriter Lily Seabird announced last week that she has signed with Philadelphia independent label Lame-O Records. The Burlington-based Seabird has been busy in 2024, playing with fellow Queen City musician Greg Freeman and Vermont indie rocker Lutalo, but the Lame-O news includes some exciting updates for her own catalog.
On November 15, the label will rerelease Seabird’s gorgeous 2024 album Alas on vinyl, along with an EP featuring acoustic versions of the songs on the record and several new tracks. In her review of Alas for Seven Days, Nina Sablan wrote that the album “shows us Seabird digging into her psyche until she grasps something vulnerable, raw and ultimately healing.”
To celebrate the good news, Seabird dropped the previously unreleased single “Fuckhead.” A lo-fi, intimate acoustic number, the song showcases Seabird’s gentle, idiosyncratic voice. She wrote it when she was just 16 years old.
“It was for my friend Emmi who I was in my first band with when we were in high school,” Seabird, real name Lily Seaward, wrote in a press release for the single. “We used to think we were really cool and badass for calling each other fuckhead.”
Listen to “Fuckhead” at lilyseabird.bandcamp.com.
Burlington folk-hop duo the Middle Ages are back with a new single and music video titled “Cult Life.” The tongue-in-cheek rappers, who took their midlife crises and really, really ran with them, cut the track with producer Ben Collette at his Tank Recording Studio in the Queen City.
An ode to their friends and community, the song features Dan Weathers, aka MC Booty Call, and his wife, Taraleigh Weathers, aka Hot Tea, rapping over a folk-leaning acoustic arrangement. The band is set to debut the music video live at the Double E Performance Center in Essex this Friday, October 18. Alongside a live performance and a screening of the video, the husband-and-wife team will also perform an original short play, which tells the tale of how “Cult Life” was created.
“We’re turning our band into a movement,” Taraleigh said in a press release for the event. “And this play shows just how far we’ve come — and how much we’ve lost our minds!”
Jam outfit the Moondogs, who released the live album Nectar’s 12.16.23 in the spring, are preparing to drop a brand new LP on November 8, titled Trialogues. The psychedelic funk-leaning outfit started as the one-man project of Will Sturcke in his dorm room at the University of Vermont in 2020. But the Moondogs have evolved into an eclectic trio, rising above the crop of local jam bands to deliver an original sound.
The record’s first single, “Colorado,” drops on Spotify this Friday, October 18.
Burlington hip-hop label AfterLyfe Music is gearing up for a big close to 2024. Launched in 2020 by local DJ Nastee and Boston/Burlington rapper Konflik, the imprint has two new releases this month.
First up is Queen City rapper SINNN. Titled Art N Depression, the veteran Vermont MC’s latest EP features cameos from Montpelier expat Jarv and NYC rapper Kueen.
“Art N Depression is a project dedicated to the struggles of creatives in transforming our thoughts into communicated ideas that we can share with the world,” the rapper said in a press release. The EP dropped on October 4 and is streaming at sinnnsizzle.bandcamp.com.
Next in the AfterLyfe queue is a new live album from Konflik. Recorded at a July 5 performance at AfterLyfe’s Rap Night residency at Burlington club the Cellar, Konflik’s LIVE in the Cellar is available on Bandcamp now and drops on all other streaming platforms on Friday, October 18. It will be followed by two new studio singles from Konflik, both produced by Nastee.
The live album was recorded by photographer, filmmaker and “Golden Hour” podcast host Shaun Machia. Feeling they finally had a proper document of the raw energy from the Rap Night shows, Nastee and Konflik decided to release the recording as a free download.
“You see what the fuck is going on in here, it’s some hip-hop shit!” Nastee can be heard shouting to the crowd at the beginning of the album. Check it out at konflik1.bandcamp.com.
Eye on the Scene
Last week’s live music highlights from photographer Luke Awtry
Matt Hagen’s Murder Ballads, Tank Recording Studio, Burlington, Wednesday, October 9: It’s not easy to forge a new holiday tradition. But after just five seasons, a local raconteur has given us something to look forward to each fall: Matt Hagen’s Murder Ballads. It began as a one-off during “Shocktober,” Hagen’s October 2019 residency at Burlington’s Light Club Lamp Shop, and has grown into multiple shows across town. Each is unique, with original songs spinning new and classic tales, like that of “Stagger Lee,” which recounts the 1895 Christmas Day murder of Billy Lyons. With pedal steel, musical saw, low-tuned guitars, and interludes played on synth and piano by Sad Turtle‘s Mike Fried, the murder ballad band sets the perfect mood for Hagen’s delivery of songs such as “Bone Pickin’,” “Larry the Canary” and my favorite from last Wednesday’s Tank Recording Studio show, “Darling Vampire.” Murder Ballads has become a highly anticipated part of my Halloween season, and now I expect it to happen annually. In perpetuity. If not? Well, let’s just hope it doesn’t come to that…
Listening In
Playlist of Vermont jams
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This article appears in Oct 16-22, 2024.
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