New Minnesota music round-up: Twankling, punky Americana from Phantom Fields

New Minnesota music roundup is a bimonthly collection of new releases by Minnesota musicians or musicians with strong Minnesota connections. We focus on music that might otherwise fly beneath the radar, including — but not limited to — folk, blues, country, experimental and jazz.

Know any new Minnesota music that you want to share? Let us know here.

‘Now You Know’ by Phantom Fields

Released April 5

The six songs on the debut album from Phantom Fields all seem to be snarling; both the hoarse, occasionally Dylan-esque vocals by Steve Tacheny and the wailing pedal steel guitar of Tate Schoeberlein are delivered with a sneer. It’s Americana with garage rock’s punky energy. “You’re too much,” Tacheny growls on a song of the same title, “but never too much for me.”

The production largely offers folky elements like peppy, jangling guitars and twankling banjos, but the album ends with “Walk Up Song,” a novelistic tale of baseball offered over stripped-down eclectic guitar chords that open with a ballgame stadium organ, an unexpected and marvelous texture.

‘A FAIR’ by Ian George

Released April 12

Minneapolis singer-songwriter Ian George offers a selection of achingly lovely songs on “A FAIR,” his sophomore album. He likes acoustic guitars playing clatatat rhythms, mellow arrangements (a groovy flute will sometimes pop in) and oddball synth counterpoints, like a distant star was singing along with his songs. He has a slightly quavery, cheerful voice that sometimes pitches into a startlingly sweet falsetto.

His lyrics are both precise and dreamy, as in “Cassanova.” “I’ve made a good attempt to reconstruct my love — but it feels the same,” he sings, his voice dropping and becoming conversational, as though a friend had taken you aside to tell you about a recent heartbreak, offered with a rueful grin.

‘Haunted Blue (Duos)’ by Clara Osowski and Jeremy Walker

Released April 11

Pianist and composer Jeremy Walker offers a collection of songs drawn from a larger cycle of songs originally released in 2019. “Haunted Blue (Duos)” offers duets between Walker’s piano and vocals by mezzo-soprano Clara Osowski, drawing from words by Walt Whitman, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Minneapolis lyricist Greg Foley.

The compositions seem to draw equally from sometimes atonal classical art songs and Bill Evan’s style of moody, thick jazz piano; Osowski sings them in a gentle, protracted moan, like she is quietly mourning the songs. “I woke to a frightful vision that I had lost my one true love,” she sings on the title track, and you believe here.

Other music new releases

Singer-songwriter Lea Kalisch has released a song and video called “Fight the Algorithm” exploring the subject of social media.

“I wrote this song sometime during COVIID when I was frustrated how as an artist my only tool seems to be social media,” she said.

“I started asking people how they feel about social media and let me tell you, I have yet to meet a person who says: ‘I LOVE social media!’ Most people have a lot of negative emotions connected to it. I realized that the problem is bigger than me and that we need to start talking about it, especially with kids.”

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