Mikey Coltun (Mdou Moctar) Announces New Label
I’ve always been a fan of the Tuareg sound, and for those in the States, there’s a handful of artists like Mdou Moctar who come to our minds. Just this week, Mdou member/collaborator Mikey Coltun announced Purplish Records, his very own label, with some obvious ties to the band’s work because the first release features both Mikey and Ahmoudou; it’s two very different takes on what looks to be a family of creativity. On Mikey’s side, you get his foray into understanding his own ancestry, and then flip it over to hear Ahmoudou play acoustic guitar with his brother Abdoulaye. For now, you can either grab a limited cassette, or just stream at Bandcamp and below!
Austin 
Year-end lists (or “best-of”s as most people term them) are extremely hard for me to compile. I listen to (and buy) a lot of music from day-to-day & despite my best efforts truly cannot keep up with the sheer magnitude of quality recordings coming out each year – and 2019 was a pretty fucking great year for music. So here’s my best shot at compiling a list of my “10 Most-Listened-To” albums from 2019 (plus five honorable mentions). They’re in alphabetical order to avoid any sort of ranking, because honestly ranking something as “best” or assigning a numerical rating seems antiquated & frankly diminishes great art, IMHO. (Trouble In Mind Records releases are excluded, for conflict of interest, but it’s safe to say that anything we’d be investing thousands of dollars releasing is – in our opinion – worth your time). Hope you enjoy & possibly discover something new. Support independent artists & record labels!