Hello, all! I come to you today with exciting news, a promising pledge, and some other various updates. Let’s get right into it.

After a longer-than-planned break between seasons, Strong Songs Season Seven is now underway! The season premiere is available in early access on Patreon, and will go out to everyone on the main feed on Friday, March 7.

If you’d like to hear the premiere right now (it’s good imo!) go over to Patreon and sign up. And just to add a little incentive for those of you who’ve thought about it but never signed up, if you become a monthly member at any tier and use the promo code STRONG when signing up, you’ll get 80% off your first month. So it’s basically one dollar to listen to the premiere right now, instead of waiting two weeks.

Patrons get every episode of Season Seven two weeks early, and get a few other little bonuses as well, including DJ privileges in the Discord listening club and, at the higher tiers, a discount in the Strong Song store. (New merch coming soon; stay tuned!)

But really, it’s about chipping in so I can keep making this show with no outside influence, no sponsors, and no ads. As always, a huge thank you to everyone who supports Strong Songs and makes it possible for me to spend so much time on the show.

Last summer was pretty rough for me, for reasons I briefly wrote about immediately afterward but have mostly been processing on my own. In the fall, though, a happy development: after a year and a half of planning, measuring, and elbow grease, we completed work on my first-ever proper home recording studio!

I named it The Caldera, and it is perfect.

I posted a whole video tour of the studio over on Patreon, along with a longer backstory about its construction, but I’m sure I’ll talk about it more in the future. I plan to have Derek Trost, the designer, and Reed Wallsmith, the primary builder, on a bonus episode of the show some time to talk about it, too. I have learned so much over the course of this process, I can’t even tell you. That won’t keep me from trying though lol.

Best of all, now I have a beautiful, acoustically tuned space in which to make music and podcasts.

One more thing before I share a few music recommendations - I’ve long felt as though I haven’t really committed to this newsletter in the way I want to. I love to write, and I have this direct connection with so many of you out there… so why have I not been using it more?

That is finally going to change. I’m planning to begin posting newsletters more often; my goal is to post some sort of essay or other piece of writing once or twice a month, with brief music recommendation newsletters in between. I’m also planning to add a subscription option, and I’ll likely put a couple of the smaller posts each month behind a paywall. Most of what I write will be free, because I want people to read my writing, haha.

I’ll have more on that down the line. For now: I’m excited to start writing more again.

Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca - My god this band. IDK how I didn’t get into them back when they were putting out these records, but jeez. A relentless, often beautiful high wire act.

Federale - Reverb & Seduction - A well-known Portland band with a killer sound and a bunch of great tunes. I got to meet Collin at the Portland showing of Dig! XX a few weeks back and he seems like a great dude. (And incidentally, that movie is GREAT.)

Opeth - The Last Will and Testament - Credit this one to Discord user ajkerrigan’s listening club pick. I’d listened to Opeth before, but maybe not this album. It’s a ton of fun, and I would imagine these guys crush live.

Anat Cohen - Quartetinho - I’ve been kind of obsessed with Anat’s music over the past couple of months. Her Quartetinho (the group, that is) is outrageous - check out “Boa Tarde Povo” on this album for some Aspirational Bass Clarinet Groove.

Shook Twins - “Hand Up” - The first single from the Shookies’ upcoming album. I played reeds and wrote the horn arrangement on this one, as well as several others from the album. The final mix sounds so good!

Hugh Masekela & Tony Allen - Rejoice - My friend and occasional drum teacher Tyson hipped me to this record and good lord, have you ever heard a guy play the hi-hat like this? I hadn’t.

The George Benson Quartet - The George Benson Cookbook - Smoking. This quartet lineup - guitar, organ, drums, and bari - is inspired. George is burning, and Ronnie sounds great too.

If you need MORE music recs, I also posted a Strong Songs bonus episode compiling all of the recommendations I made during the downtime between seasons. Plus, you can actually hear examples of everything!

As always, you can find me on Instagram and now on Bluesky, though I haven’t been posting lot lately. I’ll be posting more now that the new season is underway, I’m sure.

I’ll leave you with a photo of Appa on the Caldera couch. She’s a very good studio dog. Unless she’s hungry, in which case all bets are off.

Take care, and keep listening -

~KH2/21/2025