Over the past month and a half, we put out two new releases on our in-house label, Round Bale Recordings. Both come from artists that we’ve previously worked with, and we are honored to be sharing their latest efforts. More details, sound samples, and links to order both titles are provided below. If you’re ordering for a record store or mailorder outlet and have an interest in stocking either of these new releases, or any of our other available ones, feel free to get in touch for wholesale rates. Also, feel free to reach out if you see other titles available through our Discogs store that you’d like to combine with anything from the label in order to save. Get in touch at: roundbalerecs [at] gmail.com

RBR-019: Russell Hoke “The Melancholy Traveler” LP ($16)

Buy a copy via Bandcamp

After compiling the double cassette anthology, A Voice From the Lonesome Playground, back in 2016, we were fairly certain that would go down as not only the final documentation of Russell Hoke’s vast back catalog of recordings but also the final musical statement from him altogether. Having sold off his guitar and banjo several years prior, Hoke had expressed that he was done writing songs and making music. So it was with great surprise and delight when early last year we received word that he had recorded an album’s worth of new material and it was on its way in the mail.

With a borrowed guitar and banjo, Hoke revisited the previously undocumented pages of his original songbook and recorded this new collection straight to an outmoded cell phone. Remarkably, the resulting recordings that comprise The Melancholy Traveler are cut from a very similar cloth, both sonically and lyrically, to Hoke’s early private press, outsider folk gems like The Magic of My Youth, Cosmic Outlaw, and If I Had Been the Universe. Adding further allure to this surprise release, and highlighting his reverence for British folk music, Hoke rendered two achingly beautiful covers versions of Sandy Denny songs.

As we collectively descend from the Twisted Mountain that was 2020, together let’s hope that the unexpected appearance of a new Russell Hoke album is an indicator of brighter days ahead.

RBR-020: Downer Canada “Environmental Dubs” CS ($8)

Buy a copy via Bandcamp

After last year’s wondrously hypnotic psych-folk release Leave Every Every Single You as Family Ravine, we are pleased to be working once again with Kevin Cahill, this time under his moniker Downer Canada. Over the past five years, the D.C. handle has been Cahill’s primary outlet for his guitar-less, found sound work, where cassette recorders serve as his primary instrument in creating a sort of hallucinatory bedroom concrète. With Environmental Dubs, Cahill blurs the lines a bit further with a more uniquely layered offering that he describes as “music turning into daily sound, daily sound turning into music, real and not real.” Recorded between May and August of 2020, Dubs, in our opinion, brilliantly captures the conflicting emotions brought on by life under lockdown: familial joy colliding with maniacal unease, outdoor tranquility locking into droning tedium, carefree playfulness transforming into jittery anxiety. This may all sound like something many would rather not re-live, because, well, we’re still living it, but we assure you that Cahill has a way of turning these elements into something that’s rather magical and otherworldly and, like a diamond in the sky, we are left with a beacon of hope as the album comes to a close.

Kevin Cahill has issued work in various solo and collaborative projects such as East of the Valley Blues, Family Ravine, and Running Point. Cahill has also had a key role in running the Power Moves Library imprint, and the offshoot Excavation Series, from his home in Toronto, Ontario.