Freshly Squeezed, Vol. 73: Erik Dylan, Neo Noir, Heather LaRose & more

Welcome to Freshly Squeezed, a weekly new music playlist: spanning country, pop, EDM and urban, mainstream and other.

Erik Dylan is an American treasure. When he’s not making some of the best damn albums in all of country music, including 2018’s Baseball on the Moon (but we’ll get into that in a few weeks’ time), he’s reworking a classic country song into a devastating solo excursion. Taking on “Whiskey Lullaby,” originally performed as a duet between Brad Paisley and Alison Krauss, Dylan wraps his gravelly tenor voice around the story of loss, regret, booze and death. Surprising no one, the song was featured on this week’s truly heart-wrenching episode of Netlfix’s The Ranch, and it’s one of those timelessly gutting performances that’ll haunt you’re every waking (and sleeping) hour.

Slinky alt-pop collective Neo Noir try a bit of “Luck” with a beguiling and slippery track. With Bradley Allan and Greg Olan at the helm, the production crew melt away their troubles with a sloshy concoction, a blended drink of electronics, heart-beating synths and percussion, and vocals that seep into your pores. “Good luck’s on your side” reads the hook, looping at a lethargic but obsessive pace. We’re fortunate enough to be blessed with such a silvery web of goodness. Later on, synth-pop duo Farewell Summer vow they don’t wanna “Mess This Up,” a sweeping, weepy ballad as a relationship turns downward and spirals into the atmosphere.

Kauss dance along the twinkling, gaseous Milky Way with “When the Air Blows,” a cut from their new EP, Under an Ocean of Stars. The thumping drum work twirls against an ethereal vocal line that is as sinewy as it is downright sticky to the senses. Meanwhile, pop starlet Heather LaRose douses the whole playlist with a gallon of “Kerosene,” an adornment of silky piano and an equally gentle melody. Noelle Micarelli scrawls out a similarly lilting, unfussy folk ballad called “Complicated Spoon,” and even as the songs swells with finger-snaps and bangs and clucks, her voice remains ever soothing and hypnotic.

Niki Black then throws up her hands (and her vocal cords) in a glorious electronic “Hallelujah,” as a soul-freeing anthem that twists and dips into the abyss of the alternative and reemerges with a poisonous touch. And Steve Benjamins cuts a sinister layer of lace with a throaty cry. “Bill Libels” is savagely irresistible, and it swallows the listener into reverberating synths and a billowing cloud of darkness.

The new playlist also features such standouts as: Flight to Moonlight, Averly, Cautious Clay, Jackie Venson, Kennedy, LSDREAM, Anteros, Grand Pine, Astralingua, Taylor Barton, Astrid S, Caroline Romano, and countless others.

In all, we’ve got 30 new songs spin and spin and spin some more.

Each playlist will be refreshed every Friday morning/afternoon. We reserve the right to update anytime during the week, so make sure you bookmark this page.

Take a spin:

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