Kevin Bronson on July 1st, 2021

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Catching up with new singles from Junior Mesa (who announces a new EP), Wax Owls and Hank May …

JUNIOR MESA, “Paranoia Dreams”

The follow-up to early June’s “Listen Close,” “Paranoia Dreams” introduces Junior Mesa’s new EP, “Cirque Du Freak,” out Aug. 13 via Nice Life Recording Co. The release sees the L.A.-via-Bakersfield artist concocting an imaginary world, complete with characters and a ringmaster, as a coping mechanism for what he was feeling after being diagnosed with epilepsy. “I had my first panic attack when I was 17,” he says of the new single. “I would then go on to have a panic attack every day, sometimes a couple a day for the next year. “I had extreme paranoia about a lot of things. I fell into a very dark, bottomless pit. You can fall forever, but I managed to find some grounding and am working on climbing out.”

WAX OWLS, “Idle Affair”

Wax Owls, the L.A. trio of Gerry Hirschfeld, Chris Tsaganeas and Bobby Kay, are back with another dose of big-hearted folk music. The follow-up to May’s “Sacrifice,” the anecdotal “Idle Affair” fits squarely on your round-the-campfire playlist with folks like the Lumineers, Mt. Joy, Wilderado and Distant Cousins.

HANK MAY, “2019”

Hank May’s debut album “One More Taste of the Good Stuff” (out Oct. 15) is shaping up to be the album most you’ll most likely wanna have a drink and a smoke with this fall. If, of course, you didn’t give up those habits during the pandemic. Speaking of which: “2019” is the follow-up to lead single “NBC,” and May says of this one: “I felt like a stand-up comedian writing this song, standing in my practice space with a drink in one hand and a microphone in the other, just kinda riffing. The final version came out slower and more serious sounding than my first demo, which was a quirky uptempo romp. When 2020 came around and changed the world, this song became an accidental time capsule of the so-called before times.” (May performs July 29 at Bar Lubitsch.)