Mikaela Davis, photo by Bobbi Rich

Every Friday, Relix surveys the wealth of new music released over the past seven days and selects standouts for the Relix Staff Picks playlist. Read on for the highlights from this week’s batch, presented by Qobuz: experience the difference with high-quality music streaming and human-curated selections from the platform that puts artists first.

Sometimes it seems the sun just doesn’t shine today the way it did on Southern California in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Halcyon scenes there inspired some of the most influential music for generations of audiences, transforming the locale into an idea: an idyllic escape where searchers found freedom at the frontier’s end. For all this poetic heft, it takes a special artist to assume the legacy of that sound. On the transportive Graceland Way, Mikaela Davis does just that and more, affirming the West Coast’s signature style and broadening its horizons.

Davis’ fifth studio album takes the singer, songwriter and classically trained harpist’s ever-shifting musical interests and fits them to a style she’s termed “canyon country.” That label, which instantly conjures images of forebearers like Gram Parsons, Judee Sill, Joni Mitchell and Linda Rondstadt, was born from the album’s recording at UHF, the Glendale, Calif. recording studio of Circle Around the Sun and Grateful Shred’s Dan Horne. Davis says that setting seeped into the songs she co-wrote with her partner John Lee Shannon (also of CATS and Shred), tracing a light psychedelic fascination, Laurel Canyon folk immediacy and hearty twang through her shimmering pop rock. 

The 10 eclectic tracks of Graceland Way cohere like painted nails surfing the dial on a drive through the desert, with highlights like the stilling Cass McCombs-penned “Mizmoon,” jam-adjacent harp and slide guitar explorations on “Wild Flower” and the glamorously boot-scooting “(Looking Through) Rose Colored Glasses,” featuring Madison Cunningham and Tim Heidecker, rushing in like crystal-clear oases in the static. Other high-profile guests across the project include Karly Hartzman of Wednesday, keyboardist Neal Francis and accordionist James Felice of The Felice Brothers. Davis’ lyrics range from hazy manifestations and relenting love songs to hard-fought hope amid loss on “Starlite Tonite.” She says the songs “were written from our personal experience, but together they tell the arc of humanity… the story of a character that any listener can identify with.”

“When this record all started to come together lyrically, we kept returning to the delicate balance of the sun and the moon, mountains and valleys, the rose and the thorn. The struggle is so central to the human experience, a duality to balance itself.”

The latest batch of Relix Staff Picks also includes new music from Julia Cumming, White Fence, Skerik, Evolfo, Nicole Zuraitis, Friko, The Reds, Pinks and Purples, White Denim, Ringo Starr, Lee “Scratch” Perry and Mouse on Mars, The Tubs and many more gems. Tune in here.